A PRAYER ATTRIBUTED TO ST. PATRICK

Patrick's prayer is, frankly, both freaky and intriguing

This prayer is attributed to St. Patrick of Ireland, circa A. D. 377.  To me, it's both freaky and intriguing. Christianity is not wizardry or magic. But Patrick's use of imagination to envision God's presence in all nature and surrounding us--that's powerful stuff.

I read this prayer each year.  Each year, I am impressed with its comprehensiveness. It mentions things I frankly never think of or even believe matter. Even so, that it reminds me of these things is useful.

I also get the sense of how much Patrick and early Christian forebears saw nature itself as being in concert with grace. This reflects the Psalms. "All nature sings." Talk about imagination!  Patrick's sense was that all life is bending toward or expressing Trinity at its very core!

But this thing about "summoning"--I don't get that, I don't think like that, and I do not see that as the manner of prayer or use of spirituality in the New Testament.  Christians are not wizards. Christianity is not magic.  Prayer is not incantations.  Prayer is a conversation in a relationship.  It is a communion.  When it comes to addressing temptations and evil, I think the prayer Jesus taught his disciples is far more simple and direct: "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

Interesting that Patrick's (or whoever actually wrote this prayer) imagination envisioned Christ's perpetual, enveloping presence throughout one's day, but did not go so far as to imagine prayer as something just as intimate, simple, and direct. But, maybe this "prayer" wasn't supposed to be prayer at all. Perhaps it is more in the genre of a pronouncement, a preaching, a teaching, a public prayer. Hmm. Just goes to show we can say some pretty weird and awesome things about God and grace and life when heads are bowed, eyes are closed, and we know people are listening attentively.

Here's the prayer:

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through a belief in the Threeness,

Through confession of the Oneness

Of the Creator of creation.

I arise today

Through the strength of Christ's birth and His baptism,

Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial,

Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension,

Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today

Through the strength of the love of cherubim,

In obedience of angels,

In service of archangels,

In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,

In the prayers of patriarchs,

In preachings of the apostles,

In faiths of confessors,

In innocence of virgins,

In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today

Through the strength of heaven;

Light of the sun,

Splendor of fire,

Speed of lightning,

Swiftness of the wind,

Depth of the sea,

Stability of the earth,

Firmness of the rock.

I arise today

Through God's strength to pilot me;

God's might to uphold me,

God's wisdom to guide me,

God's eye to look before me,

God's ear to hear me,

God's word to speak for me,

God's hand to guard me,

God's way to lie before me,

God's shield to protect me,

God's hosts to save me

From snares of the devil,

From temptations of vices,

From every one who desires me ill,

Afar and anear,

Alone or in a multitude.

I summon today all these powers between me and evil,

Against every cruel merciless power that opposes my body and soul,

Against incantations of false prophets,

Against black laws of pagandom,

Against false laws of heretics,

Against craft of idolatry,

Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,

Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.

Christ shield me today

Against poison, against burning,

Against drowning, against wounding,

So that reward may come to me in abundance.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,

Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ on my right, Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,

Christ in the eye that sees me,

Christ in the ear that hears me.

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through a belief in the Threeness,

Through a confession of the Oneness

Of the Creator of creation.

MILITARY SUICIDES AND ORDINARY CITIZENS

Soon, more US troops will have died via suicide than in battles in Afghanistan and Iraq. Can citizens help stop the epidemic?

I've been reading overlooked and buried news that bears inconvenient truth for most Americans.


Bluntly, sadly, alarmingly: suicide rates for both veterans and active service members of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars are at record highs.


It is epidemic.


Soon, America will have lost more troops to suicide than in battles in Afghanistan and Iraq.  This is the highest and most hidden of cost of these 21st-century wars begun under the George W. Bush administration.


Here are a few snippets from the news, all easily accessed via an Internet search of reputable mainstream news sources:

• Each day, 18 veterans commit suicide.
• An active US military service member commits suicide every 36 hours.
• Over 3,400 service members have committed suicide since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began (2010 number)
• 6,365 American service members have died of casualties of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
• The suicide rate of US military personnel has increased every year since 2002.
• 2011 recorded the highest number of suicides for service members yet.
• Military suicide rates are now referred to as "epidemic."
• Veterans now represent 20% of the 30,000 suicides committed each year in America.
• Since it started in 2007, the VA suicide hotline has received over 400,000 calls from veterans who were in the act of suicide.

Let those facts sink in.


This is the ugly underbelly of war in general and of the military policies practiced in the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars in particular.


Congress has acted, finally, to insist that US military branches and the Veterans Administration step up suicide prevention and intervention efforts.  And there are some promising initial results to report on the impact of these efforts.


But the financial and personnel resources directed at suicide prevention and intervention is a pittance compared to what is needed.  In fact, US military and veterans groups will continue to be overwhelmed with the numbers and challenge of service member and veteran suicides.


