What Do These Videos Have in Common? An Advent Rant of Sorts.

Typically I am busy writing about all things spiritual, especially at this time of year. However, due to over-busy-ness, not feeling well and assorted other things, I am just not posting as much. It is hard to step back but I am learning something about my limits. This is a good thing, but a challenge.

Today I found these two videos. Well, I watched one of them the other day. At first glance, they do not seem related at all. One is haunting and the other is funny. However, I think that both are actually haunting in the end.

The first video is from Bjork and called Prayer of the Heart.

I found it on the Facebook page of Janine Economides, who blogs at Daily Exegesis. Janine says that this is in Greek, Coptic and English. I could work out the Greek and of course the English, glad to know about the Coptic. I am reminded of the unity in diversity that is at the heart of the Trinity.

Somehow, for me today, crying out “O Adonai!” and crying out “God have mercy” are the sounds of my longing. The light is coming as we end this 3rd week of Advent and head into the final week. Come Lord Jesus, please and have mercy upon me.

This other video switches gears – a pretty Jesus-y thing if you ask me. It was on Facebook and elsewhere last week.  Lindy on Facebook and Brother Dan at Dating God, among others, posted it. Jesus was always turning things on their end and using what he had at hand to do so. It is from Stephen Colbert and I have to tell you, initially the title of it had turned me off a bit. This is why being judgmental is a problem – what might we keep out?

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Jesus Is a Liberal Democrat
www.colbertnation.com
http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:368914
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog March to Keep Fear Alive

You see, I really truly find it loathsome when Jesus is identified with any political party. Momentarily I forgot the irony factor, I guess and did not watch the video. Well that and I was busy. In any case, Colbert is not saying that Jesus is truly a liberal Dem, but he says some really important things. These things are also a prayer of the heart.

Stephen Colbert appears to know more theology than most people. He, ever in the role of court jester,  sharing challenging truth through humor, says so many things in this piece. I think he makes his point well.

Of course it feels good to people both on the left and on the right to claim Jesus for their camp. However, even just a little analysis shows the flaws in that; Jesus was not here to mediate politics but rather to redeem humanity. Which he did, politics aside. He catered not to the Romans or to the established religious hierarchy of his time.

That said, Jesus was very clear about the essence of unqualified and unconditional love and charity and that does sort of trump all other matters. And it would make him more like a Democ… well, you know.

I read a quote the other day, from John Kenneth Galbraith, who said, “Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.” 

Isn’t that what we all try to do? Get busy on the proof?

However, what are we called to do is change. Whoever we are, whatever our stand. Christianity, change, transformation. What proof?

The act of change in and of itself is the proof. That might be why so few of us are capable of it. I know I have a record of epic (to use a word my stepdaughter coined) fail-ization.

That is the prayer of the heart, to cry out to God for mercy. That is the point of giving without limit. To change.

It is that simple.

Change. Transformation. Hope.

Be born in us this coming season. Please. Again and again and again.

You May Say That I’m A Dreamer, But I’m Not The Only One

I left this as a comment on Lisa’s blog, but I reprint it here too. Where were you when John Lennon died? What do you remember?  Here is another thread, from the New York Times.

I was in a bar on the Upper East Side of NYC. I had recently turned 23 and I felt very adult. I was there with my boss and one of our clients. My boss was about 34, he seemed so old to me! The client was in his 50′s but very handsome, suave and had a mad, sexy voice. We had all been out to dinner and then went for some drinks.

It was one of those bars, ubiquitous at the time, brass rails, ferns and lots of well-dressed people, all on the prowl. Men in 3 piece suits and with moustaches, women with hungry eyes and sunken cheeks. I think my eyes were that, my cheeks- not so much. I can tell you that I was wearing a teal dress with a multi-colored teal belt that was woven. There was a slit on the side and my thigh showed through. Mad sexy.

The two guys were getting drunk and I was bored and thinking that I better get in a cab and get to Grand Central. They decided to play pool – another ever-present symbol in these bars. I was alone at the bar, feeling slightly sorry for myself and like I did not belong.

Monday night football was on but I was not really watching. Then the special report came on – John Lennon was shot! I ran over to the guys, but they were drunk now for real and playing pool. They did not care. No one seemed to care, save a handful of us misfits who sat at the bar, where we were now getting free drinks from shocked and saddened Irish bartender.

I felt so sad and so raw but I could not exactly identify why. I kept thinking of a kid that I had worked with during HS and college who was obsessed with Lennon and wondering where he was and how he was taking this all. And I kept wondering who would shoot John Lennon and why.

By time I came out of my gin-infused tv watching I had realized that I missed the last train. Now I had to admit to myself that not only was I a misfit, but that I lived at home. I had to (gulp) call my mother and say I wasn’t coming home. She was pretty pissed off- to hear this and to be woken up at 2am.

I went over to the now very drunk boss and client. The client wanted me to go to his hotel room with him. Suddenly I felt revulsion – how did he not feel this pain of Lennon’s death? How could he think of sex? I also suddenly did not feel as old and adult as I had when we strode in there a few hours earlier.

My boss got very protective and took me to his apartment. I remember being shocked that he was the big sales manager but his bed was a mattress on the floor, just like college. Complete with milk crate night stand! He let me sleep in his bed and he took the sofa, but I couldn’t sleep. I listened to WNEW-FM and cried.

Many images were shattered that night, many.

The next day I felt overtired and shameful, showing up at work, looking a bit disheveled and wearing the teal dress again.

And John Lennon was dead.