Saturday, December 31, 2016

How Six Geese inspired Worship

How Six Geese inspired Worship

On the sixth day of Christmas my True Love gave to me "SIX GEESE A-LAYING". 

It was an obediently fertile mind that, looking upon the common goose of the Medieval world, saw a means of observing and preserving for instruction in righteousness, the six days of Creation. 

And how fitting for us in the season of the celebration of His Incarnation, by whom it was all made and by whom it all consists, to revisit and devotionally consider how He did it.

“For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
Colossians 1:16-17 NIV

From days one through four He spoke the light, the sky, and celestial bodies into existence. Then He commenced creating living things — marine-life and birds on day five. He continued on day six, creating land animals — wild and livestock. Then finally, bending down, He lovingly formed Man with His own hands and breathed life into him.

What painstaking attention was paid by the Divine Creator to fashion, for us, the boundary of the dwelling called earth, "...in the hope that we might grope (search Him out in all the works of His hands) and find Him since He is not far from each one of us". Acts17:26-27.

My own biggest find, this reading of the Creation account, was that our Heavenly Father created the heavenly bodies for the express purpose of letting them "serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years,”
Genesis 1:14 NIV

Here's to marking the sixth of the twelve days of Christmas as a day fit for magnifying and worshipping our great Creator.


Friday, December 30, 2016

"FIVE GOLD RINGS!"— Heirlooms, Cheers & Prayers

“FIVE GOLD RINGS!”—Heirlooms, Cheers & Prayers

"On the fifth day of Christmas, my True Love sent to me FIVE GOLD RINGS!" — this portion of the well-known, though not- so-well-understood carol, is arranged musically as the climax. The notes, highest of the song, are grandly slowed and extended, connoting a rousing cheer being raised in a room full of Christmas revelers with mugs of wassail held high.

Such a picture is fitting when one considers that the 'five gold rings' represent, in this encrypted catechism, the first five books of the Bible's Old Testament, The Pentateuch. What would the Christian Faith be without Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy?

These 5 books, chronicling Man's beginning as well as the origins and unique place of the Jewish people in history, also record the process by which they received the designation, God's Chosen People. Their Holy Writ forms the firm footing of the Christian Faith and are among the Scriptures Jesus read and referred to in presenting Himself to us. He is the Messiah they pointed to, pre-figured and demonstrated our desperate need of.

Representing this treasured heirloom, gifted to us as it were, through  our Hebrew spiritual forebears, the musical capstone of  'five gold rings!', is a fitting response. Yet, ironically, thanks has not been the response over the centuries to the Jewish people. 

My own meditation on this verse this Christmas season was colored in somber shades by the even more jarring irony of current news out of the United Nations — the vote and condemnation of  the tiny modern Jewish nations' right to build new settlements in land rightfully  theirs and necessary for securing themselves against the entities which hate their existence and thirst for their annihilation. 

To our shame, this decision went un-vetoed by America, previously Israel's main supporter and defender in the UN, Israel being the only democracy in the entire Middle-East.

As I write this piece the church bells of the nearby Methodist church are chiming over our neighborhood the tune of another much-loved Christ as carol invoking Israel,

"Oh come, Oh come Emanuel,
 And ransom captive Israel
 That mourns in lonely exile here
  Until the Son of God appears.
   Rejoice! Rejoice! Emanuel
  Shall come to thee oh Israel"

As you enjoy the " five gold rings" of our faith this Christmas, remember those who delivered it to us. Yes, Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

When Mammon Came To Christmas

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Happy Fourth Day of Christmas!

I was robbed of at least twelve days of my Advent observations this year. Due to busyness and unavoidable demands I, too easily, fell prey to three vices common to man—fear, pride and coveting. In fighting back, I have determined to celebrate all twelve days of Christmas, which only begins on Christmas Day (as my dear mother-in-law is careful to remind us) and continues to Epiphany when the arrival of the wisemen is celebrated. 

I wrote the story WHEN MAMMON CAME TO CHRISTMAS and read it to the family ( captive audience in the car on the way to Christmas Eve service). I kept my poinsettia earrings in, rearranged displaced decorations, kept Christmas lights on and even wore a festive crochet vest over my brown turtleneck sweater to work on day three.

The concept of the twelve days of Christmas is probably best known to most through the familiar carol of the same name. The Carol and the story of its origin, which can be read here, is said  to have been composed by persecuted Catholics in England in the 1600s, forbidden to openly practice their faith. The symbols for each day,  encrypted teachings of the church,  seem like good fodder for a twelve day observance. So I am going for it! Today, on my Bible app  I will  listen to the sound of the FOUR CALLING BIRDS,  the four gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. 

