Sunday, April 12, 2020

Resurrection Easter Through The Covid Time



Oh Lord displace our country's hate and fear!
Please shed Your love upon all darkened hearts.
Anoint our leaders to through treachery steer
The ship of Nation-States to do their part.
Help them to recognize there's unity
In helping hands despite divisiveness.
And guide them over shoals of treachery
So they put first their citizens' distress.
And cheer our hearts with humor and with joy
And show us hope and generosity
Give leaders strength and mercy. You deploy
Forgiveness and redemption. Make us Free!
You are the resurrection and the Life
Dispel the darkness. Shine Your brilliant Light. 

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Beloved Who Fight The Plague: The Covid Time


The Plague Doctor, Edinburgh, UK circa 1650 (Carole Di Tosti)
To all who struggle in the ICUs
To all who wait for gowns and gloves and masks
To all who cry to God, "What can I do,"
To save this dying one, impossible task?
To all at home who're mournful and afraid
To all who shelter in who're bored and mad
To all who check their symptoms Covid made
To all who tested negative, so glad,
Remember all who work to save your lives
The governors whose wisdom, knowledge, care,
Uplifted you toward calm to daily strive
To love your neighbor, throw off all despair.
So maintain space between THE social grace
To ward off Death, reflect Christ's shining face.

*When I was in Edinburgh last year for the International Festival, I toured the underground streets of the Old Town. The guide brought us through the warren of dingy living quarters and featured the small spaces where the poor lived. The Bubonic Plague visited Europe then and one imagined how miserable the inhabitants of the old Old Town were as some made it through, others died and others escaped to the country where the rats didn't carry the fleas that were filled with virus. After the tour I purchased a slate tile in the museum shop with the Plague Doctor featured. The Doctor visited sick victims and did what he could in the quarantined home. He wore our equivalent of a hazmat suit covering him from top to toe. Gloves were on his hands and in the mask's beak were herbs thought to prevent him from inhaling the foul contagious air. This year of Covid 19, the 21st century plague of near robotic perfection at securing a host and multiplying to overcome the breath of life, The Plague Doctor's spirit floats once more around the globe ministering hope.

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

The Bell is Tolling Death: The Covid Time

The Plague Doctor circa 1650 Edinburgh, UK (Carole Di Tosti)*
The bell is tolling Death, oh do you hear?
Or are you deaf to others' mournful cries?
Has arrogance so driven you to jeer
And obviate the truth to welcome lies?
Then sadly you do bow to folks on high
Respect the rich, decry the poor and hate
The weak of body, vulnerable to die
Susceptible to heartless, fickle fate.
Eschew that soul sick attitude of Hell
Align yourself with Christ's Love and His Grace
For we are unified, our lives do dwell
Beneath one sky, enjoined in earth's embrace.
So when one dies, diminished are we all.
Hear the tolling bell; reject Hell's call.

*When I was in Edinburgh last year for the International Festival, I toured the underground streets of the Old Town. The guide brought us through the warren of living quarters and featured the small spaces where the poor lived. The Bubonic Plague visited Europe then and one imagined how miserable the inhabitants of the old Old Town were. After the tour I purchased a slate tile in the museum shop with the Plague Doctor featured. The Doctor visited sick victims and did what he could in the quarantined home. He wore our equivalent of a hazmat suit covering him from top to toe. Gloves were on his hands and in the mask's beak were herbs thought to prevent him from inhaling the foul, contagious air.
 




Saturday, March 28, 2020

Covid 19 Crucible: Stand in Christ


The Plague Doctor circa 1650, Edinburgh (Carole Di Tosti)*
This virus targets humans but be strong.
Christ's hollowed out our souls so He can fill
The emptiness inside that needs His song
Of Grace and Peace and Joy to do His Will.
Throw down material treasures on this plane
Throw down the castled, gem-filled pleasure domes
Embrace Christ's spiritual Love? That must obtain
To take us through this hell to reach His throne.
We live for just a blink and then we pass
Into His realms then fuse within His plan
A greater purpose learned will not surpass
The glory if upon His truth we stand.
So quarantine your hearts to worship Him
In Beauty and in Faith new life begin.

*The photograph is of a tile I purchased last August in Edinburgh after a tour of the underground streets of the old city in the 1700s. Old Edinburgh suffered through the Bubonic Plague caused by the fleas on the rats. Those with money left the filth and the vermin. Others sheltered in quarantine and rode out the disease building up immunity. Others died and their bodies burned in a trench outside the town. The Plague Doctor visited and did what he could to aid his suffering patients. The gown is the equivalent of today's hazmat suit. The mask at the tip of the beak held herbs of lavender and rosemary which relaxed the nervous doctor and focused his breathing away from the molecules that if inhaled infected him with contagion. His presence, his prayers and his attempt to decompress and guide household members to not touch the victims went a long way to mitigate others from catching what only the patient's immune system could either conquer or succumb to. With Covid 19 we have a few more therapies than this and testing, and not much more. Then as is true now, the plague was daunting until humans built up an immunity and recovered from it, additionally learning to clean up their living spaces and kill the rats that brought the flea vector.


Saturday, March 21, 2020

The Plague, March 2020


The Plague Doctor, circa Edinburgh, Old Town, 1650s
This is a holocaust for humankind!
So do you think that God is punishing
The greed, the selfish solopsistic minds
That eat the innocent devouring:
The love we hold for truth and righteousness
And peace among all races, ethnic folks?
And will this scourge bow us to self-confess?
Make us admit we've erred, God's greatest joke?
Then we will know humility and grace
That though "advanced," a toxic one-celled thing
Can fell the great and small with nar'y a trace
And flay us with extinction's death toll ring
It's in our need to kill ourselves, our kind.
Christ strengthen our Love and make the sighted blind.
 



