In Search of a Roundtable (Chuck Lathrop)

In Search of a Roundtable

Concerning the why

and how

and what

and who of ministry,

one image keeps surfacing:

A table that is round.

It will take some sawing to be roundtabled,

some redefining and redesigning

Such redoing and rebirthing of narrowlong Churching

can painful be for people and tables

But so was the cross,

a painful too table of giving and yes

And from such death comes life,

from such dying comes rising,

in search of roundtabling

And what would roundtable Churching mean?

It would mean no diasing & throning,

for but one King is there,

He was a footwasher, at table no less…

For at narrowlong tables,

servant and mirror

became picture framed and centers of attention

And crosses became but gilded ornaments

on bare stone walls

in buildings used but once a week only

But the times and the tables are changing and rearranging

And what of narrowlong table ministers,

when they confront a roundtable people,

after years of working up the table

(as in ‘up the ladder’)

to finally sit at its head,

only to discover

that the table has turned around???

Continued rarified air will only isolate

for there are no people there,

only roles

They must be loved into roundness,

where apart is spelled a part

and the call is to the gathering

For God has called a People,

not ‘them and us’

“Them and us’ are unable to gather around,

for at a roundtable, there are no sides

And ALL are invited to wholeness and to food.

At one time

Our narrowing churches

Were built to resemble the Cross

But it does no good

For building to do so,

If lives do not.

Round tabling means

No preferred seating,

No first and last,

No better, and no corners

For the “least of these”.

Roundtabling means no preferred seating,

no first & last,

no better,

no corners for ‘the least of these’

Roundtabling means being with,

a part of,

together,

and one

It means room for the Spirit and gifts

and disturbing profound peace for all.

And it is we in the present

who are mixing and kneading the dough for the future.

We can no longer prepare for the past.

To be Church,

And if He calls for other than a round table

We are bound to follow.

Leaving the sawdust

And chips, designs and redesigns

Behind, in search of and in presence of

The Kingdom

That is His and not ours.

- by Chuck Lathrop

GOOD FRIDAY REPROACHES (Janet Morley)

GOOD FRIDAY REPROACHES

(by Janet Morley, Bread of Tomorrow)

Holy God, holy and strange,

holy and intimate,

have mercy on us.

O my people, what have I done to you?

How have I offended you?

Answer me.

I brooded over the abyss,

with my words I called forth creation:

but you have brooded on destruction,

and manufactured the means of chaos.

O my people, what have I done to you?

How have I offended you?

Answer me.

I breathed life into your bodies,

and carried you tenderly in my arms:

but you have armed yourselves for war,

breathing out threats of violence.

O my people, what have I done to you?

How have I offended you?

Answer me.

I made the desert blossom before you,

I fed you with an open hand:

but you have grasped the children’s food,

and laid waste fertile lands.

O my people, what have I done to you?

How have I offended you?

Answer me.

I abandoned my power like a garment,

choosing your unprotected flesh:

but you have robed yourselves in privilege,

and chosen to despise the abandoned.

O my people, what have I done to you?

How have I offended you?

Answer me.

Holy God,

Holy and strange,

Holy and intimate,

Have mercy on us.

I would have gathered you to me as a lover,

and shown  you the ways of peace:

but you have desired security,

and you would not surrender your self.

O my people, what have I done to you?

How have I offended you?

Answer me.

I have torn the veil of my glory,

transfiguring the earth

but you have disfigured my beauty,

and turned away your face.

O my people, what have I done to you?

How have I offended you?

Answer me.

I have laboured to deliver you,

as a woman delights to give life:

but you have delighted in bloodshed

and laboured to bereave the world.

O my people, what have I done to you?

How have I offended you?

Answer me.

I have followed you with the power of my sp irit,

To seek truth and heal the oppressed:

But you have been following a lie,

And returned to your own comfort.

O my people, what have I done to you?

How have I offended you?

Answer me.

Holy God,

holy and strange,

holy and intimate,

have mercy on us.

(Janet Morley, England, 1988)

(Genesis 1, 2:7; Psalm 22:9-10, 104:28; Isaiah 35:1, 46:3-4, 53:1-4; Matthew 27:51; Luke 13:34, 19:41-44; John 16:20-22)

PUCCINI ARIA
by Kenny Tanemura

It's the way we'd sound if the office work didn't turn
our voices into pens without ink scratching semaphores
on white snowscapes some dead author dreamt.
This one hour is a plum waiting to be picked

off a Japanese screen where Buson looks at
ice on the junipers, one word cutting 
into another, as if it couldn't be helped.
The pleasure in reading is the same as the pleasure

in the forbidden, Helene Cixous said.
And what of listening, as I listen now
to Kiri Te Kanawa sing Sole e amore, watch midnight
streetlights filter through her single voice?

MAKING THE HOUSE READY FOR THE LORD
Mary Oliver

Dear Lord, I have swept and I have washed but
still nothing is as shining as it should be
for you.  Under the sink, for example, is an
uproar of mice - it is the season of their
many children.  What shall I do?  And under the eaves
and through the walls the squirrels
have gnawed their ragged entrances - but it is the season
when they need the shelter, so what shall I do?  And
the racoon limps into the kitchen and opens the cupboard
while the dog snores, the cat hugs the pillow;
what shall I do?  Beautiful is the new snow falling
in the yard and the fox who is staring boldly
up the path, to the door.  And still I believe you will
come, Lord: you will, when I speak to the fox,
the sparrow, the lost dog, the shivering sea-goose, know
that really I am speaking to you whenever I say,
as I do all morning and afternoon: Come in, Come in.

The Swan, Mary Oliver

The Swan

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

- Mary Oliver 

The excerpt below is from
*THE TELEVISIONARY ORACLE*
by Rob Brezsny
available at Amazon: http://bit.ly/Televisionary
or Powells: http://bit.ly/TelevisionaryPowells

Think globally,
but act locally.

Plan for the future,
but act in the present.

Dream of all the masterpieces you'd be thrilled to create,
but work on just one at a time.

Lust for every enticing soul you see,
but only make love to the imperfect beauty you're actually with.

Allow yourself to tune in
to every last feeling that bubbles up from your subconscious,
but understand that only a very few of these feelings
need to be expressed.

Be passionately attuned
to all the injustices and hypocrisies you see around you,
but be selective when choosing which of those you will actually fight,
and fight them with cheerful life-affirming zeal,
not bitter, resentful chagrin.

Jeanette Winterson

What things matter?  What things have a value of their own instead of a borrowed glory?  Is there such a thing as an intrinsic worth?  It's fashionable to say no.  To say a tree is only its wood, that any painting is a work of art, that journalism can be literature, that love is self-interest or that ethics are mores.  It is right to question standards but wrong to assume that there aren't any.  Where there are no standards the market-place obtains.

(Jeanette Winterson, Art and Lies pg 101)