Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
Advent 4 - Year A
Advent 1- Year B
To what do we need restoring? Or is it G*D that needs to be restored (come back)?
This relationship is a complicated one. Who’s related to whom and in what way?
Rather than choosing a particular way to look at this, it will be helpful to hold the question open. It will be important to wait for the multiple ways of relating to reveal themselves.
If it is simply “restore us” or “come back to us”, it is a bit too us-oriented, which limits the effectiveness, usefulness, or application of the psalm. If restoration is more object oriented than relation oriented, we lose its power.
Another way to look at restoration is to rephrase it:
Restore us = Reveal our relationship
Let’s proceed to encourage each other along without an upper limit of only being restored to a current set point. Journeys apart can enrich us and pull us onward.
- - - - - - -
After writing the above I read a column by Jim Taylor that could be fruitfully paired with this Psalm. My condensing of his column1 follows:
I’ve often wondered why death diminishes us.
The most satisfying answer I’ve found comes from philosopher Ken Wilber. He argues that we humans are not individuals but holons.
“Holons”—I dislike the name; I love the concept. Wilber says that everything is part of something else. Each thing has its own identity, but it is always part of something bigger too.
We delude ourselves when we persist in believing that we stand alone as individuals. That would make us only half of a holon.
When someone close dies, they do not just vanish. They are still part of our holon, our whole.
“No man is an island,” mused poet John Donne. A death never happens just to an individual. It ripples through the web of connections that made that person whole, and that makes each of us whole.
It’s not just the loss of someone else that hurts. It’s the loss of part of me.
The most satisfying answer I’ve found comes from philosopher Ken Wilber. He argues that we humans are not individuals but holons.
“Holons”—I dislike the name; I love the concept. Wilber says that everything is part of something else. Each thing has its own identity, but it is always part of something bigger too.
We delude ourselves when we persist in believing that we stand alone as individuals. That would make us only half of a holon.
When someone close dies, they do not just vanish. They are still part of our holon, our whole.
“No man is an island,” mused poet John Donne. A death never happens just to an individual. It ripples through the web of connections that made that person whole, and that makes each of us whole.
It’s not just the loss of someone else that hurts. It’s the loss of part of me.
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
The Spiritual Formation Bible reflects:
"Noted psychologist Erik Erikson believes that one of our earliest experiences of the sacred occurs when we are infants. We experience what God is like through the loving face of our mother (or our primary caregiver). It is a face of love and tenderness, and we experience being loved without condition. Julian of Norwich speaks of Jesus' motherly love for us: 'Thus he is our Mother in kind by the working of grace. . . And he wills that we know it. For he desires to have all of our love attached to him.'
"Imagine God's face turned toward you with such shining tenderness. God's eyes are full of love for you; God smiles at you and sings to you gently."
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/december2002.html
Though the reference to Joseph makes it easy to connect the Psalm with the gospel lesson by having the Shepherd of Israel (angel) lead Joseph the tribe (Joseph the individual), there are troubling verses ahead.
Here folks are recognizing that they have had a difficult time (tears to eat and drink) (scorn and laughter of enemies). Mary's Joseph is about to enter into difficult times (scorn and laughter of neighbors for being a cuckold) (refugee tears in Egypt and Nazareth).
How do we go ahead when, instead of seeing ourselves coming out of difficult terrain onto level territory, we see ourselves going deeper and deeper into a wilderness living with nothing settled?
Do we need more "life" given us (are we talking ease and prosperity here?) before we commit to going ahead? Do we simply go ahead in the face of difficulties? Do we go expecting a reward for going ahead? Probably it is all of these three and more. This is part of the gift of community, holding one another steady as we run between the options like a chicken with its head cut off: tasting one, holding another, fleeing a third, and exploring beyond a forth.