Happy fourth day of Christmas! 

Sunday, December 11, 2016

My Heart, His Manger

The first nativity set I bought for our fledgling family, did not have a manger with the baby Jesus, or so it was thought. Ten dollars provided this bargain because someone did not search through all the packaging sufficiently before labeling it defective, for re-sale. Imagine my delight when, upon unpacking and trying to figure where I would find a 'manger-and-Jesus-in-porcelain' to match my new set, I found it neatly wrapped and buried at the bottom corner of the emaciated box, the fact that the characters were all cast in Euro-centric features not even vaguely being an issue.

That experience is something akin to the emotions that prompted my writing the poem, ‘Jesus, Pretty in Me’*. It was my first piece, written in verse, that sought to be faithful to the rhythm, idioms and phonology of Jamaican Creole speech. Still primarily an oral language at the time that I studied it, at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, the Jamaican patois reflects the geo-political history of our island, using English words yet employing West African syntax (grammar), and seasoned liberally  with vocabulary and idioms reflecting our rich cultural mix. Despite the national treasure that it is, those who know the Jamaican Creole as their only language are often looked down on, as it marks one as uneducated, as standard English is Jamaica's official language.

'Jesus, Pretty in Me’ found me determined to celebrate all Christ had made me to be, stirred up as I was at that time, by the storms that accompany cross-cultural marriage and migration. Writing it afforded me a chance to explore some of the ideas with which every non-Caucasian ethnicity, introduced to Christianity in context of white Western culture, has had to grapple: Raising questions such as, Does God look like me? If He doesn’t, does He still care as much? If He does care, am I a sample of my type worthy of His regard and of significance in His Kingdom? And, an even more daunting  query, Though I might be counted among the Redeemed, can He really be reflected as well through 'me'? Me unedited by society’s or my own sharp, re-defining pen? The answer to this last, I found to my great relief, is an eternally resounding 'Yes!'.

It is the message of the place of the Nativity—Bethlehem, 'the least among the cities of Judah' , the animal shelter, the rejected, the devalued, the set aside—the manger. This is the place The Eternal delights to reveal His glory, to proclaim and parade His Redemption plan, among the least of these. But the ‘least’ also need to embrace and walk out what He has worked in, living incarnationally.

The phrase ‘incarnational living’ might be fairly new terminology on the evangelical Christian landscape, but is an idea at least  as old as the Creation itself. God's willingness  to not only dwell with mankind, but also in us, requires our participation. It is Biblically sound Christian doctrine that regeneration happens immediately,  at the point of conversion. Yet how we struggle to believe it, between the now and the not yet, as we confront ourselves daily in the Mirror of the Scriptures, the mirrors provided by society  and even in our physical mirrors. Yes, the one on the bathroom wall.

It is amazing, the meaning with which we load the shape of head and eyes, texture and length of hair,  prominence or breadth of nose, height, weight and yes,  skin tone or shade, seeking to assay each other's value by external features. The conclusions we draw or transmit can help or hinder our progress in sanctification. Wrestling in prayer through some of these issues this Advent, the words of Watermark’s  song ‘Come and make my heart Your home’, flooded in;

“Come and make my heart Your home; 
Come and be everything I am and all I’ve known; 
Search me through and through 
‘til my heart becomes a home for you...
Let everything I do open up a door for You to come through..”

Twenty years ago I had gratefully, but with some anxious doubt, taken home what I thought was an incomplete Nativity set but God was in it. Jesus was nestled down, wrapped securely in a corner of the buffeted packaging. It took just a little careful unwrapping. Just as His coming was prophesied, He wrote about us in His book, before even one of our members was formed, said the Psalmist -Ps.139. 

The intricacies of our make up were given expression and boundaries by Him. Yes, our forms also evidence the brokenness of sin, yet even those become fodder for His glory as they are yielded to Him in trust. As the light at Advent searches  through the wood, hay and stubble of our hearts this year, and as we look in all the mirrors, may we know truth—He did not purchase us by accident. When He paid the price, He knew what He was getting, and considered the manger of our heart a fitting place for His abiding. May we allow His Spirit to carefully unwrap us this season and reveal Jesus, 'Pretty in us'.

* See blog post by the same name, 'Jesus, Pretty in Me', on this site, along with audio performance and translation.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Podcast Interview on Culture and the Christian Writer

I was afforded the opportunity to be interviewed by a wonderful sister in South Africa on the subject of 'Culture and Writing' for the Christian. It aired this past Sunday and I thought I'd share it with you. Enjoy!  Denise

http://laurenjacobs.co.za/podcasts/

Sunday, December 4, 2016

Father's Coming

The massive white marble statue of Mary, with the lifeless body of Christ draped over her lap, came immediately to mind in response to Susan Forshey’s  Advent chart invitation to 

“Spend time with a favorite piece of art”.

