take a pickaxe to this concrete skull
i do, i take a pickaxe and mine the depths
but what a bloody mess in the digging
while i get stuck with blisters on fingertips
from the hard places that will not break
only small treasures spill forth like pearls
pearls stolen from a forced open oyster
but the raped mind is no place for the timid
and there is no shiny thing that will remain
when i am done every worthy thought
every unworthy thought will lay strewn in the open
to dry like dead salt fish in the sun
as nourishment for the ages and ages to come

there is no greater (lesser) writer than I
my prose, my poetry is far better (worse)
be it rhyme or rhythm or gold (lead)-spun verse
i am a giant (ant) i tread the shuddering sky

let me, for the success of others praise (cry)
while my own stellar (in)significance is perverse
with no (too many) egotistic wounds to nurse
nor dark (so dark) shadows on my self to belie

i love (hate) the insane artists whose words free fly
let my soul sing (weep) and in their brilliance immerse
may my heart be ever filled with words to bless (curse)
these who I call friend (enemy) and seek as ally

Let me bless (rage, rage, rage) every wondrous (wicked) word
on every page, page, page, that i consumed, (that I endured)

why is it darker
on the nights of salted rain
when the skies are black
and silence cries
for the absence of moon?

“Make sense or make nothing!”
is the pedestrian comment
of a lacking, wandering wind,
barely a dead man’s last breath
slipping past near unnoticed
and so with exuberance nothing is made;
how beautiful in its emptiness

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” – Genesis 4:9

Memorable words regardless of who you are and what you think of The Bible. “My brother’s keeper”…so much is loaded into so few words.

This post was inspired by a discussion of the verse on CBC Radio…particularly where ‘keeper’ was compared with ‘shepherd’. I appreciated this comparison and was prepared to launch into a nice lengthy discussion about Cain being a shepherd of his brother in the sense his brother was a shepherd of sheep etc.

Unfortunately I can’t do that because a basic word study has shown me that the Hebrew word used here for ‘Keeper’ is הֲ שֹׁ מֵ ר (e-shmr) while the Hebrew word typically used for ‘Shepherd’ is רעה (roʿeh).

I might have been able to get away with it if, in the same chapter the word to describe Abel as a shepherd was shmr, but it is not.

Still I think there are other worthy things about the word shmr worth saying – most importantly the word does not only mean keeper but also guardian (and perhaps this is the better translation here although keeper may infer guardian as well).

Am I responsible for my brother? Is he of a worth that he requires my guardianship? There is irony here because as a shepherd Abel exercised a certain amount of guardianship over his flocks. But there is an important difference…a shepherd raises his flock ultimately toward the purpose of sacrifice (food, God etc.) while a guardian treats what is being guarded as something even greater…something that should not be sacrificed or killed but cherished.

SIDE NOTE: Christ is known as the shepherd but he is the ‘Good Shepherd’ who lays down his life for his sheep rather than expecting his sheep to lay down their own lives.

In this sense God is the shmr (guardian) over Cain, Abel, Adam and Eve as they represent humanity. As image bearers (Imago Dei) of God we then bear a guardianship responsibility over one-another in as much as we are capable of emulating God (which often seems like not much at all if I am speaking for myself).

In short the answer to Cain’s (and likely our) rhetorical question is – yes, you are your brother’s keeper as a reflection of God’s guardianship over humanity.

Has Christ called his followers to be counter-cultural or to transform culture? Both? Neither? Is there a difference? I think there is.

It seems that in Christian history, somewhere in the 4th century Christianity moved from being counter-culture to being THE culture. In 301 AD Christianity was adopted as the state religion of Armenia and by 380 AD the Emperor made it the state religion of the Roman Empire (and the rest, as they say, is history). 

How did this happen? Did Christianity transform western culture to something akin to Christian culture as a result of being counter-cultural (which is what Christ called his followers to be)?

Did three centuries of being counter-cultural act as a culturally transforming agent?

I wonder if, rather than being counter-cultural Christians began to seek to make the opposing culture into an image of itself (is this idolatry? Hmmm?).

To be a counter-culture is to be a community formed to stand as an alternative to the governing culture of the day. To be light in darkness as it were. 

