“Life With The Bloody Knife” by Mike Morse

My body stiffens, a dim flame hallows out naive and young dogma,

Concrete solidifies within my veins as I fail to feel the light,

I’m sore and weary from these dark expansive forces,

Questions and tensions mount…I want to fight, reject, and recant my allegiance,

Am I to deny the ancients, the sages, and the prophet’s revelation?

On who’s shoulder do I stand, am I in the hands of the lord of war?

There is a bloody knife laid within this beautiful landscape,

The gore is on display for all to see,

It is in plain sight, surrounded by love and beauty.

The sparrow is cherished, rivers cleansed, all trees and seas dance within the divine gaze.

This holy violence! The divine horror show is everywhere.

It crushes light like a fat, belligerent, drunk who barges into the wedding celebration,

The rite is still wonderful, but stained with murderous guest and I personify both sides depending on the moment,

There is a facture and tension in nature that is on fire with in my soul,

One instant awe and wonder, then terror and anxiety, how can one rest within this bed of roses and thorns?

My head is grappled and wrenched to stair suffering in the face if I don’t gaze upon it with acceptance,

Indiscriminate violence and goodness stroll the sun kissed waters within the same flow of grace!

How terrible, how wonderful, what the fuck, and amen!

I’m horrified that my Father could be like nature, steeped in the owl’s crafty barbarisms.

Who am I to not be present to what is?

I refuse to burry my head, stick it up where the sun don’t shine and call this faith.

The wave destroys and the wave gives life destroying and creating with in the rhythms of grace.

This tension is vexing, but the tearing of this heart of flesh will bring me faithfully home to Spirit,

I am born again and all is one.

 

 

 

 

Today I celebrate this polarizing, contradictory, divisive, and scandalous teacher who dumps us in our deepest questions. He leaves us in our questions and on purpose leaves us in deep tension. All one needs to do is spend some time reading Jesus and one will find his soul lifted, yet his mind tormented at the same moment. I have been reading, “On Parables,” by Thomas Keating and the joy it has been to see how expansive Jesus was and how revolutionary he is fills my heart with gratefulness. At the same moment many teachers don’t acknowledge the massive elephant in the room, but would rather pretend it was not there. This beast fills the stories of Jesus and is there on purpose. Who am I as a liberal minded believer to ignore the dark side of faith? I must not make the mistake that the hell-toting conservatives make in making camp in the dark side of faith. I must not refuse the darkness but camp there too. The day and the night are the same to God. Tension, tension, tension… I sit in it, at the feet of Jesus. Cussing and praising a like, I stand in need of mercy, and like a child I cling to him afraid and yet comforted. Jesus did not offer us what many teachers do, ease of mind and heart. He paints a lovely picture with his stories about the wonderful Father we all share, but also lets us know that his kingdom will come at great cost to us. I call this leaving the bloody knife in the beautiful landscape. Have mercy on me son of David, for I am a sinner and I bear your divine Spirit. I am your glory and joy and the reason you had to suffer. I feel the tension you leave us in, it hurts, but as you break me, you comfort me.

 

The Teaching of Jesus #13

 

The Teaching: Sit in tension and mystery. Jesus came to bring peace and sword at the same time.

 

The Practice: Sit in it, don’t burry the elephant in the room. Stair at it, ponder the beast, it is part of our transformation.

 

 

 

 

 

The Parable of the Wedding Banquet

22 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

4 “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

5 “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. 6 The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.

13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

14 “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

 

Can you feel the weight of the elephant, do you see it in the room! Do you see the beauty? Do you feel the sting? This is what it means to follow Jesus. We all camp under the same stars and sun, the light is always present, even in the dark.

 

John 6

“This is a hard saying; who can listen to it…After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

 

So with Peter I say, it aloud, Lord, to whom shall I go? You have the words of eternal life, and I have believed, I have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God!