Community of the Risen

just when

i

think

the world is going bad

i see a

thousand monks.

walking down a

road

against injustice.

This article about the situation in Afghanistan is one of the main reasons that America has had so little success in the middle east. A resurgence of the Taliban along the Afghanistan border (many think they are operating out of Pakistan) has placed a stranglehold on Western objectives in Afghanistan. The war in Iraq has pushed our assets mostly to another country, and we do not even have enough resources to provide security to fix a dam and other domestic projects of the Afghani people. How can we ever win their hearts and minds?

This morning I sit in the cold morning air. It hangs over me.

When I sit in the confines of Azusa Pacific, even in the cold air, I feel safe. This is why graduation seems so scary and so far away. How am I supposed to find a job in the real world, with real people, and real ideas? I have been thinking in the theoretical for so long that I am not sure I can do it.

I have been thinking about a lot of things lately.

(1) Why is the Christian church so mediocre?

(2) Why do we care so much about our jobs?

(3) Why do we let what we do define us?

(4) Why are we so scared of dying?

Whenever I read about war I get depressed.

Last night I read about Vietnam. The part that stuck with me the most was not the number of dead, or that when John Kerry came home he felt like he didn’t belong, but the unspeakable sadness of misunderstanding. Americans, and the western world altogether, simply did not understand Vietnam.

And it doesn’t worry me because it happend in the past, it worries me because it is still happening today. We are fighting a country full of people we do not understand. Westmoreland, during the Vietnam Era, thought that he could outlast and destory the enemy by a deadly bloodsucking war of attrition. But he couldn’t.

Because you can’t destroy an idea.

You can’t destroy the Vietnamese hope for freedom.

You can’t understand just how much a man is willing to lose so that he is free. Not some American version of democracy, but really, and truly, free. How can we wear down a terrorist when he believes he is fighting for freedom? How can we wear down an idea? How can we wear down hope?

America likes microwaves. But microwaves won’t fix the middle east.

an earthquake

hit

a town

in

indonesia

            my heart

            flutters

            like a bird

the people

run

for high

ground

to escape the pain

            my mind

            flutters

            like a cage

but as they run

they find the grace

that many never taste

the grace

to live another day

the grace

to fine the skies so large

so high

so blue

and nothing is better

than living

just one more day

on the green earth

with green plants

in a new spring

of the mind

the electric Bell rings from a new stone tower

   signaling the hour

      to passing students

the hairy hunchback from Notre Dame

   his head hung low

      for he is out of a job

the electric lights go from

   green to red

      the covered cars carry us out of

         Notre Dame

            to nebulous new worlds

            with a dream that never came

and i

                                 don’t believe

      that electricity

            can bring salvation

like a hole

   in a dam

or a  

   wolf and a lamb

                                                                        it

just doesn’t seem right

the electric bell rings from the new stone tower

   red to green

      signaling the hour

         to covered cars that

            carry us

the hairy hunchback from Notre Dame

goes to nebulous new worlds

through the hole in the dam

past the wolf and the lamb

to a land full of colors

where liberty bells are uncracked

and life in a land where no one lacks

a thing.

It

is Notre Dame

a scared place

remove my shoes.

take the ladder to heaven

I see angels.

And jesus.

A vision only now for the imagination.

“But they had no motive,” said Dr. Hale. 

He was speaking of Zheng He.  In the fifteenth century, Zheng He, a Chinese explorer, had a fleet of a hundred ships—dwarfing any European fleet of the day. 

“But when push came to shove the emperor of China put internal security as a higher priority than exploration.” 

I wonder sometimes if Zheng He ever wondered what was around the Cape of Good Hope.  Did he take a new day job after coming back?  What could possibly be better than the walls of mist in the morning with no land around you?  What could be better than a world of constant exploration? 

And I find myself in Zheng He.  I don’t want to have job working construction on the Great wall of China. 

the trumpet player was from

   korea

the saxophone player from

columbia

and they played in the band

which was THE WORLD

the bass player  play from

                     puerto rico

with a drummer             from

      denmark

and they played in a band

which spanned THE WORLD

but I couldn’t understand the rhythm

   i couldn’t find my soul

      so lost in democracy

         globalization seemed like anarchy

            the isolated idiots from illinois

               would not join the band

               which was the world

               content to watch the third world

               play

               a tune of sorrow and joy

               which runs through all the rivers

               and all the towns

               where the band plays

                  their songs of juxtaposition

and i wish you could hear

                                                it

because it is so hard to explain

to the western world

   with their headphones and windshields

      to listen to the humming of the bass

         from puerto rico

in the open fields

and the black hills

under blue skies

and a canopy of white

the trumpet player was not from

   korea

for he was a player in the band

which is the world

for i only hear the sound he makes

   which is beauty

      in the band

         that is the world

i have a million reasons

why

i have not been blogged

lately

time is always a factor

i spent the summer in jersey

working with inner-city

children.

but i hope now to find time

to post

more of my life

on this site

i hope to find hope

in what i write

but it does not always happen

but sometimes it does

but sometimes i just feel cleansed

after i write

and that is enough.