Michelangelo Buonarotti’s famous sculpture, Pieta, (pee-ay-tah) intrigued me the moment I stumbled on it  in my college years. As a student of African-American Literature, I had found it useful as a metaphor for  the burden of  motherhood and the pain of fatherlessness. My reflections then, had inspired a triad of poems titled ‘Pieta in Black’ which captures  these themes.*

Revisiting Pieta this Advent, however, has me appreciating the promise ‘of the Father' coming 'through the Son', 'by the Spirit’ – Trinity. In considering the Incarnation, my focus had always only been on the second person of the Godhead, Jesus. But it was the Father whose power overshadowed the Virgin Mary, and it was the Holy Spirit who came upon her  in order for Jesus, our Hero, to arrive. Lk 1:35

 So rightly, Advent should also be a time to celebrate the Father’s initiative in our redemption story. He authored the whole thing, bringing and delivering His greatest Gift to us through the Virgin’s womb – let’s make room in the Nativity for the Father!

 The ‘coming of father’, in any language, can evoke diametrically opposed emotions : dread, guilt and fear, on one hand, and joy, exultation and expectation of blessings - gifts! - on the other. Many a child has been brought up short, from inappropriate behavior, by the threat “When your father comes …”. Yet I find myself wondering if the longing for Father-presence ( no disrespect to Joseph) in the Christmas story, is not what birthed and feeds the spirit of Santa – a longing to please father and be rewarded for it, motivated to be nice by the threat of the twice-checked list - a striving to earn grace.

Several years ago, FourSquare pastor and founder of The King’s College & Seminary, in Los Angeles,  Jack Hayford, cautioned  church leaders in a Christmas message, to not be exceedingly disparaging of the idea of Santa, as it speaks to the longing for pleasant associations with fatherhood at a time of year when fatherlessness can be most painful - a longing that just might lead many a wounded 'child' home. My meditations this season compel me to agree.

So palpable was the pain of fatherlessness, as I experienced it in the Literature of my college days, I was tempted to put it aside - to reject its pain for more romantic (idyllic) and beautifully themed material, but somehow the martyr in me won. I felt an odd responsibility, having seen the wound, to do something about it, even if only to make others aware. My conscience, shaped no doubt by memories of the persona in Christina Rossetti’s children’s poem ‘The Snare’,  dictates that if I can hear that ‘there is a rabbit in a  snare’ then  I must ‘search everywhere’ or else communicate the dreadful fact to as many as I can, who may be able to help search and rescue. In Pieta, Mary, by her  fixed gaze,  bids  everyone make eye contact with the pain born of sinfulness, if we would also behold the Innocent One sacrificed for us.

Her slightly upturned left hand was also a new focus for me this season of Advent meditation: was she intended to be gesturing accusingly to the world whose sins had slain him? Or was she offering Him, surrendering Him a substitute for our propitiation?- fulfillment of that same gesture when, as her younger self, freshly delivered of her Holy Burden, she had offered him to shepherds and Kings alike. Only, then, it was for their adoration of Him in His infancy. Or maybe, just maybe, the gesture is  intended as a re-presentation of Jesus back to the Omnipresent  Father, who, having  so prodigally  given, waited  in readiness, for the appointed time, to turn again, and raise Him back to life.

 In this, Pieta is the picture of Ultimate Hope! Let every faithful mother-heart, surrendered, like Mary’s, wait expectantly this Advent for the coming of the Father who alone can raise up sons, however badly wounded, to life again. 🙏🏿

* ( Pieta and other of my poems will be posted in the new year with accompanying audio - Deo Volente - as the Lord allows)

Saturday, December 3, 2016

Jesus Pretty In Me (audio and translation)


Poem
Mi neva know seh Jesus coulda pretty in me
A’ talk fi mi talk
A’ spree fi mi spree
Dis Christ in me, dis hope a' Glory!

When wi firs' did come to dis Caribbee
What a speechless place
What a misery
No language between wi captors an' we
Couldn't hear Christ in him
Him nuh si Christ in me.

Well as time guh by likkle lingo plot
Else a’ Tower a’ Babel woulda be fi wi lot
Dem establish di slave society,
Likkle lingua franca `tween Backra an' we:

Him seh, "Yours di field and di great house fi me;
My children are babies, yours a pick-a -ninnies;
Yours di labour, mine di wage."
Dat deh language neva suit nuh righteous page.

