I Believe

I tried writing this as a spoken word - used it in a sermon

I believe 

-not deceived 

-not opiated 

-not manipulated 

-I believe and I receive 

-a faith as old as story as old as creator 

I believe 

-to keep me here 

-not to dematerialize 

-not to be invisible but indivisible 

-an earth man – a human kind  

-I believe and I receive 

-an identity made not manufactured 

I believe  

-and I enter in 

-the river running deep 

-beyond my knowledge 

-beyond my effort  

I believe and I receive  

-wisdom that listens 

I believe  

-faith pouring down 

-raining down 

-drenching ground 

-kneeling down 

I believe and I receive 

-grace for my sorrow  

I believe 

-reviving my soul 

-making me stand 

-making me testify 

-not resisting – not persisting in my doubt 

-not holding back –  

I believe, and I receive 

I believe -and silence 

Modernity and its use of death

Our modern society has used death for its social purposes. Morally it renders us in a state of death. William Stringfellow described it this way,

"In the relentless assaults upon truth and reason and comprehension and conscience, through omnipresent and seemingly omniscient surveillance, by presumption of illegal authority, by the charades of secrecy and deception, by the atmosphere created by official babel, by the virtual abolition of credibility as a premise and discipline of government: citizens are left anxious and bewildered and numbed - dehumanized, or morally in a condition of death." pg 74 An Ethic for Christians & Others in a Strange Land.

I was struck by how not much has changed since 1973 when Stringfellow wrote these words. We seek to use death, not understanding that it renders us dead as well, even thought our actual demise may take the next few years. Our purpose has become the eradication of the other, so that we can advance our own cause. Thinking we are limiting death, we end up using it to enhance our own position against the other. But, we diminish ourselves and others.

Sadly, we justify this use of death by thinking that it leads to some higher purpose or some eventual peace, but history just does not bear this out. Jacques Ellul observed that an ethic of the Kingdom does not ask, will this or that action lead to some greater kingdom. Instead, an ethic of the Kingdom of God asks, does what we are doing today fit the kingdom of God. If our actions cannot fit within the kingdom of God, then they have no justification in our lives.