Vocational Discernment...

Perhaps this is God's sick way of affirming my sense of call to ordained ministry rather than pursuing an academic career in theology and literature. Thanks to the Rev. Nate Lee for passing this along:

Finn Watch: Luther and Divinization

On Thursday morning, LTSS will host two lights of the "Finnish School of Luther Interpretation," founded and flourishing in the theology department of the University of Helsinki. Dr. Risto Saarinen will lecture on "Gift as the Heart of Lutheran Theology," and Dr. Olli-Pekka Vainio will talk about "Logic and Love of the Gift." It should be a fascinating session from one of the more exciting and creative theological movements in the church today.

Birthed via a series of regional ecumenical dialogues between the Finnish Lutheran Church and the Russian Orthodox, the Finnish Lutheran scholars have challenged the Kantian-Ritschlian foundations of much of 20th-century Luther reconstruction (see my teacher Michael Root's elaboration here), along with its anti-Catholic bias and its focus on forensic justification. In contrast to the latter view, which holds that in Baptism God's righteousness is merely credited or imputed to an individual, the Finns have exhaustively shown in dissertation after dissertation that, at least in the early Luther, we ought more properly focus on a very real "union with Christ," wherein God communicates God's own qualities and nature to the believer. The founder of the school, Tuomo Mannermaa, captures this Lutheran notion of the classic Christian doctrine of theosis, or, divinization, in the title of his treatise, "Christ Present in Faith." God does not merely look upon a broken sinner as righteous, but rather enters into that sinner, indwelling him or her in an intimate union by which that person, in the words of St. Peter, becomes a "partaker in the divine nature" and is subsequently transformed ontologically into a new creation. As Mannermaa summarizes,

The notion of the presence of Christ as favor and gift is the essence of Luther's concept of justification. At least on the level of terminology, the distinction drawn in later Lutheranism between justification as forgiveness and sanctification as divine indwelling is alien to the Reformer. Forgiveness and indwelling of God are inseperable in the person of Christ, who is present in faith In that sense, in Luther's theology, justification and theosis as participation in God are also inseperable. (in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther. ed. Braaten and Jenson. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998, 38)

When Luther, in On Christian Liberty, speaks of us becoming "Christs to one another," he thus means it quite literally. After the Finns, it becomes difficult to read this work, which Luther himself considered a compendium of his thought, or passages like these, without hearing echoes from the East:

No good work can rely upon the Word of God or live in the soul, for faith alone and the Word of God rule in the soul. Just as the heated iron glows like fire because of the union of fire with it, so the Word imparts its qualities to the soul. It is clear, then, that a Christian has all that he needs in faith...(trans. Lambert, W.A. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003, 15)

The third incomparable benefit of faith is that it unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom. By this mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh. And if they are one flesh ad there is between them a true marriage...it follows that everything they have they hold in common, he good as well as the evil...(ibid 18-19)

Here Luther merely uses language common to spiritual theologians throughout the history of the church, from St. Augustine, St. Bernard and Nicolas Cabasilas to St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross.

The Finns' re-visionary account holds great promise for ecumenical theology by positing a Luther engaged in broader catholic debates about ontology, theosis, and participation. In this sense, he belongs less to Protestant partisan politics and polemics, and can speak constructively as a teacher of the church - albeit, a radical, idiosyncratic, and by no means unproblematic pedagogue.

(For those interested in learning more, Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson's collection of lectures by Mannermaa and his circle, Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, is highly recommended as an introduction.)

Reconciliation on Story Hill

A friend at LTSS recently introduced me to the folk duo Storyhill by passing along their latest album, Shade of the Trees. I haven't listened to another disc since. Montana natives Chris Cunningham and John Hermanson channel the Americana simplicity of Simon and Garfunkel, recording live around a single mic to weave hauntingly wrought tales of heartbreak and human frailty, reaching deep into the Jungian shadows of the nation's collective unconscious. On the harrowing "Caught in a Mess," for example, the duo reflects on the disillusionment with the American Dream following the economic and political turmoil of the past decade through the lens of the ending of a relationship, singing "the power you used to heal/can harm."