Well time an' season slowly pass'
An' di lingo of slavery was done at las'
But den come Miss Queen an' ‘ar crown colony
So wi drop curtsy an' try talk like she

We try on, we put off
We put on, we show off
Twis' an tun we tongue 'til it nearly fork.
Shet up God Image like a bokkle wid a cork.

A’ so we float on down di ribba of life
Meet independence, politricks an' labour strife
How we tired an' long fi reach t’idda  side
Long fi hangle life at the brunt a di tide

Wanti-wanti rise 'til we dis fi bus'
Language come out, but a so-so cus'
'Cause di cork still in place an' di heat a-rise
We want run di race we want win di prize

"LORD, HAN' WI DI MIRROR
GI WI COURAGE Fl LOOK
PUSH PASS DI KURRO-KURRO
PRESS INTO YUH BOOK
Mek di Cool Clean Water wash wi soul
Clean out we eye mek we see wisself whole.

Design' an' plan' mek by Yuh owna Han'."
Mi only jus' now a-start fi understan'
What a t'ing a beauty Yuh mek mi fi bi
Perfec' fi reflec' di God-kind a beauty.

A Holy Aesthetic a tek over mi min'
As mi start relate to a Divine Plumbline:
Every tribe an' tongue, every nation an' race
One day goin' flow to one gathering place

To one Holy Mountain in time an' space
Perfec' to reflec' di Father's Face
An' choppin' one talk - "Amazing Grace."


- Denise Stair-Armstrong
 @ 7 Feb 1999

Translation
I never thought it possible that Jesus could be revealed in Beauty in who I am
Speaking with my voice, in my heart language,
Released, animating me in freedom, 
This Christ in me, this hope of Glory!

When we were originally brought to the Caribbean lands
No means of heart communication was allowed
Such misery
Our captors hearts and ours were as far apart as could possibly be
I discerned nothing of Christ in his speech
He saw nothing of Christ’s image worthy of addressing in me

As time passed we had to develop some sort of speech allowing functional exchange
Otherwise chaos akin to the Tower of Babel would have been the result
This allowed the development of the slave society,
The established status quo between our slave masters  (Backra) and ourselves:

He dictated, “ The plantation fields are your place and the plantation great house is mine;
My children are fully human babies, yours, not quite, so we will call them ‘pickaninnies’;
The labor of slavery, yours, the income from it, mine.”
Surely that arrangement was not the one communicated by God in His Holy Word.

Well, time & seasons passed, too slowly,
But  the slavery status quo ended at last,
But then came Mrs.Queen (Elizabeth)and her Crown Colony 
So we payed homage, ‘dropping curtsy’ and trying to assume communication that reflected submission to her rule.

We (put on,tried on) – pretended, assumed and ( put off, postured) dispensed with all sorts of societal and cultural norms not our own
Twisted & turned our tongues ‘til they almost split. (Contorting our self-expressions almost to the point of schizophrenia)
Concealing God’s unique image through us, as in a tightly corked bottle.

This is the way we floated on down the river of life,
Acquiring national independence, employing the machinations  of politics and labor laws, to our advantage and disadvantage,
Through all this striving, never really  seeming to  get anywhere (to the other side)
We yearned to handle (experience) life at the brunt of the tide of opportunity (success always seeming just out of our reach).

Frustrated, our longing intensified  to the point of rupture (riots &, social unrest)
Some sort of expression comes out but it sounds more like curses (expletives) than anything else.
We are pressed  by limitations we cannot change, pushed to our extremity, strangled by our sense of powerlessness;
All we want is to taste the fruit of our labor!

“LORD HAND US THE MIRROR
GIVE US COURAGE TO LOOK,
TO PUSH PAST ALL THIS SINFUL BUILD-UP,
DELVING INTO YOUR BOOK.
Let Its  cool, clean water wash our souls,
Purify our sight, cause us to have a vision of ourselves, whole ( in You).

We were designed and made by Your own Hand”;
I think I am beginning to understand
What a thing of beauty You have made me to be,
Being perfected to reflect the God-kind of beauty.

A holy aesthetic is taking over my mind,
I’m beginning to relate to a Divine Plumbline:
Every tribe and tongue, every nation and race
Will one day flow to one gathering place,

To one Holy Mountain in time and space
Perfected to reflect the Father’s face
And communicating like never before in a perfect unified language, that of “Amazing Grace”.

- Denise Stair-Armstrong
              @ 10 Dec 2016


Scriptures 
References that informed this piece:-
Col.1:25b-27
Acts 17:24-28
John 4:4-6
Isaiah 2:1-5