Perhaps salvation (last word of the passage) is more about the presence of G*D than our restoration to ease. Try reading that last verse backward and see what you come up with.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/december2004.html
Come to save us
Restore us
How long will you be angry
You make us the scorn of our neighbors
Give us life
Let your face shine, that we may be saved.
- - -
It does indeed sound like there is Trouble in River City and that starts with "T" and it rhymes with "D" and that stands for Disaster. Any way you cut it we are in the midst of social disaster.
Went to a presentation last night by John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney, authors of the new book, Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy.
James Madison is quoted as saying, "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." Is disaster not where we are when no questions can be raised about war, when it is against undefined terror? Come to save us . . . indeed!
Elections are participated in by fewer and fewer people and the results are less and less believable with poorer and poorer paper trails. Is disaster not where we are when the truth can't be told about what candidates are saying out of both sides of their mouths and there is a disconnect between their stated intentions and projectable consequences? Restore us . . . indeed!
The gap between the rich and the poor increases daily. Is disaster not where we are when the key value is making the rich richer so three more crumbs can trickle off their table to unemployed and unemployable Lazarus below? How long will you be angry . . . indeed!
The numbers increase by the hour of those without health insurance or prenatal care. Is disaster not where we are when we deny the human right to a minimum standard of preventive and early care to everyone (not just Western chemical intervention, but Eastern energy adjustment). You make us the scorn of our neighbors . . . indeed!
The hungry die by the thousands every day. Is disaster not where we are when the standard of obesity keeps so many so focused on their next unnecessary mouthful that the only distribution of food that means anything is that which brings me tasteless strawberries in winter (with heaps of whipped cream, of course). Give us life . . . indeed!
The stupidity of intentional confusion about the human variability of sexuality isolates and destroys our selves, our families, our neighbors, and, eventually, God. Is disaster not where we are when the externals of race and culture and women are presumed cared for, but are only buried the barest millimeter below awareness and old cants againt them are reorganized by the power-brokers into one variation or constitutional amendment or another of "hate the fags." Let your face shine, that we may be saved . . . indeed!
Let us be clear about disaster that we might be clear about salvation. This clarity comes with our finally talking with one another and a key starting point is an active Free Press. Be sure to sign up with them.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/november2005.html
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
Isaiah 64:1-9
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37
Do you remember and yearn for the Age Of Awesome Deeds? Men were men, black was black and white was white and ne'er the twain shall meet - doing right was rewarded and transgression quickly punished. Those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never end.
But it has been long years since a favored few could so easily justify their separation from the unlucky, the poor, the unfavored, the sick, the sinner, the other.
With this hiatus we can wait with envy to be restored to what ought to be our rightful place, a place where nothing changes. We might also find the humility to move away from these kinds of false and make-believe separations to appeal, "Now consider, we are all your people."
It is this larger view of the particularity of circumstance not being unique that needs new light to be shined on it.
When such a shining saving arrives we note that there has been a shift from a single cause to a renewed appreciation of community of an earthly creation or paradise with which the heavenly "we" is well pleased and claims is good.
So thanks can be given, not just for creator(s) but creation(s). Our wait for revelation shows creation called into fellowship with creator, not constantly manipulated by same.
Having now come through Isaiah, Psalmist, and Paul we turn to Mark to solidify our keeping awake to new connections. Fig leaves are connected to summer, not as cause and effect but as a community of revelation. In one we can now see the other.
In like manner, in a generation we can mark a moment that more clearly reveals a shift that has moved us from whatever stage of immaturity we are in to a next step of maturity. We keep awake for such connections are life as we move from bated breath to next breath. To keep awake is to keep breathing.
- - -
Whew, I have every spiritual gift.
Oh, I am strengthened to use each in its time.
Ahh, fellowship shines in remembering, in anticipating, in medias res.
Whew, I am blessed.
Oh, I am blessing.
Ahh, simply Ahh.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
Isaiah 7:10-16
Romans 1:1-7
Matthew 1:18-25
Ready of not, here I come! So ensues another game of hide-and-seek.