But the tune that has stayed with me is "Better Angels:"



The lyrics are a meditation on the dying words of Stonewall Jackson, recorded in 1863 by Dr. Hunter McGuire, who also amputated the general's arm, as follows:

A few moments before he died he cried out in his delirium, "Order A.P. Hill to prepare for action! Pass the infantry to the front rapidly! Tell Major Hawks"—then stopped, leaving the sentence unfinished. Presently a smile of ineffable sweetness spread itself over his pale face, and he said quietly, and with an expression, as if of relief, "Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees."

The man who once advised "always mystify, mislead and surprise the enemy" is himself mystified by the possibility of peace beyond the relentlessness of war, and Storyhill juxtaposes this revelation with the famous words of Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, which closes with mystification of its own by appealing to that place over the river in all of us:

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

It strikes me that Storyhill's bringing together the words of the legends of each side of the American Civil conflict is itself a performative of the kind of reconciliation we ardently hope for and desperately desire, especially in this time approaching what looks to be a bitter midterm election. Here are the full lyrics:

Better Angels, of our Nature
stay awake now, you're in danger
The coming night is dark and deep
Cross over the river and rest, in the shade of the trees

Keep going forward, 100 abreast,
the horses are thirsty, they will protest
Tonight we will water them, in Tennessee
Crossover the river and rest in the shade of the trees

They outnumber, but we're at our best
As willing we stumble, into their bullets blessed
Hold the line, stay close to me
lets cross over the river and rest in the shade of the trees.

Better Angels of our nature
stay awake now, you're in danger

~

Recently I've had the pleasure of drinking a foretaste of the sweetness that can only come through striving of a different kind than the times sung here. Having signed up as a supply preacher and organist for the ELCA South Carolina Synod, I was invited to fill the pulpit at a rural parish about an hour outside of Columbia. Having been warned by a member of the church to keep mum on my identity as a Northerner, the first thing my eyes could not help but notice as we pulled up was the vast church graveyard filled with tombstones resting under the shadows of gently waving Confederate flags. Sad to say, I found my indignance at such prejudice met with stereotypes and judgments of my own. Luckily, my wife, who is always quicker to charity than I, reminded me that the better angels of my nature were in danger, and needed to "stay awake now." I think another charitable One once urged his followers to do the same (Mk 13.24f)

Only later, after being warmly greeted and invited to Sunday supper at a church member's home, did I learn that these were these stars and bars marked the graves of family members who had died fighting for the CSA, that the roots of this little country church reached far deeper than any I had known in my Yankee suburban existence, and that they represented far more to their descendants than simply slavery, states rights, rebellion, or anything else the history books and media would use to lull us into the slumber of hypocrisy. I'm not ready to go for BBQ at Maurice's yet, and I'm certainly not willing to start talking about the "War of Northern Aggression" or agree with the flag at the capitol building downtown. But sharing pot roast, sweet potatoes, and stories, watching joyfully as relations in the faith I never knew I had took my daughter for tractor rides to pick us fresh pears from their roadside orchard, reminded me that, over the river, in the cool shade of the country trees, we can indeed rest in presence of our enemies, reconciled by a power far greater than America, or the forces that have divided her. These folk helped revive a better angel in my own nature, and I'm thankful there are voices like Storyhill whose words point, perhaps unknowingly, to an angelic light, glowing dimly in the shadows.

Charity for Hipsters

My former classmate and co-conspirator Ben McNutt has written a few pieces for Duke Divinity's Faith and Leadership site. Like James K.A. Smith, Ben dislikes McCracken's overly simplistic take on "Christian cool," and favors the increasingly common nuanced distinction between "bohemians" (the real deal) and "posers" (he recently sent me an article from theawl.com that makes this move far more helpfully then Smith, which is worth reading). His belief in the movement's potential should continue to provide insights into the promise of the former group for the church's future.

In the meantime, I commend his recent portrait of a promising "hipster" community, Trinity Grace Church-Brooklyn, as a glimpse of that promise's potential. Refusing the missional church's current addiction to church growth strategies, evangelistic gimmicks, and shallow appropriations of ancient practices, Pastor Caleb Clardy and his community have pursued a "parish-based" approach, claiming " you don’t get to choose who’s in your parish. You worship with your neighbor, in the community where you live." They've taken a bottom up approach to liturgical worship which hypridizes traditional and contemporary currents to create what the Clardy calls a "homiletical mash-up" and McNutt likens to

a bizarre glimpse into the eschaton -- an apocalyptic vision where Mozart and the Wesley brothers meet Johnny Cash and Coldplay, and they all rock out in some boutique-music venue in the East Village of heaven. It’s a departure from the monotony of the three-chord, two-phrase P&W songs, diluted of musicality and theological richness.

