We are more than animals,
but not as much as we may think
We both must stop to eat and drink:
trough or table, room or stable.
He was placed in a manger.
…
He would become food for us:
bread and wine, life divine,
grace we can taste, pure salvation,
soul and body–redemption!
All from a baby in a manger.
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, December 10, 2012
“Stillness crieth out that something Great is nigh.”
We seek connections every day, among our family, our friends, our colleagues, and sometimes even complete strangers. We seek connection with each other, and with life itself. We are surrounded with the tools of connection more now than ever before. The web, email, cell phones, texting, Twitter, Facebook, and social media in general. We can see almost instantly what those we care about in some way are doing or thinking. What we find lacking in human connection, we try to find in other things. We seek to connect with ideas or feelings. We study, play music, paint, sculpt, build and write so that we can connect to that ineffable thing that eludes us. And not finding those ideas or feelings, we settle for something else, something that carries the trappings of meaning while not having anything intrinsic itself. We settle for fashion.
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My children have had children, yet this week
this widower may take a teenager
to be a wife. Her family did not seek
a younger, handsome man. A carpenter
I am, not an Adonis– I worship
just Adonai, and follow in the way
of Torah, righteousness.
…
Did Mary slip
from following the way, from purity?
She is with child, yet I have had a dream
like Joseph did of old: an angel said
I should not fear to wed though it may seem
absurd. The child in her has been conceived
by holy spirit, not by sex. His name
should be Emmanuel, yes, God with us,
for he will save his people from their sins.
,,,
I will take Mary for my wife; Jesus
will be his name. God can speak in a dream.
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Dec. 4, 2012
The Parable of the Good Samaritan at Shepherd of the Hill Presbyterian Church in Chaska ending with “Simple Song” from Leonard Bernstein’s Mass.
Even the embers warm
If we move our chairs and logs
Close enough. The flames
Began roaring, jumping
High above our heads
As balsam branches, pines
Burned first furiously.
…
Reflections off glasses,
Earrings, flash like the stars
Above in the moonless night.*
Two kites, tethered, can be heard,
Not seen, above the prairie.
…
Marshmallows ignite if held too long
Near the glowing coals
S’Mores give a sugar rush
After the tangy stuffed mushrooms.
No one can remember a ghost story
Or campfire song. The troubles
Of Job are all forgotten
As the sparks fly upward.
* In the photo there is a moon. This was photo-shopped out in the poem–poetic license.God seems to have chosen to have the Bible written this way, also; some things were omitted (or added) for the sake of the form or sound of the poem or story.
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Dec. 1, 2012
The photograph is of University of Illinois students who were engaged in service projects at the oldest student organization, the University Y (1873), where Steve served as Executive Director.
Grover Norquist is quoted in Mallory Simon’s “GOP Resistance to Anti-Tax Pledge Grows” as saying:
“You’ve had some people discussing impure thoughts on national television.”
“Impure”?… Is The Taxpayer Protection Pledge a religion? With its own “elect”? And its own high priest and Lord High Executioner: Grover Norquist? Thank God for the former cult members who have had “impure” thoughts and are going on national television to either repent or to “weasel out” of their pledges.
No elected representative should take any other pledge than to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America and to faithfully exercise the duties of their office. The Norquist pledge, while it has rallied support for candidates’ election to office, limits their ability to exercise of the duties of office, as many former signers are discovering while standing at the edge of “the fiscal cliff”.
The Taxpayer Protection Pledge (“Anti-Tax Pledge”) was always bad religion. It asked candidates, and the whole country, to follow the example of another religious high priest, Jim Jones, who led this flock into the jungle where they frank the purple Kool-Aid of mass suicide.
We’re not in the jungle of Guyana with Jim Jones. We’re in the United States of America. Time to dump the purple Kool-Aid religion. Time for some fresh orange juice, a bowl of nutritious oatmeal with raisins, and lots of conversation over coffee in the Congress and the White House.
Movies, films, the cinema:
Art of, for, and from our time…
Images that change-in-time,
(Move, meld, shock, surprise), that may
Well arouse, inflame, inform
Only the senses– ignore
Mind and reason, logic. For
Our eyes, ears, alive with time
Live entirely between past,
Future…imagination.
Reason and then reflection
Come only after the rest
Fades. We are what we recall.
We know more than we can tell.
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, November 26, 2012
Dennis Aubrey “I am lost to the world” on Via Lucis Photography caught struck a deep chord while preparing for the following Sunday’s sermon. Gustav Mahler, the photography, and the poetry lifted my soul in the midst of the toxic 2012 campaign here in the U.S.
Verse – “Renovations”
The unexpected is to be expected.
Bathrooms are the worst.
(Some say it’s kitchens, but to be
forced to eat out is tolerable–
outhouses are impossible
to find these days.) Even the best
contractors, builders, architects
do not know what will be behind
old walls: the pipes and wires they find
will cost you time and cash and tears.
Just forget new sinks and mirrors!
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, 11/12/15 sent to Views from the Edge’ blogger whose bathrooms are now in the sixth week of renovation because of unanticipated challenges. Wish we had had Steve’s advice before we dove into the project. Maybe wisdom will be born out of the experience? Nah. Too late. We’re never doing this again…ever.
Thanks, Steve.
Views from the Edge 