Ahaz is an excellent hider. He will be diligent in finding the very best hiding place and is willing to stay there for a very long time. No matter how close a Seeker comes to finding him he will not breathe or move. (Note: This is a different category of Seeker than recent church growth folks market to.)
Trying to bargain with Ahaz is a lost cause. He doesn't respond. Even "Olly-Olly-Oxen-Free" doesn't catch his ear. If it did he would have to acknowledge something larger than his own expertise. Most folks, by the time of their teen stage know how to refuse evil and choose the good, how to not hide but be in community. But not the tribe of Ahaz - real HE-men (Hiders Extraordinaire).
So something larger is needed to restore us to our selves, something larger than ritual, incantation, creed. Something larger is needed for "resurrection" and "grace" and "revelation" (key words in the last three pericopes).
What can't be chosen by Hiders is especially offered by Seekers - "withness". After calling our freedom and not having it responded to, Seekers continue seeking for the destruction or loss of any is not a part of the game for them. They are willing to be made fools of, to be ineffective Seekers, to lose the game if that will bring a return of community.
Though this quality of intentional seeking can have a dysfunctional aspect to it, intentional, strings-free, and creation-beginning Immanuel-offering is yet preferable to leaving folks in the dark of their hidey-hole.
- - -
desperately seeking a reset button
tears as bread, tears as drink
restoration yearned for
reset needed
unknown saints, unknown beloved
resurrection ungracefully limited
reset needed
deeds of power without response
revelation missed again
reset needed
willingly seeking
intentionally seeking
persistently seeking
seeking with good cheer
seeking with hopeful heart
seeking with open hand
seeking with a gift
"with" - reset found
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html
O G*D who leads, we plead, save us, restore us.
There are presumptions galore here about the nature of G*D and an expected state of affairs for ourselves.
Does a "G*D who leads" lead into exile, into dark nights of souls and of simply dark nights? If so what blocks our recognition of such leadership in the midst of our waiting and yearning for elseways?
Does a "G*D who leads" need to be pleaded with to go into reverse gear and restore? If so, is this a God we would care to follow?
Where else might "a G*D who leads" lead? If it is not backward or it is not forward, so we can repeat this dance for the umpteenth time, might it be to an advent empty emptiness of our present that we might accept its emptiness and appreciate its fullness?
Is the restoration needed here a restoration to an intimate and erotic relationship with G*D (read, with one another and creation) where we are, in exile and continuing to walk through a void, and not a return to a previous set point? If so, what we need to work on is not setting ourselves right at the expense of someone else who has done injury to us, but with our self that contains G*D and with G*D inside whose face we may yet be.
In the Kabala the word "before" G*D's face comes from roots indicating "inside". If we follow this, the plea to let G*D's face shine is to find ourselves at one, inside G*D's face. While we are yet separated by whatever it is that we use to cause and continue such, G*D's face shines not.
What we began pleading for we find we have the resources to accomplish. Soon, with Joseph, may we awake from our sleep, shine forth from G*D's face, and live a compassion that receives that which is not ours, as though it were.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.html
Restore us, let your face shine.
This appeal to G*D is a refrain in this Psalm and precursor to "Come, Loving Jesus".
We can think about Jesus as being a face of G*D. By extension we can consider sisters and brothers of Jesus as a face of G*D. Sometimes even the church can be seen as a face of G*D. More times than we might think, all manner of surprising people are recognizable as a face of G*D.
That progression from Jesus to followers to institution to others is a journey, a pilgrimage, a process of entering deeper and deeper into what holds us together. To set any of those off with special brackets around it, makes us more and more superficial, with a center that will not hold.
Restoration is a process worth waiting and working for. Restoration encourages us to continue tip-toeing into Advent, waiting more deeply and working longer. Can you catch a glimpse of yourself participating in a needed restoration and encouraging others – letting your face shine upon those who might also be restorative agents?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html
"To everything turn, turn, turn - there is a season."