For those who worshipped while I was music pastor at Abundant Life United Methodist Church, you know this is right up my alley.

McNutt concludes the article reflecting on the church's grounding of its identity of "giving ourselves to this story." While on the surface parts of the following description may sound disturbing to liturgical purists, in it I think we catch a glimpse of fresh hope for churches like the ELCA whose future is by no means guaranteed:

On Easter Sunday, Clardy preached about the stories that envelop our lives. “Mostly, we live in small stories that are just about us. But are we willing to give our lives to a greater story, where we’re united with what we were created to be and with the people we were meant to be with? Let’s give ourselves to this story, because other stories are kind of lame. They don’t have the power of this story -- the power to take us to death and then beyond.”

New York flaunts its own story. Unlike the church’s story, it is flashy, filled with false hopes of independent success and fueled by a vapid desire for cool. Compared with the story told through the sacraments, it is hard to imagine that story co-opting such power for some fleeting end.

The opposite is more likely. Perhaps in a small borough in modern Ephesus, a few 20-somethings will stumble into a storefront church. They’ll eat some bread and drink some wine and maybe think they’re pretty cultured crossing themselves. And without knowing it, they will have been gathered up into something more beautiful than their Broadway dreams.

Hearing Hispanic Voices

Peter J. Casarella, director of the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul and brilliant Von Balthasar scholar, offered an interesting critique of "multiculturalism" movements in the church and theology:

At a conference at the Catholic University of America in the late 1970s, prominent Latino theologian Orlando Espin, now at the University of San Diego, objected in no uncertain terms to the appellation “multicultural church.” He said, “Latinos don’t need this. Latinos don’t want this. We’d rather think in terms of catholicity.” A more radical commitment to cultural diversity could come to fruition by taking the presence of Christ more seriously -- as one who unifies different cultures.

Recognition is a category that does more work than multiculturalism in my judgment. Recognition asks not just who is at the table, but what agency do these individuals have? I still think that there is a place for group rights or group identity, even though I’ve come out rather strongly against identity policy. But whether you’re in a student life office, a parish or some kind of multicultural office, the bottom line is what kind of agency is given to the underrepresented groups? How can their agency be promoted?

Every time I flip through the various new "multicultural" settings in the Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW) book or hear someone talk of doing a world music service incorporating African American spirituals or Spanish language hymns, I struggle. Why do we not incorporate such settings and hymnody into worship on a regular basis, along with what many would call "more serious, theologically rich" selections? Why do we relegate such voices and expressions to isolated worship events like "Holy Spirit" day, rather than allowing them to teach and enrich us as we submit to them on a regular, ordinary basis?

During last year's controversial ELCA Churchwide assembly, several representatives from Hispanic, African-American, and Asian-American parishes came forward to voice their legitimate concerns about the implications the ELCA's actions held for the integrity of Scripture. They were almost entirely ignored, ironically, by an assembly championing diversity and touting itself as progressive. I wonder what happened to their agency - they certainly were not recognized as equals in the debate or within a church supposedly founded on its commitment to justice and the Gospel. In Cavell's parlance, recognition, or, what he calls "acknowledgement" would mean a confession on our own behalf that we have too long been negligent in backing up our language with our actions. Multiculturalism becomes one more proxy term - ironically and disturbingly, promoted not by the conservative but by so-called liberal and progressive leaders and bishops - masking a latent disregard for the agency and interests of our brothers and sisters in Christ whose views and contexts disqueit, unsettle, and ultimately, expose us.

I am thankful that the voices of homosexual Christians are finally being given the opportunity for agency and being heard that is theirs by baptism. I pray their justice will not come at the expense of others whose justice has yet to be legitimately pursued - on Gospel terms, not ours. These, at least, seem to be the terms their voices will not let us forget.

