Isaiah 43:16-21
Lent 5 - Year C
Here we are on the cusp of the remembered-of-old and the soon-to-be-upon-us.
This is the most difficult spot from which to evaluate whether we need a mirage of comfort and ease or a bucket of bracing water.
Were we not caught between paradigms we would affirm our heritage as our future or accept the present as prelude to its eternity.
As it is, we can neither accept all that has been handed on nor affirm that tomorrow will be more or less than today. There is all too much reality of tradition lingering past its welcome and too much fantasy of a never-to-arrive immature hope.
Remember a parted sea somewhere in our DNA. Anticipate dragons in uncharted waters. This is somewhat like rubbing your stomach and patting your head (or moving your right foot in a clock-wise direction, then drawing a 6 with your right hand in the air, and finding your foot unconsciously reversed direction). It is the essential tremor of humanity.
Tell you what, let’s keep breathing anyway. Here we will find conspiring to be inspiring.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/03/isaiah-4316-21.html
Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
There are things of old that are still helpful to us, that help us know there is still a new thing budding among us. Some of the spiritual disciplines of the past remain lively.
There are things of old that are not helpful. Some of the spiritual disciplines of the past have passed their prime. They trap us into the error that the former, golden days are behind us and the best we can do is repeat and repeat. This is quite the vicious circle.
The challenge is to perceive that of the old that continues to set us free for the new thing G*D has joined us in bringing forth and to distinguish that from the now old idol, once blessed by G*D but now has been left behind.
Blessings abound where the new breaks in. A signal that this is going on is a participation in praise of life. A signal that this is not going on is the rigidity of armor in a situation of flux where swimming is needed and so much floundering is evident.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/march2004.html
There has been a running debate about how best to praise G*D.
Some frame praise entirely within religious language - one has to speak religion in order for G*D to hear, otherwise you are wasting your breath.
Some frame praise entirely outside religion's bounds - one must do some will of G*D for a neighbor for it to be accepted, otherwise you are wasting your energy.
Some try to portion those positions out with some acceptable ratio of the two.
This may be another arena where an untenable synthesis of fully praising G*D and fully caring for Neighbor will come to the forefront. In the meantime it might be helpful to consider some new things.
If you tend to lump praise under language skills, a new thing for you (desired from you by G*D, even?) would be engaging your translation skills from language to deed.
If you are one who tends to see praise as doing what was asked rather than talking about it, a new thing G*D may be looking for from you is a reorientation to what lies behind your deeds.
Any approach to praise is open to a downside of habit and a slow, slippery slide toward irrelevance. What keeps praise alive is an attitude of finding new occasions and styles for its expression.
- - -
carrying father's Alzheimer genes
I look forward
to not remembering former things
of recent days
and living in a land of former things
ancient of days
phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny
sometimes
and vice versa others
either way
former becomes present
former becomes future
a former of formers
was a new thing once
new things can hold
former things at bay
and open future things
foiling former's fate
this calls for praise
former is former
present is present
future is future
intersecting well
living daily
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html
Memory is a powerful tool. It acts as a brake on our journey. We pause to smell a flower and memories come flooding forth as entrancing as any siren Odysseus was ever tempted by. We would linger awhile and awhile longer.
What was that larger value we were striving for? I think there might have been one, wasn't there? Sweet opiate of the masses; the way we were.
Religious rituals are so comforting. They have shaped us. We can do them in our sleep.
"A new thing", you say? Well, OK, go ahead. My memories will prove there is nothing new under the sun. Go ahead with your "new thing." It'll be alright.
"Honor and Praise" are your "new thing"? I knew there was a reason I so enjoy my memories, for this "new thing" is so beside the point of steadfast love, of premeditated mercy, of abundant assurance. I remember when co-creator was the "new thing". What do you remember?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/03/isaiah-4316-21.html