November 23, 2011
Love bears all things.
It is the promise of the vacant cross lit by the rising sun,
and the sacred fire tended within the temples of the gods.
It is the burning forge of the illuminated soul.
Our impassioned witness,
our silent confessor,
and our merciful salvation.
The permeable yet unyielding light that wraps itself around the many faces made in His image.
Those images…
reminding us that we are all capable of so much more.
September 29, 2011
The DC40 spiritual warfare event planned by members of the New Apostolic Reformation would be easy to dismiss if it did not have such significant political traction. Their websites are brimming with violent inspirational imagery and their rhetoric is a “call to arms”. That they present themselves so, while having the public support of viable candidates such as Rick Perry and the silent consent of many other Evangelical Christian groups, requires a response.
Jason Pitzl-Waters over at The Wild Hunt sums up their agenda:
The change DC40 wants to make is electing leaders who fear the Christian God and “find that compromise is not the way” as it is impossible to “compromise with unrighteousness.” The “uncompromising light” refers to a statement released by Heartland Apostolic Prayer Network, which says God’s word should be the legal authority in the United States and Christians should acknowledge no other, “no power to purpose or accept any compromise of the promises of God, and we declare illegal in the earth any action or any people, Nation or nations that undertake what is contradictory to the Word of God.”
The DC40 event is a platform for hate speech. A focused assault on our native goddess Columbia and the virtues of governance the Founding Fathers chose her to represent. It is a direct action to end religious pluralism in American government. It is an act of spiritual violence that has the real possibility of inciting physical violence towards pagans and followers of minority faiths. A couple weeks ago the DC40 newsletter issued this prayer as part of their response to the outcry and debate their event has sparked with members of the pagan community.
Here is our prayer for you:
“Father, through the faith of Your Son and through the power of His Blood, we come on behalf of those who would curse us. Because of their actions toward us, we have legal spiritual access and we take it!We release perfect Blood-covered love into the core of your being!
May eternal light flood your hearts this day with the revelation of who you really are, and, more importantly, who God really is! We also pray that this revelation will dismantle and refute all arguments, theories, reasonings, and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the true knowledge of God. Your ladder has been placed on the wrong wall. We call you to your right mind through the finished work of the cross.You see, there is no DC40 Prayer War. It is finished, you just haven’t come to the truth of it yet. However, if you are reading this, it is too late – we release the arrow of blood-covered truth and convicting power of Holy Spirit into the core of your being, and release grace for you to SEE in Jesus’ Mighty Name!”
My counter working, if you will, is below:
They pilfer the blood of the Lamb,
the stain of the crucifixion,
to imbue the tips of their arrows and cast them wide at the hearts and souls of Her children.
May they instead fall at our feet, the blood of the sacrifice returned to nourish fertile ground.
For I am of this land born.
The blood and spirit of Her first people, our Founding Fathers, and revolutionaries courses through my veins.
My heartbeat is the drum resounding across a land that broke the back of tyranny.
Let them come.
Let them exhaust themselves with their efforts.
Let their’s be as futile an assault on Liberty as a young child’s tiny fists.
Let it be the fitful struggle of a child that would beat upon the breast of his mother all while Her arms encircled him.
Nothing more.
Hail Columbia, and cry Liberty!
Hail Columbia, and cry Liberty!
Hail Columbia, and cry Liberty!
So mote it be brothers and sisters.
April 4, 2011
Today I did not eat. I afforded myself my ritual morning coffee because it is doctrine and because I had only slept a few sparse hours. Tender Warrior spent the wee morning hours battling dream time rock golems, and I spent them soothing his battle scars. I brewed the fresh Starbucks grounds into my favorite large blue mug, mixed in the heavy whipping cream, sugar free DaVinci syrup and topped it with more whipped cream. It’s less beverage and more indulgent art. I tumbled into the couch and tilted the contents of the mug to my lips. As the sleepless haze lifted I remembered. Today I had committed myself to a fast.
I had been moved to such lengths in church Sunday morning as I heard our minister describing the moral implications of the congressional budget. He touched briefly on the cuts that would leave women and children without food stamps. He pledged his own fast in solidarity with those families and the religious leaders who shared his, our, vision of fair and responsible governance. He called from the pulpit and my conscience answered. But let’s leave the politics here. The insight I gained from this small act of protest was far more personal.
By mid-day the gnawing in my belly had begun to garner my attention. It was more antagonizing than agony, but my inability to ease it shifted my thoughts inward. It occurred to me then as it does now. The challenges in my life are the challenges of abundance.
I am loved and thus committed to those around me.
I am talented and thus needed.
I am intelligent and thus indulge my interests.
My home is warm and spacious and thus requires upkeep.
I am healthy and thus capable of lending my strength.
My stomach groaned reminding me that but for grace it could be otherwise. Today I did not eat, yet I was nourished all the same.
The Burrow Murmurs 