The Other Stanley: Introducing Cavell

While procrastinating in the LTSS library, I noticed that The Chronicle Review had done a cover piece on philosopher Stanley Cavell. I referenced Cavell's work on Wittgenstein and language learning n an earlier post (er, web article?) - the one with the dinosaurs - and had the wonderful opportunity of studying him along with Wittgenstein and Austin with the fabulous Toril Moi during my last semester at Duke. Despite teaching at Harvard, where he is Walter M. Cabot Professor Emeritus of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value (like I said, Harvard), Cavell is an inspiration to me for the ways he manages to combine the study of philosophy and literature, bridging the unnecessary disciplinary gap to the great benefit of both sides. Few thinkers have challenged me more to look at the world, my self, and others with renewed wonder and fresh questions, while taking seriously the tragic reality of human limitations, and the even more tragic attempt to be more than human in the effort to escape, by our own skeptical efforts, those limits which make us the creatures that we are.

Despite his appreciation for Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, and his challenging yet ultimately friendly reflections on theology, Cavell remains largely unknown and underappreciated in the theological world. The Chronicle Review article, is a splendid and accessible introduction to his major concerns and works. Dukies may find it particularly interesting for the ways the author, the Dean of the Honors College at Baylor, situates Cavell with MacIntyre and Charles Taylor in his criticisms of the fragmentation of the disciplines in modern universities. I offer the following excerpts by way of introducing the Other Stanley:

In Cavell's view, philosophy will never be able to successfully model itself on the sciences, because it never really makes progress. Not just in moments of intellectual crisis, but at all times, philosophy circles back to its own assumptions and puts them in question and, even when it does not revise them, tries to see them in a new and enriched light. Cavell speaks repeatedly, in the course of describing his intellectual journey, of the need to "begin again," to revisit and re-examine assumptions and purported conclusions that have gone untested.

Cavell explores films in which ordinary characters leading ordinary lives make the discovery that the ordinary is the extraordinary. For him that is a theme straight out of Wittgenstein, who once described his own philosophical writing as consisting of a series of "observations which no one has doubted, but which have escaped remark only because they are always before our eyes." The recovery of the ordinary is Cavell's way of responding to the dilemma of modern philosophy, which finds itself vacillating between peremptory certitude and despairing skepticism.

Succinctitude, or, Ezra Klein on Blogging

Sean Larsen recently convinced me of the need to stay informed about the upcoming election and attendant political happenings, and in so doing turned me on to browsing various blogs. Ezra Klein had a fascinating reflection on the distinction between "blog posts" and "web articles," in which he concludes:

"Of these two, blogging is the more derided medium, but it's unquestionably superior for conveying information. You can give a reader much more on a blog than in an article. But for all that, I'm fiercely committed to articles, because they make sure I'm writing in a way that's accessible to people who don't read the blog -- which is, let's face it, the vast, vast majority of the world."

I just learned how to make block quotes, which shows you where I am at in terms of blogging savy. As this blog has shown, I tend to enjoy writing articles as opposed to "blog posts." However, for the sake of more frequent posting, I'm going to take more frequent stabs at posting, with the prayer that the patron saint of succintitude might take pity and offer up intercessory prayers on my behalf. Your prayers are welcome too, by the way.

Mean Chrisianity

I've been doing my procrastination thing and sitting on a post on Brett McCracken's recent book, Hipster Christianity. However, I've been called from my dogmatic slumber (literally, here in class...) by a friend who brought to my attention a review of the book written by James K.A. Smith written for theotherjournal.com, to which I've appended a comment.

In brief, Smith wants McCracken to further differentiate his use of "hispter" to include two further categories: "poser" and "bohemian." The posers are those Christians who are, essentially, jealous of the bohemians, the latter are, in Smith's parlance, "educated evangelicals" who are less concerned with smoking and drinking than they are with collective salvation, social justice, and shopping at Goodwill for the right reasons. According to Smith,

"In contrast to the Christian bohemian commitment to a good life that reflects the shape of kingdom flourishing, McCracken’s concluding chapters read like a naive, slightly whiny appeal to protect Jesus-in-your-heart evangelical pieties—which, of course, can sit perfectly well with the systemic injustice that characterize “normal” American life...So “how can we go on living like we did before once we have become Christians? And how can we possibly live like everyone else in the world when something so radical and transformative has happened in our lives?” (212) Yes, Mr. McCracken, that is indeed the question. And that’s exactly why my Christian bohemian friends refuse to live like all of those American evangelicals who have just appended a domesticated Jesus to the status quo of the so-called American Dream."