Tuesday, December 25, 2018

Requited Love, the Message of Christmas


Replicas of Lower Manhattan, One World Trade Center, the Oculus, the Woolworth Building, and the Statue of Liberty, Palms of the World Gallery and Reflecting Pool, NY Botanical Garden Holiday Train Show 2018 (Carole Di Tosti)
It doesn't matter whether you say Merry Christmas or don't. The Christmas message is clear and it's for everyone, regardless of your religion and especially for those who profess Christianity but hypocritically deny CHRIST'S POWER to overcome fear, guilt, hate and sorrow. The message is Christ's love and forgiveness. So confess your pains and torments and guilt and shame to someone who cares for you, even if it's just yourself. And allow the perfection of Christ's Love to heal you and bring you peace this season and always..

You'll never feel the sting of shame or hate,
You'll walk in comfort and in love's sweet peace,
The Christmas message overcomes your fate
Extends your body's health and yearly lease.
The problem lies when troubles snare our mind
And doubts take charge and snuff the light of Christ
Then lower us to darkness and the grind
Of pain that nullifies His sacrifice.
The cross is empty. All His work is done.
So why allow depression and despair
To break our hearts and never overcome
The knowledge that our lives He did repair?
With Love, forgiveness, hope His message's clear
That Christmas reigns from year to year to year.

Friday, January 5, 2018

The Golden Calf and Mammon: The Lust of the Eye, The Lust of the Flesh, The Pride of Life



Moses and Joseph Bowing Before the Ark, after the Israelites' folly (painting by James Tissot, courtesy of the site)
When Moses left the Israelites with Aaron to converse with God on Mount Sinai, their faith fled. Many grumbled and complained against Moses and the God who delivered them from Pharaoh's soldiers by parting the Red Sea in a fabulous miracle. They had forgotten how the Angel of Death destroyed the first born in Egypt (including their livestock) an unheard of example of His supernatural power that not even the magicians of Egypt could duplicate. Only God has the power of life and death.

Waiting for Moses to return from Mt. Sinai, the Israelites felt abandoned. They pooled their gold, had crafted a golden calf, a tangible idol that they said was God that they could see for the purpose of worship. Meanwhile, God had just given Moses the ten commandments. Knowing the Israelites defiled themselves by substituting an inanimate object for Himself, He told Moses he would wipe the tribes out. Moses, who interceded for the Israelites, convinced God to spare them. However, Moses regretted his intercession when he saw the Israelites cavorting and reveling before the golden calf. His ire was so great, he broke the commandments, destroyed the calf, ground it into powder which he threw into water and made the Israelites drink. Then, he had the Levites, who pledged allegiance to God, slaughter 3000 men that day as a sacrifice to expiate their corruption. (The movie version of the Ten Commandments is different from the King James version of the Bible.) The Qur'an version shows a more merciful God.
The Lust of the Eye (courtesy of the site)
The scenes of Exodus foreshadow Moses as a type of Christ. Moses emerges as a compassionate negotiator for the souls of the Israelites. On the other hand, his anger against them for turning their back on God and preferring a material object they could see and touch as God, results in death. Moses' anger was a key fault that prevented him from entering into the Promised Land. Nevertheless, the symbolism of the calf is clear. God calls upon his adherents to worship by faith. By obeying Moses, God's representative, they would thrive; if they were stiff-necked, rebellious, disobedient, their lack of faith would cause their downfall. Moses' word and relationship with God was perfect. But he was an imperfect human being. Moses' anger against the Isrealites' doubt and rebelliousness on other occasions, was a flaw he could not overcome.
The Worship of Mammon by Evelyn De Morgan (courtesy of the site)
The most difficult experience for the Isrealites was having to trust Moses and live in the grace of God's miracles of remembrance. Materialistic, carnal, untrusting in their minds, their faith in God and Moses weakened, dimmed and died. The same abides for us today. When Christ said, "Blessed are they who believe and do not see," he was identifying the greatness of faith that depends not on the five senses, or the material realm or the physical world. Spiritual faith that is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things NOT SEEN is life fulfilling. It must be sought daily in the Word of God. The, the message-tie-in is clear. Worshiping, treasuring, material objects and the material realm bring misery, torment, unhappiness. And these emotions lead to self-destruction. Cupidity is a terrorist of the soul along with the lust of the eyes, the pride of life and the hungers of obsessive passion for people or things. Money, treasure, obsession never satisfies. Only spiritual wisdom brings peace and makes us whole.


The Lust of the Eye, The Lust of the Flesh, The Pride of Life

The pride of life Christ warns brings fear and doubt
Dispels one's trust in God and Holy things
And drains one's hope, creates a spiritual drought
Kills expectations that God's blessing brings.

Renewal, wholeness, peace, the majesty
To seal one's purpose, vibrant light and life
Can ne'er be ransomed from cupidity.
And covetous lust does darken Christ's pure Light..

Those who are blind and deaf and dumb to God
His mighty acts unseen in dark-bloat lives,
Do manifest the lust of flesh and trod,
The seeds of Faith and Truth. His love denied.

Oh Lord. bestow your mercy. Rent the veil
That cloaks such souls in darkness; Let Love prevail.