Transforming Our Times (Sunday, January 22, 2012)

Transforming Our Times

Is it best of times, or worst?
Is it a blessing or a curse,
these lives we lead,
this time and place
in which we dwell?
Are our eyes hidden
from the face of God,
or do we stand closer than we know
to the light of divine grace?

We can transform and glorify
these times in which we live
only by listening for the inner voice
and following its ways.
We can be testaments to the energy
and spirit of these days
only by living them fully
in the light of our deepest power.

That means following the seasons of these times
and living where we are,
but always casting that deeper eye
which sees the abundance and growth
of the summertide within.
It means honoring our age
and knowing the road we’ve walked,
but it also means knowing
that new roads always await us,
and new seasons beckon.

When we cast these lives of ours
both in the light of history’s long page
and God’s great grace, we’ll know
how eternally young we truly are--
And how ancient, how wise,
to be able to share in this great drama,
this golden hour
in which we have been called to transform the earth.

jbs
7/1/02     9/17/02     11/03/02     1/22/12

Waiting for the change (Sunday, January 15, 2012)

Waiting for the change

Will the change come (when it comes),
inevitably, flowing like a river,
cascading over the face of the earth,
a raging torrent, battering down
the citadels of reaction?

Or will it be (if it is to be)
a gradual unfolding,  opening like a stream,
slowly, steadily, maybe imperceptibly
making its way homeward
until one morning we awake and we are there?

We live history every day,
but never know its course until it’s run.
But the remaking that our world needs
will at least require all hands to be on deck.

The gentle and the strong, defiant and resilient,
must all find a place to stand and act and hold the line
if this world is to be made new.

There can be no turning back,
unless we would trade our civic soul
for easy baubles and trappings
of an age that is dying;
or unless we would luxuriate
in the dank and brackish waters
of an age already dead.

Our eyes face forward for a reason:
to greet the coming season, and to try
to glimpse some flicker of the future
before it’s here; then we’ll know
if not the total truth of what’s to come,
at least where to stand,
when the glorious winds of change begin to howl.

jbs
11/9/02          1/19/03          1/15/12