Wonderful points from the professor, all with which I can agree and to which I can aspire. Unfortunately for his case, however, Smith continues:

"Whereas it turns out you’re just worried that young Christians might be (gasp!) smoking and drinking a bit too much and have not sufficiently considered injunctions about dress in 1 Peter 3. Well, yes, indeed: those do seem like quite pressing matters for Christian witness in our postsecular world. By all means, let’s get our personal pieties in line. For as McCracken sums it up, “the Christian hipster lifestyle has become far too accommodating and accepting of sin” (200)—and by this, he means a pretty standard litany of evangelical taboos (did I mention sex?). It’s funny: my Christian hipster friends think conservative evangelicals have also become too accommodating and accepting of sin, but they tend to have a different inventory in mind—things like the Christian endorsement of torture and wars of aggression, evangelical energies devoted to policies of fiscal selfishness, and lifestyles of persistent, banal greed."

I am constantly amazed and baffled as to why personal and communal holiness need to be seen as necessarily locked in mortal combat. Last time I checked, Micah 6:8 said to love justice AND walk humbly with your God. I would think that personal and communal holiness would simply be the other side of the coin from living lives of radical discipleship in the pursuit of social transformation and progressiveness. I always thought that was just part of being a witness and disciple of Christ. More on that another time.

What really disappointed me about Smith's response, however, was the mean-spiritedness of it, a spirit which refuses to seek out and hear even the most meager and ill-expressed kernel of truth in those he disdains. Any academic who reads McCracken's book would have an east time ripping it apart. But its not an academic book. For all of its generalizations and failed attempts, Hipster Christianity must have struck a nerve with many so-called hipsters who have devoted much of their characteristic cynicism and ire to hating it. In doing so, they prove that, despite many ill-conceived volleys, some of McCracken's arrows have hit close to the heart of his target.

The problem that many of us have with "hipster" Christianity is not their clothing, or their cultural engagement, or their causes; its their basic mean-ness. Too often, cloaked beneath a smooth veneer of concerned activism, bohemian artistry, and academic savy is the same, tired anti-evangelicalism and intellectual-elitism in which we already live and breathe as Christians today, both within and without the walls of the church. It's sad that a movement of such gifted, talented and craeteive individuals, like James KA Smith, would rather emulate the elitism and cynicism of the culture than the patience, kindness, and acceptance of the Savior who we all claim to serve. I hope the transformation of which the professor speaks will manifest itself soon, for the sake of the church, the culture, and the world. Otherwise, the latter might just keep on winning. As I say in my comment,

"I am as thankful as anyone that contemporary Christians have figured out what Dante, Chaucer, Blake, Dostoevsky, and artful Christians of all ages already knew, and didn't need Paste to tell them - that loving the beautiful and making good art are the truest acts of a poetic disciple of Christ. I don't think Smith's way of articulating his criticisms was good, true, or beautiful. Just as McCracken may potentially fall into his alleged role of poser, Smtih seems to be suffering from a similar struggle - the cool kid who doesn't want anyone crowding in on his scene, and who makes fun of those on the outside, rather than extending hospitality and welcome to the outcast. There is a lot of Christ-talk in Smith's article, but not much of the love of Christ."

Occasional Remarks on Worship

In an effort to jumpstart my blogging efforts, I'm re-printing a paper I recently wrote here at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary for a class on worship. We were asked to reflect, prior to lectures or readings, what our working understanding of worship was, as well as on the role of spontaneity within that understanding. Hopefully there will be some original posts in the days and weeks to come; in the meantime, while not original by any means, I pray this is as helpful in the reading as it was in the writing.

~

Working with Reformed Presbyterians as a campus minister for a year, I came to know the opening words of the Westminister Shorter Catechism, and I think the twin means of “glorifying God” and “enjoying Him forever” suggest beautiful foci for the practice of worship. In creation, God created all the earth for the sake of God’s glory, and God gloried in the love with which God created each of God’s unique and unrepeatable expressions of care and creativity. In response to God’s covenant love, first expressed in God’s binding God’s glory to the creation, God also made worship the grain of the universe. In this sense, worship is creation’s vocation.