Of all the calculations of the cost of these wars, apparently very little attention was given to war-related suicides or the investment in preventing them and intervening in them.  Even with an epidemic staring us in the face, our national leaders simply do not yet take it seriously enough to invest in ways that could prevent the loss of thousands of veterans'  lives.


What can ordinary citizens do?


I am convinced that local citizens, congregations and communities need to be part of the mix of a helpful response for the hope of healing.  Over the next few weeks, I will make several posts on this issue on Indy Bikehiker to demonstrate both the need and the creative and valuable responses citizens, congregations and community-based groups are making and can mobilize to make.


Even when these wars end, the war will not be over for the troops who have served and the families who love them.  These men and women are and will be living in our communities as our neighbors.  It is here, where we live, that we can help make a difference, redeeming lives ravaged by war's insanities.

TEN DANGEROUS BOOKS

Read these at the risk of changing your mind, breaking your heart and challenging your world

A young Dietrich Bonhoeffer

These are books that not only fascinate me but have somehow changed me.  More than other readings or sources of knowledge, these have re-formed or changed the way I approach life--the way I think, what I value and how I view and regard my neighbors, society, systems and world.  These have either challenged my understanding of how things are and how things should be or they've shaped my behaviors--often both. These books have a continuing impact on me. The trajectories they set in motion have not yet reached fulfillment. I'm somehow living the questions or values or approaches to problems they raise. Together, we're a work in progress. I'm grateful to the writers and publishers of these books and all who influenced them. I can only hope my own journey in grace and with their influence will somehow heighten the trajectory of others.


1 Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire


Most dangerous book in a century. Banned in much of South America for decades. I will never accept the way things are in social arrangements at face value again. I will forever critique life from the perspective of the exploited and believe in their power to change their situation and liberate us all.


2 The Powers That Be, Walter Wink


Exposes the domination system, the myth of redemptive violence and the dismissal of nonviolence as "impractical." "Violent revolution fails because it is not revolutionary enough. It changes the rulers but not the rules, the ends but not the means." "Nonviolence is the way God has chosen to overthrow evil in the world." "Nonviolence never fails, because every nonviolent act is a revelation of God's new order breaking into the world." Alternative: Violence Unveiled, Gil Bailie


3 Letter From Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr.


For those who think the church is not fallen and not in need of redemption through the collective repentance and Biblical justice-making of its members. It's not just that racism is called out, but that the prophetic witness of the church is at stake in social injustices wherever they exist.  Alternative: The Journal of John Woolman, John Woolman


4 The Politics of Jesus, John Howard Yoder


The Bible I was too familiar with became a radical critique of the status quo and an invitation to the upside down Kingdom that Jesus articulated and demonstrated.  It awaits our embrace. Alternative: The Upside Down Kingdom, Donald Kraybill.


5 Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer


We've cheapened grace. Grace is costly. Grace is free.  And it is ever so accessible to all. The backdrop to this reflection elevates its simplicity and eloquence: a young German theologian confronting his homeland's compromising church and totalitarian dictator Adolf Hitler. For perspective read: Costly Grace by Eberhard Bethge.


6 Let Your Life Speak, Parker J. Palmer


Rediscover what you were intended to be and do. Move from superficial career to heartfelt vocation. Quaker sociologist and teacher Parker opens his own indirect, disrupted journey in what amounts to a gracious gift for fellow travelers.  Also read by Palmer: The Active Life, A Hidden Wholeness, and Healing the Heart of Democracy.


7 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard


A simply fascinating, exasperating look at nature--at life, at mystery--through the eyes and heart of a passionate, inquisitive, creative observer. Also read by Dillard: For the Time Being and Teaching a Stone to Talk.


8 Prophetic Imagination, Walter Brueggemann


You'll never look past the Old Testament prophets again.  You might even begin to cultivate a critical, prophetic imagination and see ancient and future wrapped up together in the crucible of today's opportunities and challenges.


9 The Careless Society, John McKnight


Grasp critically what institutionalization and compartmentalization is doing to individuals, families, neighborhoods, communities and American society.  How can we reweave the fabric of our broken, divided, careless society? From the Northwestern University researcher who pioneered asset-based community development (ABCD) strategies.


10 Leadership and Self-Deception, The Arbinger Institute


I hate this book. I love this book.  I hate this book.  I love this book.  It kicks me afresh every time I read it or consider what it says about how I view people, relationships, situations, groups and international problems.  This book will work on me for rest of my life.  Also read: The Anatomy of Peace by The Arbinger Institute.


And I haven't even gotten to William Stringfellow, Wendell Berry, Thomas Merton, Richard Roher, Rob Bell, Dorothy Soelle, John Ruskin, Julian of Norwich, Richard Foster, Rosemary Reuther, Harper Lee, Frank Viola, Miroslav Volf, John Wesley, Howard Snyder, and Henri Nouwen. So many great books, so little time.