I would argue that this is the primary work of Christianity in the world and not to make the world and its culture into an image of Heaven (which of course is God’s work to come). 

For 1,500 years Christianity in the west has been able to rest somewhat secure in a culture that was very much a Christian culture. In this sense it lost its counter-cultural motivation and mission. 

Fast forward to today and we find Christianity in the west is in a great panic as the western world reverts to what the world has always been…something other than Christian. We proclaim condemnation, doom and gloom when in fact we have an opportunity to simply re-engage our primary mission as a counter-culture…an alternative.

If one reads John’s Revelation (or any of the letters to the persecuted church) one can see that in his writing that the hope offered was not – “stay true and turn the nations and their governments to Christianity and eventually your will not be persecuted or suffer…” rather the message was one of – “your suffering and persecution is as a result of being different from the world, set apart…your suffering and persecution are not in vain and in the end when God returns you will know the fullness of what i am saying now“.

I write all of this because I believe we are losing sight of what we are supposed to be in this age…we are not meant to be voices of condemnation, hate and judgement but a counter-cultural community of grace, compassion, love and forgiveness under the guidance of Christ that is so compelling to the world that in ones and twos and then in multitudes they come in wonder to join this same counter-cultural revolution and stand apart from what is to become a part of what will be one day perfected.

to stand in the undying sun

it’s an unbending thing
it’s an unbreaking thing

to stand in the undying sun

is to rather die in the baking light
is to rather dry with a bold shadow

let light consume your bones
let desert be hallowed cathedral
til’ wind bears it all away

to stand in the undying sun

is to stand outside the dim, the dank
is to fight, not live in the dying dark

to stand in the undying sun
is to die ablaze in the undying sun

Opinions…they’re like noses, everyone’s got one or so the old saying goes and it seems that one could extend that to say – opinions about others, everyone’s got one.

I should say up front that this post is not based on anything going on in my life. I say this because when I post things like this I often learn that people assume it is based on something specific…it is not…just observations that have percolated for years.

People have very specific opinions about other people and I find it interesting that sometimes they have very specific and pointed opinions about people they don`t actually know.

For instance I have heard the following on many occasions:

“_________ ___________ is a complete idiot/jerk/ass etc”

The blanks can be anyone and include but are not limited to Stephen Harper, Pierre Trudeau, Barack Obama, George Bush, Pope Benedict, Christopher Hitchens, my neighbour, etc.

I often wonder – how well do I need to know someone to be able to cast such judgement? Seriously…I am not even sure I know my own family members enough to call them idiots or morons etc. so how in the world could I call someone I have not even met an idiot based on headlines, gossip etc?

More pointedly why is it so important to make such specific character judgments? What is it within us that makes it so critical to categorize someone as good or evil? Is it because we no longer have to think about them anymore after this? We can simply open the file on So and So and see that this person is, in our estimation an idiot or a saint and apply such a designation to whatever decision they make and move on.

I think it might be this – it might be laziness. We would rather assume something then be left in the place of maybe this person is a decent human being who is simply not in the same place as me…or possibly maybe this person is a horrible human being who happens to agree with me. These are each possible. I am guilty of this and I find the whole paradigm makes me sad.

Just some thoughts.

when one leaps
from the edge
of
this
flat
earth
how far do you fall?

to the very bottom
my son, my son
to the bottom of it all

what if there is no bottom?

then the fall
is all there is
a great, everlasting exhale
a shattering, life-prolonging wail

Already by the age of seven he had been lured to dark places and learned things that should not have been learned…things that could not be unlearned. They became part of the darkening shroud that grew slowly and inevitably over the eyes of his soul like cataracts.

But today was a day to run from such things, a day spent like so many before – alone and in the presence of the sun and the ever increasing heat of the day.

He was up with the first light, into cut-off blue jean shorts and a t-shirt pulled over a mop of near shoulder length, bowl-cut brown hair. Bursting shoe-less out upon the unsuspecting world he would explore the wondrous mix of urban and rural decay in his neighbourhood and all the dangers and excitement that came with it.

There was no plan or thought, no friends or foes…just the empty summer to be filled with experiences that grew from simply stepping out doors.