"Turn, turn - till by turning we come round right."
By one tune we wait our turn. By another we do the difficult work of simplifying.
Here we appeal to G*D to turn and turn again until our lives are righted. This is a waiting on our part and a working on G*D's part. Behold, another fine example of having our cake and eating it, too.
Imagine how this psalm would be different were the action to be the other way around, G*D waits while we turn round.
Imagine how this psalm would be different if we participated with G*D in the waiting and the turning, appropriately timed.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_12_01_archive.html
Here is a strange request for a sign: Let your face shine.
Could be talking sun-god
Could be talking justice
Could be talking Buddha happy
Could be talking anger
Now, since G*D and you are related, what would it mean to a wobbly old world for your face to "shine" no matter what is going on about you?
Go ahead - - - - shine!
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/12/psalm-801-7-17-19.html
To what do we need restoring? Or is is G*D that needs to be restored (come back)?
This relationship is a complicated one. Who's related to whom and in what way?
Rather than choosing a particular way to look at this, it will be helpful to hold the question open. It will be important to wait for the multiple ways of relating to reveal themselves.
If it is simply "restore us" or "come back to us", it is a bit too us-oriented, which limits the effectiveness, usefulness, or application of the psalm. If restoration is more object oriented than relation oriented, we lose its power.
Another way to look at restoration is to rephrase it:
Restore us = Reveal our relationship
Now we can proceed together and get further without all these little substitutions for direct relationship.
= = =
After sending today's posting, I read one of my favorite bloggers - Jim Taylor. I thought his reflection could be fruitfully paired with the Psalm pericope.
You can find his words at:http://edges.canadahomepage.net/2011/11/23/1152/. While there you may want to browse other Softedge and Sharpedge postings.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/11/psalm-801-7-17-19.html
To what do we need restoring? Or is is G*D that needs to be restored (come back)?
This relationship is a complicated one. Who's related to whom and in what way?
Rather than choosing a particular way to look at this, it will be helpful to hold the question open. It will be important to wait for the multiple ways of relating to reveal themselves.
If it is simply "restore us" or "come back to us", it is a bit too us-oriented, which limits the effectiveness, usefulness, or application of the psalm. If restoration is more object oriented than relation oriented, we lose its power.
Another way to look at restoration is to rephrase it:
Restore us = Reveal our relationship
Now we can proceed together and get further without all these little substitutions for direct relationship.
PS:
After sending today's posting, I read one of my favorite bloggers - Jim Taylor. I thought his reflection could be fruitfully paired with the Psalm pericope.
You can find his words at: http://edges.canadahomepage.net/2011/11/23/1152/. While there you may want to browse other Softedge and Sharpedge postings.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/11/psalm-801-7-17-19.html
Translation is always an intriguing proposition. What is often translated as “Restore us” has a basic root connection with “Come back to us”.
Now, remembering an exilic context, these two options take on different emphases depending on whether one is still in or past an exile.
While in an exile, the basic need is to have an experience that one is not bereft, even if distanced. “Come back” would seen more appropriate here. Any “Restore” talk continues an unrealistic expectation that we won’t fall into the same false thinking we had before exile or some sense of entitlement/privilege that still is looking for an eternal “win”.
After exile we are more likely to go with “Restore” as that is our realized present—we have been restored. To use the “Come back” phrase brings flashbacks to being out of control—which we will avoid at all costs.
Today, for just a moment, read this Psalm again with the “Come back” translation and listen for what the poor of today are praying because political/economic/religious powers have enslaved them. Remember that every exile that hasn't ended in genocide eventually comes to an end with the end of the enslavers. Since economic, politics, and religion, each-and-all, need their minions, the poor we will have with us as long as they serially reign and serially fall.
Is this Psalm from your heart or toward your complicit behavior with economics, politics, and religion?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/12/psalm-80107-17-19.html