LAUNCHING INTO LENT

I'm a hesitant observer of Lent, nevertheless, I'm on board for the journey

Obediently,

we saunter into

Ash Wednesday's service.

Kneeling,

we are marked--

as much a sign of

obligation as mild

intention.

Lent launches

as we straggle up

the gangplank.

Though winded,

we're on board--

a bit bewildered about

where this journey ends,

somewhat unsure of

the purpose of this

passage.

When inspiration flags

discipline and duty

carry us.

Where vision is obscured,

the immediate horizon a fog,

soundings resonate

direction.

Others seem more

certain of this voyage--

sails are trimmed and

crew busy themselves.

But we aren't sure

whether we should

settle in to rest

or keep watch

at the bow.

We're asked to

give up something--

to lighten the load?

Have we not already

given up home and land

for this untethered vessel

churning through

inhospitable seas

to an unheard of

location?

After a few days at sea

we notice atop the mast

flies a flag--are those

cross bones?

What were we thinking

when we bought the ticket

marked "Destination Port:

Calvary"?

MY POLITICS IN A NUTSHELL

Nicholas Wolterstorff's biblical perspective shapes the underpinnings of my activism and politics more than any other.

"It is against God's will that there be a kingdom in which some are poor; in God's perfected Kingdom there will be none at all. It is even more against God's will that there be a society in which some are poor while others are rich.  When this happens, God is on the side of the poor..."


"We must work patiently and persistently to show people the causes of mass poverty, and we must do what we can to convince them that the fundamental criteria by which all political and economic institutions and practices must be tested is just this: 'What do they do to the poor?' If they perpetuate poverty, they fail the most important test of legitimacy, and in that case we must struggle to alter them. We must work for the day when practices which perpetuate poverty have lost their legitimacy in the eyes of people."


Nicholas Wolterstorff in Until Justice and Peace Embrace

WORK

What's the meaning of work? What might it express of ourselves and our faith? This includes some of my favorite quotes on work. First of a two-part post.

Pierre Teilard de Chardin was a Jesuit whose ground-
breaking work in anthropology and archeology
earned him a life-long banishment by the Catholic
hierarchy. Only after his death were his insights
and reflections published and embraced. I share
a quote from "The Divine Milieu" in this post.

WHY WORK?  For some reason, work and workplaces have been on my mind.  Why do we work?  Do we work to work, work to gain an income, work to provide for our families, work to express ourselves, work to learn, work to grow, work to serve, work to welcome God’s future, work as co-laboring with God?  Why do you work?  Why do I work?  Perhaps it is one or mix of these motivations.

WORK AS INSTRUMENTAL.  Listen to Parker Palmer mull over the question:  “Our capacity to take risks and learn from them depends heavily on whether we understand action as instrumental or expressive. The instrumental image portrays action as a means to predetermined ends, as an instrument or tool of our intentions.  The only possible measure of such action is whether it achieves the ends at which it is aimed.   Instrumental action always wants to win, but win or lose, it inhibits our learning.  When the standards of instrumentalism dominate, our action is impoverished and our lives are diminished.” 

WORK AS EXPRESSIVE.  “Only when we act expressively do we move toward full aliveness and authentic power.  An expressive act is one that I take not to achieve a goal outside myself but to express a conviction, a leading, a truth that is within me. An expressive act is one taken because if I did not take it I would be denying my own insight, nature, gift.  By taking an expressive act, an act not obsessed with outcomes, I come closer to making the contribution that is mine to make in the scheme of things.” (from The Active Life, p. 24)

GOOD, WORLDLY WORK.  I remember the fear I had when, based on my freshly developed personal mission statement, I dared in 1994 to come from behind the pulpit and beyond the walls of the church to step into the so-called “common world of work.”  I did so not in denial of my calling or ordination, but in a sense of leaning into it more fully.  At that point, for me to remain as a parish pastor would have been hiding or shrinking back from things I needed to learn, explore, and, perhaps, contribute.  My training for ministry prepared me to see ministerial and church activity as sacred work, but I have since discovered that “common, ordinary work” is also--and perhaps especially--the arena of sacredness.  But I have discovered that many ministers and “lay people” do not realize or seem to express this.

GERARD MANLY HOPKINS ON WORK.   I like this reflection by Gerard Manly Hopkins: “It is not only prayer that gives God glory but work.  Smiting on an anvil, sawing a beam, painting a wall, driving horses, sweeping, scouring, everything gives God some glory if being in his grace you do it as your duty.  To go to communion worthily gives God great glory, but a man with a dungfork in his hand, a woman with a slop-pail, give him glory too.  He is so great that all things give him glory if you mean they should.  So then, my brethren, live."

