Adventunes: When He Returns (Bob Dylan)

Latin adventus is the translation of the Greek word parousia, commonly used in reference to the Second Coming. Christians believe that the season of Advent serves a reminder both of the original waiting that was done by the Hebrews for the birth of their Messiah as well as the waiting of Christians for the second coming of Christ.

When He Returns, by that old ‘Son of the Covenant’, Bobby Zimmerman.  Film extracts from ‘The Gospel According To Saint Matthew’ – Pier Paolo Pasolini

The iron hand it ain’t no match for the iron rod,
The strongest wall will crumble and fall to a mighty God.
For all those who have eyes and all those who have ears
It is only He who can reduce me to tears.
Don’t you cry and don’t you die and don’t you burn
For like a thief in the night, He’ll replace wrong with right
When He returns.

Truth is an arrow and the gate is narrow that it passes through,
He unleashed His power at an unknown hour that no one knew.
How long can I listen to the lies of prejudice?
How long can I stay drunk on fear out in the wilderness?
Can I cast it aside, all this loyalty and this pride?
Will I ever learn that there’ll be no peace, that the war won’t cease
Until He returns?

Surrender your crown on this blood-stained ground, take off your mask,
He sees your deeds, He knows your needs even before you ask.
How long can you falsify and deny what is real?
How long can you hate yourself for the weakness you conceal?
Of every earthly plan that be known to man, He is unconcerned,
He’s got plans of His own to set up His throne
When He returns.

Copyright ©1979 Special Rider Music

Formula

10 things Jesus never did

10 things Jesus never did during his earthly life…

1.  Repress His feelings

2.  Keep Himself from being polluted by ‘The World’

3.  Exclude women (and children)

4.  Start a Mega Church

5.  Teach Church Management Theory

6.  Run a ‘giving campaign’

7.  Regressive Therapy/Prayer Ministry

8.  Condemn homosexual people

9.  ’Perform’ a Eucharist

10.  Speak at people

Agree?  Disagree?  Add any of your own?

From the Beginning…

The One-One Principle: # 2

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 1 John 1:1

Wait

Adventunes: Is it True? (Anita Skorgan)

Caught this on the radio yesterday.  Perfect voice.  Perfect for Advent…

‘Is it True’ by Anita Skorgan from her aptly titled Adventus album.

I thought I caught a glimpse of you
I thought I saw your face
as the Sunday morning due
melted every trace.

Did you walk the earth in vain
conquering the dead
or did life make you forget
the crown upon your head?

Is it true what they say
Are you coming back someday?
Is it true what they
About you?

If it’s true will you be
A guiding light to me
and the few that still believe.

You went missing from our life
you’re nowhere to be seen
not in heaven not on earth
but somewhere in a dream.

Tell me how you see the world
Watching from afar.
Is this all that we can be?
Is this who we are?

Is it true what they say
Are you coming back someday?
Is it true what they
About you?

If its true will you be
A guiding light to me
and the few that still believe.

If its true will you be
A guiding light to me
and the few that still believe
For few that still believe.

Evangelical Guilt: the Antidote

The trouble with Evangelical Christians is that, after being saved by Grace, they spend the rest of their lives living as if they are saved by works.

A Roman Catholic Priest

Do Less

Be More

Burden?

I have been reading the prophet Isaiah.  Boy, wasn’t he an angry mother…father.  Ranting and raving.  Ripping his clothes.  Calling down fire and brimstone (what is brimstone by-the-way?).  In fact, most if not all of ‘the prophets’ were angry.  Really angry.  What angered them the most was the desecration of the sacred.  What Pentecostal Christians call ‘the religious spirit’.  Railed against it, they did.  Just like Jesus.

Jesus is a prophet – the Prophet.  Religiosity peed him off big style, and he didn’t mind people knowing.  You simply can’t be a prophet without getting angry.

I’m angry.  Sometimes I’m boiling.  Enraged.  My issue (according to my counsellor) is that I don’t own my anger.  I have been repressing it for years.  Pushing it down, pushing it in, and pushing it out.  After years of taking our ’stuff’ and pushing it deeper and deeper within ourselves, casting it further and further away into our darkest shadows, eventually we can’t contain it anymore, and it bursts out, catching us competely unawares.  It rises from within and it rises from without, from our shadow side, overwhelming us and bringing us down.

The bigger issue (the issue behind the issues) is that I have been repressing anger (and a whole lot of other ’stuff’) out of a misplaced sense of guilt.  Religious guilt (‘Evangelical guilt’ in my case).

My counsellor tells me I needed to own my anger.  Bring it out of the shadows (Carl Jung).  Into the light.  Invite my anger into a conversation.  A conversation with wisdom.  The inner dialogue.  Hoped-for result: anger tempered by wisdom.

We can’t get rid of anger.  That’s the deal.  It’s part of being human.  It’s what Bruce Cockburn calls the ‘Burden of the Angel-Beast’.

Could be the famine
Could be the feast
Could be the pusher
Could be the priest
Always ourselves we love the least
That’s the burden of the angel-beast

I am bereft now that series 2 of Sons of Anarchy has finished.  Set in present day California, Sons is about the exploits of a small town motorcycle gang (or ‘Club’) called ‘Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle  Club Redwood Originals’, or SAMCRO for short.

As I have written already elsewhere on this blog, Sons is like ‘The Sopranos on Harley’s’.  Why do I like Sons so much?  For the same reason I like The Sopranos.  It’s an exploration of the Angel-Beast.  It’s about the goodness in bad men (and women – check Gemma Teller out).  Another biker, Pastor John Smith, founder of God’s Squad Motorcycle Club, once said of his pastoral relationship with the Australian Hell’s Angels that as human beings we are each one of us made in God’s image, and that image cannot be withdrawn completely until we’re dead.  Meaning that there is always some good in everyone.  God’s reference point, if you like.  I’ll ride with that!

Time after Time

For Margy.  Still think of you.

after my picture fades and darkness has
turned to gray
watching through windows–you’re wondering
if I’m OK
secrets stolen from deep inside
the drum beats out of time

if you’re lost you can look–and you will find me
time after time
if you fall I will catch you–I’ll be waiting
time after time

First things first…

The One-One Principle.  First things first…

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1