Worship is also the telos (end, goal) of creation. The Bible is book-ended by worship, whether in God’s command to Adam to work and tend the garden, to the sublime chorus of “holy, holy, holy” which echoes unto eternity in Revelation, all of creation and in particular humanity have been made to enter into the relationship of worship with God. As vocation, worship is also, quite literally, the work (read: the liturgy) of the whole people of God, lived in concert with creation. This means that living in peace and reconciliation with one another, and living life as stewards of the creation, are vital components of worship. As the prophets never cease to remind us, worship and an ethical life of discipleship are but two sides of the same coin.

We know what true and right worship is when we know who it is we worship. Jesus Christ reveals the God of Israel to all nations, and by His death and resurrection, calls forth the Church. In John 12.28, Jesus cries out to heaven, “Father, glorify your name!” to which a voice from heaven responds, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” John’s Gospel lacks a baptism account, yet this same voice echoes the Synoptic Gospels account of Christ’s rising from the waters to hear the voice declaring him the beloved son. In John, the Father declares He has been glorified in the Incarnation and will again be glorified in Christ’s Passion; thus, Baptism, Incarnation, Passion, and new creation are the stuff of worship. We as Christians know who we worship, who has related Himself to us in creation, and thus, who we are, when our worship is born out of, and participates, in these various forms of the Word unfolding. Incarnation and Passion beget the Sacraments, and with the preached Word, they create the world anew.

Jesus’ outburst in John 12 is spontaneous, preceded by the declaration that “my soul is troubled” (v.27). Likewise, we need not be happy to worship; instead, God’s glory is called forth when we are authentic before God, and this includes the willingness to confess before Him. In our (Lutheran) case, this means, worship begins with confession, and leaves room to be restored to the children we are. It can also mean outbursts of joy and thanksgiving, as we see in Christ in Matthew 11:25 when he declares, “I praise you Father…for such was your gracious will.” Joy and sorrow overflow into relationship with a loving Father, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit.

Spontaneity is the work of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul, in Romans 8:25f, reminds us that the effort is not entirely dependent on us, for when our words and emotions fail, the Spirit placed in our hearts, the same Spirit which created the earth and the heavens, “intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” Spontaneity in worship can mean following the Spirit in emphasizing certain words of the written Word, adapting formal prayers to follow and reflect the preached Word, improvising in music to compliment the sacramental Word, or, releasing our need to improvise or create for the sake of a more “formal” gesture that might fit the rhythms of the Spirit in the moment. Allowing the Spirit to give an account on our behalf before the world is not limited, as in the Gospels, to standing before the rulers, but, as the Church always worships publically before a hostile world, we can also trust in God to make worship glorify God’s name, if God’s people humbly pray and enter into relationship with God with hope.

Worship is also a gift and a pleasure for us who worship. God made us for Godself, and when we allow the Spirit to guide us and the Word to shape us, we enter more deeply into our life in Christ, the salvation that is at once arrived and also merely an anticipation and a foretaste of the feast to come. Whether the music is classical or rock, the style High Church or folk, the spoken words educated or simple, when we know with whom we have been made for love and with whom we are being brought into love, we can take delight and rejoice, witnessing to the world the life of love into which God desires to call all people.

Aplogies for the long hiatus occassioned by my summer work in Clinical Pastoral Education. I've been drawn to and fascinated by the story of Elijah's sojourn by the brook Cherith, in which God responds to his desire for death by sending a raven to feed him bread. I was actually asked to preach on this passage during my first weekend on-call at the hospital for the ecumenical worship service, and its proven a mirror full of rich reflection ever since. This sonnet was written after a difficult on-call shift last Thursday night in which I was present at several deaths, and was also being confronted by struggles and shadows in my own past and present. I had also been reading Donne's "Death Be Not Proud" - hence the old-school English. Enjoy.


Elijah’s Raven
1 Kings 17.1-7

By the brook called Cherith, in the wilderness,
falling, without floating, through the breathless air,
a black feather betokened His reply
borne in your beak. Thy beating wings do bless

my weary days by bringing me their end –
I greet thee, brother, and this blessed answer
to the prayer of pain that is my prophet’s
power and call – for these you make amends.

Thou, dark phoenix, who resurrects each night
unique and unrepeatable for each one,
not carrion come to take and destroy
but act, creation, poem, psalm, freedom, flight,

O Death - what’s this - manna in thy maw I see?
By thy wings’ shadow - thou bringst my life to me?