PRAYER FOR THE UNEMPLOYED.  “Heavenly Father, we remember before you those who suffer want and anxiety from lack of work.  Guide the people of this community so to use our public and private wealth that all may find suitable and fulfilling employment, and receive just payment for their labor; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.”  from The Book of Common Prayer

PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN ON WORK.  "The closeness of our union with Him is in fact determined by the exact fulfillment of the least of our tasks.  God, in all that is most living and incarnate in Him, is not far away from us, altogether apart from the world we see, touch, hear, smell, and taste about us. Rather, He awaits us every instant in our action, in the work of the moment. There is a sense in which He is at the tip of my pen, my spade, my brush, my needle-of my heart and of my thought.  By pressing the stroke, the line, or the stitch, on which I am engaged, to its ultimate natural finish, I shall lay hold of that last end toward which my innermost will tends." from The Divine Milieu

WORKING SONG. Hear 18th-century London laborers sing this Charles Wesley song as they walk to work:

Son of the carpenter, receive

     This humble work of mine;

Worth to my meanest labor give

     By joining it to Thine.

End of my ev’ry action Thou,

     In all things Thee I see.

Accept my hallowed labor now;

     I do it unto Thee.

Thy bright example I pursue,

     To Thee in all things rise;

And all I think or speak or do

     Is one great sacrifice.

Servant of all, to toil for man

     Thou didst not, Lord, refuse;

Thy majesty did not disdain

     To be employed for us.

The Fierce Urgency of Now

Deep into the Vietnam quagmire, Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned a fresh way forward. It still beckons us today. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. always connected the civil rights of blacks with the civil rights of poor and oppressed people wherever they lived. It should have come as no surprise to anyone that he did not hesitate to speak into the Vietnam quagmire the deeper and more costly in lives, resources, and moral capital it became.  

Speaking at Riverside Church in New York City in 1967, King outlined principles and way forward for America in relationship to its approach to Vietnam.  Below is the conclusion of that speech, titled "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence."  To me, it contains some of the most poignant and prophetic challenges that transcend the occasion, time, issue and culture. To me, they speak profoundly to our global challenges and choices today. At the end of the excerpt are links to the full text and 52-minute recording of King's speech.  By the way, I listened to this for the first time on my way to Vietnam in 2011.

"We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood—it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, 'Too late.' There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: 'The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.'

"We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might with-out morality, and strength without sight.

"Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message—of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of history.

"And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

Read the full speech at this link.

Download and/or listen to the recording of "Beyond Vietnam " at this link.

THE GIFT OF WINTER

 Parker J. Palmer says winters will drive you crazy until you learn to get out into them. 

WINTER GIFTS.  “Winter in the Upper Midwest is a demanding season—and not everyone appreciates the discipline.  It is a season when death’s victory can seem supreme: few creatures stir, plants do not visibly grow, and nature feels like our enemy.  And yet the rigors of winter, like the diminishments of autumn, are accompanied by amazing gifts.”

DEEP REST.  “One gift is beauty.  I am not sure that any sight or sound on earth is as exquisite as the hushed descent of a sky full of snow.  Another gift is the reminder that times of dormancy and deep rest are essential to all living things.”

UTTER CLARITY.  “But for me, winter has an even greater gift to give.  It is the gift of utter clarity.  In winter, one can walk into the woods that had been opaque with summer growth only a few months earlier and see the trees clearly, singly and together, and see the ground they are rooted in.  Winter clears the landscape, however brutally, giving us a chance to see ourselves and each other more clearly, to see the very ground of our being.”

GET OUT MORE.  “Our outward winters take many forms—failure, betrayal, depression, death.  But every one of them…yields to the same advice: ‘The winters will drive you crazy until you learn to get out into them.’  Until we enter boldly into the fears we most want to avoid, those fears will dominate our lives.”

TRUSTWORTHY.  “But when we walk directly into them—protected from frostbite by the warm garb of friendship and inner discipline or spiritual guidance—we can learn what they have to teach us.  Then we discover once again that the cycle of the seasons is trustworthy and life-giving, even in the most dismaying season of all.”

From Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer, Jossey-Bass, 2000.

The Man with the Hoe

Edwin Markham's poem begs the question: how dare we live at the expense of the poor?


In 1899, American schoolteacher and poet Edwin Markham, inspired by this 1863 painting by French artist Jean-Francois Millet, wrote the following poem, "The Man with the Hoe":


Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back, the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?


Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
Down all the caverns of Hell to their last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this--
More tongued with cries against the world's blind greed--
More filled with signs and portents for the soul--
More packed with danger to the universe.


What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of the Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Powers that made the world,
A protest that is also prophecy.


O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?


O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
How will the future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings--
With those who shaped him to the thing he is--
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world,
After the silence of the centuries?