Brian J. Walsh's Blog, page 30

Psalm 44: Waking Up God

The phone rang.

“Brian have you heard the news from El Salvador?”

No, what news?

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Clash of Empires

This is a story about empires colliding – the Roman Empire colliding with the upstart anti-empire that Jesus referred to ironically as “the Kingdom of God.”

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Miscarriage

There is no poetry in miscarriage, no poetry in death. Its shock, surprise and torment cannot be made beautiful. It is ache, absence and loss beyond words.

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Thanksgiving and Lament: Psalm 42-43

Where is your God? Where is that God who was so close in your worship leader days? Where is that God who was on your lips in praise?

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Psalm 33 and an Ontology of Love

The earth is full of the steadfast love of God.

Dripping, saturated, soaked, running over in love.

Even against the evidence.

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Leonard Cohen, Psalmist

Has Leonard strained to hear that voice whispering through all of creation?

Has he had an ear for that voice without words?

Might he have the gift of translating such creational glossalia?

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From Trust to Lament to Trust Again

We must be a community

in which such songs of lament,

such abrasive crying out to God,

such pain at the depths of our souls,

can have free voice.

You see, without such lament,

without such wrestling with God,

individually and communally,

we can never sing praise with integrity.

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Psalm 137, Exile and Rocket Launchers

Songs of home,

songs of hope,

songs that keep a faith alive,

are defiled and profaned

when they become the trivial entertainment of voyeuristic oppressors.

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Exile, song and rage

“By the rivers of Babylon –

there we sat down and there we wept.”

There, by those Babylonian rivers,

we hung up our guitars,

put away the drums,

packed up the keyboard,

and refused to sing.

Except for this one blues tune.

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James, ‘the Rich,’ and the Complexity Argument

(A meditation at on James 4.13-5.20 presented at Wine Before Beer on August 26, 2014.)

You just don’t understand.

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