Thurs Dec. 8 - As Seen on TV (Gil Scott-Heron)

      

In the dissonant ring of messy Advent reality against Coming Hope against media-packaged "Christmas preparation," active resistance helps. Joining the revolution of poets, justice workers, advocates and truth-tellers delivers us from the falseness of unending cheeriness or easily-abandoned charity to the deep and abiding movement toward transformed reality.

We resist what has been stolen from us in this season: the story of a homeless baby born in Bethlehem who would grow into a freedom fighter who exposed the workings of oppression and fought against the exploitation of people.* This part of the story of Christ’s coming somehow gets lost among our bright lights and peppermint mochas, our careful balance of charity donations and ‘December to Remember’ gifting. But the holy agenda begun in the manger was both the spiritual transformation of hearts and a dramatic overhaul of political, economic and social systems of injustice. This is not pennies dropped in a bell-ringers’ buckets, this is the revolution of Christmas, and the revolution is LIVE.

*Dr. Obery M. Hendricks, Jr.  The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus’ Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted

**Some strong language present. Also: jazz flute.  You are welcome.

With laws that betray human life We will not comply

With the pointing finger and malicious talk We will not comply

With the idea that happiness must be purchased We will not comply

With the ravaging of the earth We will not comply

With the principalities and powers that oppress We will not comply

With the destruction of peoples We will not comply

With the raping of women We will not comply

With governments that kill We will not comply

With the theology of empire We will not comply

With the business of militarism We will not comply

With the hoarding of riches We will not comply

With the dissemination of fear We will not comply

With the destruction of community We will not comply

- Catalyst Litany -Shane Claiborne, James Loney and Brian Walsh

                                               -Lindsey

Wed Nov. 30 - What's Gonna' Sing Now? (Delta Spirit)

'The years are not coming the way I thought they would

I'm hoping and waiting for something to sing

Like the angels in heaven, the bones on the street,

Hoping for love to find a new voice,

The song that needs singing has already been sung before

                 - Delta Spirit, "People Turn Around"

I love it when the lyrics of a song surprise me.  Sometimes I listen just enough to think I know what a song is about, but just like realizing as a teenager that Salt n' Pepa's "shoop" was not a dance move, there are songs that aren't as obvious as they seem.

People Turn Around by Delta Spirit

I have been sure for years that this Delta Spirit song was a call to repentance.  'People turn around' sure sounds like Biblical-style repentance to me, but that's only part of the story.  Certainly there's brokenness, desperation, drug-use and violence in this song, but there's also suffering and loss, terrible surprise and loneliness.

'The bones on the street' is the line that catches me off-guard.  The speaker is 'hoping and waiting for something to sing' and looks to angels and bones for the cue. It makes me wonder: There is terrible violence that occurs in our streets every day; if the bones of the victims were left in their place, would they begin to "speak?"  To sing?  What if hymns of truth-telling or praise began to pour from the bones in mass graves now hidden beneath layers of time and our determination to forget?  

The call to "turn around" in this song isn't just a call to repentance, it's also a call to listen.

It makes me think, too, of our own bones, their aches and longings: we are all 'hoping for love to find a new voice.'  In this time of Advent, we remember and await the Love that definitively came in Jesus, but it can be hard to hear that love in our daily lives.

"Then [God] said to me: "Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel.  They say, 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.' ... This is what the Sovereign LORD says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel... I will put my Spirit in you and you will live..."              - Ezekiel 37:11-13

We rightly search for ways in which Love continues to find a new voice among us.  Maybe it will be the bones of the dead, the silenced and the forgotten, who first teach the words.  Maybe it will be the broken stones in the street, the moss in the shadows and the abused, abandoned lands that carry the harmony.  And maybe we will be surprised by the humming of our own bones in response.

Hey, People, turn around: did you hear that?  What's gonna' sing now?

May our ears be sharp and our feet be drawn toward the voices that are singing us back from the precipice of loss and violence -- the voices that are singing us home.

                                     - Anna

Tues Nov 29 - New Redemption Song (Over the Rhine)

   
My ancestors knew how to sing songs that would heal people. The people, I am told, would call on the gods who would teach them the song that was needed to heal an ailment, the land, the community. I frequently mourn this missing piece of my heritage, lost to generations of slavery and forced relocation.  I long for it most when I encounter brokenness for which I have no words - let alone songs - to mend.

   When I hear today’s song selection, I think of my ancestors and am captured by the idea that God could teach us a song for redemption. And on days when I am waiting, when I am telling the truth about this world, my heart longs for such a song, to sing into the disappointed silence and the broken dissonance around us.

My mouth hungers for new words, my soul sighs for the release of a melody,

Lord, give me a song!

A song to tap the toes of the old, to sway the hips of the young.

A song for the darkness and one for the cold.

A song to hold the deep sorrows.

One to sing to the mama whose son never came home

and one to wrap round the teenager who sleeps at the train station.

Teach me the lyrics to ward off evil and those that soften the hardest of hearts. Sing me the harmony that obliterates the disease of greed and the one that roots out those internalized tentacles of inferiority.

Give me a rhythm that keeps the collective memory of the peoples’ strength and an accompaniment to nourish the tender sprouts of our dreams. It is too long since we have sung together, too long since we have sung for healing, too long since we have sung redemption.

"New Redemption Song" by Over the Rhine.  
Forgive the overshare at the beginning of the video, but I love her comment about this being a blessing song.

We long to sing Lord, give us the song.



The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; The Lord will rejoice over you with gladness, will renew you in love; God will exult over you with loud singing.    -Zephaniah 3:17

                                                    -Lindsey