E.V. Hill and the Soul of Los Angeles

imageThe city still cries for another like Pastor Hill to speak truth in the City of Angels. For over forty years he served the Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist church in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles and never drew back from proclaiming righteousness. To learn more about the heart of a true man of God, a good primer is the sermon he preached at his beloved Baby’s funeral. Set aside a few minutes and soak it in…you will be changed.

For the visual generation, here is a good starter link on Youtube:

Psalm 43 – Send Forth Your Light and Truth

image Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell.

Then will I go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God. (vv 3-4)

The Psalmist groans in the face of continued persecution, much as he did in psalm 42. [N.B. Psalm 42 and 43 form a single prayer unit and should be read together.] He begs to be restored into an audience with Yahweh who he will praise. The hope that colors this brief prayer applies now as it did then; praise does not require peace. Praising God requires the long view. We must look beyond our immediate circumstances, whether morass or exultation, and know that in the eternal blueprint that God has for the world he works all things for good.

Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. (v 5)

 

Image Walt Jabsco

No Invitation to Abortion Party

At Alternet:

“Have you guys heard the news?” Maggie (name changed) unwrapped the scarf from around her neck and patted her flat belly. “Preggers.” It was around 30 degrees outside, and her cheeks were splashed pink from the Indiana wind.

She had discovered earlier that week, after missing a period and taking the test. “I kind of knew already. My boobs and my lower back have been killing me for a while.” She shrugged.

My girlfriend Ali and I exchanged a surprised look. Our forks, dotted with pasta sauce, dangled identically, flaccidly, in our hands. She was quicker than me to gain her composure, and turned to address her best friend.

“What are you going to do?” Unnecessary question, really — a conversational life vest, used when you’re sputtering for something to say. We knew the answer. Maggie, a 22-year-old college senior with no intention of bringing a child into the world yet, was going to have an abortion. She told us that she had already made up her mind; she had even determined the time, date and location. A better question might have been, “How are you going to pay for it?”

She answered that one before we had a chance to ask. “We’re having a party Friday to raise money,” Maggie said. “You guys are obviously invited.”

An abortion party. For the price of whatever we were willing to donate, she explained, we could partake of baked goods, beer and dancing.

Dark, crushing depression envelopes me as I realize how deeply crass depraved and disconnected from the sanctity of life our culture has become. Two things strike you immediately; Maggie’s vacuous indifference to the life within her and the celebration-of-impending-death mindset that would lead people to hold a rave in its honor. Pray for these people.

Bear Flag Revolt 2009

image Though I’ve lived in Colorado for 23 years, I remain a Californio at heart. To see the depths to which the Golden State has sunk is depressing. The once flourishing land of infinite promise which lured seekers for decades has become a moribund captive to the legislative Meerkat band that is systematically destroying the core of the state and whose rapaciousness is matched only by certain especially virulent strains of the plague. California has become divided into roving hordes of special interests who, by the very definition of the term, care nothing for the ideals and desires of the other. As is their privilege, these groups elect the pirates in Sacramento expecting them to remember that the elect are beholden to them. Divisions become deeper, battle lines are drawn, and the order for no retreat is passed along the line.

The 1846 Bear Flag Revolt was an uprising against despotism and oppression, a condition that the current residents can easily identify with. Perhaps its time for a repeat stand against the tyranny of those elected to represent but who take the election as a mandate to rule. A clean house should be restored in Sacramento and perpetual embarrassments on the national stage like Waxman, Boxer, Pelosi, and Feinstein sent home. All of this can be done by people in the same tranquility that marked the first rebellion, by the use of their vote. As the first president of the California Republic, William Ide, said “Choose ye this day what you will be!” Free men and women restoring the luster of the Golden State or servants to the plutocracy.

image

xxx

Psalm 42 – My Soul Thirsts for God

image

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? (vv 1-2)

Being oppressed by the enemies of God is a theme that abounds within the Psalter. The purpose of the repetition is to give voice to the question that continues to nag us to this day; where is God as trouble closes in around us. Has He abandoned us, do we no longer enjoy His favor? Foolish thoughts, but thoughts we must admit to entertaining.

To fill our minds with the joy of our moments of worship brings comfort and a reminder that God does not forget us. We can be assured that He is always near and worthy of our hope and belief.

These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng. (v4)

Meditation on this truth brings the psalmist and us to the same conclusion:

Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God , for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. (v5)

The oppression and suffering that the psalmist refers to is not of the random type. He recognizes that God’s hand has allowed it, if not brought it upon him. His allusion to the flow from above that washes over him.

Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. (v7)

The ultimate goodness of God’s totality does not escape him. Ultimately and despite current suffering, praise is the only response to the hand of God.

By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life. (v8)

 

Image bjmccray

Contemplating Creation

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. (Ps 19:1)

image Returning to Evelyn Underhill’s Practical Mysticism she suggests that one interested in beginning the spiritual discipline of meditation start “with that first form of contemplation which the old mystics sometimes call the ‘the discovery of God in his creatures.’” Meditating on creation is a contemplative form that lends itself to practice at any moment during the day when you can view the world around you. By focusing on His creation from its grandest examples such as the Sierra Nevada or the Grand Canyon to its most minute in the tiny flowers of the Verbena. You seek to encounter God through the glory proclaimed in all that he created, in whatever form it takes. Allow yourself to meditate on the symmetry of the flower, at the wonder of its shape and color. From the tiny stamens your meditation can move to reflect on the thousands and thousands of types and colors of flower in the creation and glory at the creative mind that brought them all to life. Your soul will find its humility and allow you to commune even closer with your Father.

Meditation and Recollection

image “So slothful, however, is man in all that concerns his higher faculties, that few deliberately undertake this education at all. They are content to make their contacts with things by a vague, unregulated power, ever apt to play truant, ever apt to fail them.”  Evelyn Underhill – Practical Mysticism

The meditative process known in Christian circles as recollection is simple to understand. It is time that you will devote solely to becoming still and silent through intentional action. Taking your thoughts captive into silence is an effort of the will to keep the senses in check and not allow them to stray off onto different avenues. All of the contemplative focus is limited to a single subject, the love of God.

Foster describes the Quaker practice of ‘centering down’, a part of the Quaker meeting practices. The worshiper begins by placing the palms down as a physical indication of one’s desire to give over your concerns to God. The palms down position releases the concern. If you wish to receive from the Lord, the position is reversed with the palms up. The practice continues until you released everything within you and are prepared to commune with the Lord. The centered mind can enter the silence of that communion.

Teresa of Avila was a proponent of these focusing exercises, practicing them daily. She explain that the practice is called “recollection because the soul collects together all the faculties and enters within itself to be with God.” (The Way of Perfection) It may sound mystical but it is not. The disciplines are meant for all people of the Lord and He will grace us with the gifts and abilities necessary for their practice. All we have to do is ask.

 

Image by Keraoc

Dexter Fowler = Garry Maddox?

image

Ralph Kiner once said “Two-thirds of the earth is covered by water. The rest is covered by Garry Maddox.” Rox phenom Dexter Fowler displays the same effortless ability to cover the gargantuan expanse of the Coors outfield. He has speed and fantastic defensive ability and, one of these days, his bat is going to catch up to his other skills. Not only is he a good guy, he can take a throw off the bill of his helmet from about 10 feet away. One piece of the Rockies resurgence.