Tag: spiritual reflection

She Sings, and the River Rises

What songs are stirring in your spirit these days? What rivers are you listening for in the midnight hush?

Poetic Theology in the Key of Thirst

The world feels parched these days, literally and metaphorically.

Summer days in my city have been sizzling so far, and many places around the world are facing water shortages.

Too many places also feel parched in other ways. Justice, kindness, breath–these are in short supply as wars rage and people seek hope for the future.

In these days, I find myself turning not to answers but to songs. An ancient biblical song, Isaiah 55, speaks of wisdom that quenches thirst. I hear that wisdom, that word, as a river-song. Not a lecture. Not a system. But a shimmering breath that calls us to be braver, more courageous, in our everyday lives.

Poetic theology, for me, flows in this key, in the ache of longing, in the improvisation of grace, in the rhythm of rivers that rise again and again to call us to be bearers of justice-making and transformation in this dry, desert land.

In the Key of Thirst: A River Rises

an improvisatory poem based on Isaiah 55

Listen.

She calls.
Sings.
Full of ache—
And mercy.

She sings—
Come—you with dry tongues
And empty pockets.
A table is set—enough
And more.
No ticket. No toll.
Just the hush of a listening heart.

She calls.
Sings.

Justice

Falling,
Cascading,
Rolling away stones,
Saturating—dry souls.
Soaking into fields cracked open
From heaped-on
Loads of dusty promises
That weigh almost nothing
But choke out life—

She sings.
And the river rises up—

Singing.

Opens her arms,
Not to cleanse,
But to claim.

Can you hear her?
Feel her misty breath
On your tear-soaked face?

Jazz notes played in reverse,
Riding a single reed,
Curling through the serpentine horn,
Up and out a tilted bell
Into this old world’s midnight.

No chart—just a shimmer to inhale
And follow—
Sometimes running,
Sometimes stumbling,
Sometimes dancing
Toward freedom,
Toward home.

She sings—
Rain finding splintered openings,
Soaking hardened places.

She sings—
Spirals outward,
Inward,
Sounds circling up,
Embracing stormy skylines
With rainbow arms,
Greening the earth
With sprouts of life.

Listen.

The river rises.
She always does.

The smoky voice of longing—
And loss.
The holy heartbeat of memory—
And desire.

It shall not return empty—
Not the song,
Not the breath,
Not the longing
That brought you here.

The river will rise.
She always does.

The river rises

She always does.

Always—

In silence

In song

In you and me

What songs are stirring in your spirit these days? What rivers are you listening for in the midnight hush? May the river rise in us to water the world.

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Who Knew “Shoe Polish” Was So Beautiful? Savoring Teachers

What can we do to say “thank you” to teachers?

This week is National PTA’s Teacher Appreciation Week.

Today I am revisiting a blog I wrote several years ago as an ode of gratitude to teachers. My respect for those who teach our children has expanded and deepened in recent weeks as I see the work teachers are doing to support their students through the COVID-19 crisis.

“Shoe polish,” he said. “Listen to the words. Consonants and vowels feel and sound a certain way when you say them. ‘Shoe polish.’ Don’t you just love that sound?”

Mr. Rogers was my high school English teacher. He loved words and the artistic work of putting words together to make sentences. Mr. Rogers was also enamored of novelists who wove sentences together into tales in which memorable protagonists grappled with life’s deepest questions.

“Every one of you can write beautiful words, sentences, and stories,” Mr. Rogers said. “You can be writers and artists. You can change the world.”

I was sixteen years old. I wanted to believe him.

TEACHING HEROES SHAPING OUR CHILDREN

Political decisions in many cities and states have created complex challenges for public school teachers. In North Carolina, where I live, legislative actions over a number of years have decreased resources for public schools and teachers, and some schools face significant teacher shortages. Teachers are weary and discouraged. 

And yet, each year parents let their kindergarteners go into a world of public education, where their hearts and minds will be forever shaped by those who teach them about grammar and history, math and science, literature and art. 

Each day of the school year, teachers like Mr. Rogers stand in that boundary place between home and public life, and urge our communities’ children to read, write, create, and explore. They teach children how to be good citizens. They encourage them to care about what happens in our world. They have the power to open our children’s minds to the world and to open up worlds for our children. 

The hard, often thankless, work teachers do matters. They deserve our support. They deserve better legislative decision-making. They deserve gratitude.

WHAT CAN WE DO TO SAY “THANK YOU” TO TEACHERS

People of faith have important roles to play in improving the capacity of education to shape healthy and just communities. Joining other religious and public leaders in demanding legislative change is one vital way. 

Another way people of faith can impact what happens in schools is by embodying one of the faith’s most powerful gifts: gratitude. 

This year teachers are facing even more challenges than we or they could have imagined to teach our children. I am so thankful for teachers who have scrambled to learn technological innovations for teaching during this pandemic. Many teachers I know have been creative in how they have stay connected to their students, and have gone above and beyond to support those whose home situations are uncertain. Teachers are amazing. 

God’s expansive creativity inspired the buzz of the bumblebee and painted spring pansies lavender and orange. God’s expansive creativity breathed life and love into human souls. God’s expansive creativity birthed radical Gospel justice and grace. When we offer expansive generosity to others, we live out our “thank you” to God. We embody God’s own creative grace.