This day involved many of the same activities as previous days but not necessarily in the same order. There was the nearby railroad track to be wandered and assessed for loose spikes; small iron spears to be brought home and forgotten almost immediately. Strange tools mysteriously left behind that needed a place even if they were to be unused, they would be unused in a home of their own. Were these like the nails that pierced Christ’s hands? The thought led to a moment of respectful pondering and a small, embarrassed prayer to cover the forgotten prayer at bedtime the night before.

The prayer led to a more casual and genuine conversation with God that happened in the boy’s head. His mind never rested and often, admittedly when he was bored, the boy would seek out and converse with God about his discoveries, his days and the things of his family. More often than naught the boy would be talking about the quality of a recent hot dog and the potential for God to look in on improving said foods than anything of the supposed “deeper stuff” of life.

If it had rained recently the boy would seek out the remaining run-off streams that raced importantly along street curbs or through eroded runnels in gravel parking lots where he would then lord over them and imagine being the creator dragging or heaving great stones and diverting the rapids along new courses as his whim demanded. He was a God in this parking lot, or along this avenue today. It was an exercise in imagined freedom and power.

The train tracks would inevitably lead to the old wooden train bridge over the fast moving waters of the nearby river. He had walked tentatively across this bridge a thousand times before but it never got easier. Always there was the eternal waiting. Would a train come? What would he do? Jump in of course, like the adventurer he was (he secretly doubted this brave voice in his head but let it have its way anyhow). He would bend down and place his ear upon the tracks like the cowboys did sometimes in the movies. He tried to gauge how far away the coming train was.

Eventually he would step onto the bridge and walk as fast as possibly across and always his feet would tingle as if the rushing water beneath was rushing against them attempting to draw him in. Sometimes in his braver moments he would stand close to the edge and imagine just jumping in. He did that on the various rooftops he climbed in his adventures as well – he would walk to the edge and wonder what it would be like to jump.

From the crossed train bridge he would wander the river bank to the next bridge along the way, a dam where he knew he would find a loose collection of boys gathered. There was always a group of boys at the dam – older boys and younger boys like him trying to emulate them (but always different boys it seemed). There were never any girls, or none that he noticed anyhow.

The dam was an experiment in survival and the staving off of various broken bones. One would go to the base of the dam which consisted of maybe a half dozen V shaped funnels that the water fell through onto a green slime covered shoot that projected the water and anything that happened to get caught in its current into the river beyond at wonderful speeds.

The boy, like the others around him, would wait his turn and then, with an intoxicating mix of dread and excitement, inch his way carefully along the inside wall of one of these V’s and then, when he had reached the upper limit where the water fell, would throw himself into the torrent and imagine the unseen rocks and hidden branches waiting for him beyond the base where he was fired as if from a gun. Survival meant it had to be done again.

This would consume a good part of the afternoon until the crowd wandered away or got bored or he would grow tired. Sometimes they would go the next, nearby bridge at a deeper part of the river and swim into the darkness underneath where a ledge was known to exist. There they would sit beneath the steel drum beats of the tires of passing cars echoing overhead as the older boys told frightening tales of the old snapping turtle that lived underneath the bridge and was known to enjoy the more tender parts of careless young boys who were not constantly alert to the threat. The boy understood this fear but it never drove him away – he swam in resignation that it would come or it wouldn’t.

As the day faded into something cooler the boy would emerge from the dank and watery depths to don his dry t-shirt left on the grass nearby and wander into the streets heading back toward home along a different route. This was a good time, a time to press one’s toes deep into the squishy, day-softened tar-filled cracks and know that, while the cooler evening was coming, the sun was still hiding in places where only the most inquisitive would find it and be rewarded.

Eventually, sun-burned and worn out from the work of an adventurous day the boy would arrive home; home to mum; home to sisters and supper; home to questions of what the day held and short, grunt-like answers of one who would prefer to keep the memories to himself.

Once the dark finally took hold and bed was no longer to be avoided the boy and his memories would cover up. As night held sway and the shadows of the creaky house took over the memories became small films to be played again and again in the theatre of his mind. Memories as distractions from the nightmares bound to come until the rescuing sun rose again to banish it all and new memories could be made.