god talk

. I just read an article about how the liberal church is dying the phrase: "perhaps they should pause, amid their frantic renovations, and consider not just what they would change about historic Christianity, but what they would defend and offer uncompromisingly to the world." I think that is the question I have been trying to articulate and understand about my relationship to Christ.

There is a Thomas Merton writing:
"Lady, the night has got us by the heart.
The whole wide world is tumbling down.
Words turn to ice in my dry throat
Praying for a land without prayer,

Walking to you on water all winter
In a year that wants more war."

For some reason I resonate deeply with that prayer-- the imagery, the thirst, the desire. I do believe that there is something uncompromisingly unique in the message of Jesus if we can look at it fully, look at it with eyes that value others and this earth... I do think there is no salvation under any other name than Love (and that love that is not the cliche, consumed offering of desire to be loved-- but a self-sacrificing, forgiving, relentlessly and radically hospitable love... I know that the symbol of Jesus has formed me, has led me to healing, to reconciliation, to forgiveness, has even led me to my body. But, it is so so tangled in misuse. I need Jesus, as a symbol outside of myself that reminds me that God is with us, that the sacred is incarnated, that we must learn to love greater than our fears. But what does that mean? Because the message is also irrelevant if it doesn't recognize the context and history of the church, of excluded voices, etc. We need both to be critical and wise and merciful (serpents and doves) towards ourselves (as the Church) and towards others-- as equally valid and loved vessels of the divine.

Mercy. Mercy.