Joanie Brings Hope

Because my natural bent is Debbie Downer
You know—worst case scenario and all that,
I tend to draw the breath and life out of an already sad situation

Here comes Joanie, auntie from the south
And like my son, she talks of hope and turning things around,
Looking for the proverbial silver lining

It’s a God thing—a sign of His grace and mercy in our life
That He sent us this gift from Jackson
Bearing gifts and collard greens and hope.

- Nancy Perkins

Justice?

An expression of my thoughts as my son struggles to right a wrong.

An unjust confrontation

revealing man in his true form

giving for one brief moment

insight into how injustice feels

has now turned around

doubled back and become a second wound

evil came and had his way

and great havoc has been wrought

and here is the innocent

at the threshold of his glorious moment

shut down and made to look like sin

turning the truth into a lie

with motivation of the deepest purity

to help provide for those dear to him

he persevered and worked his future

in spite of numerous obstacles—he ran

and now

was it for naught

it can’t be so

injustice cannot have the last word

-Nancy Perkins 

May 2011

Insane Love

The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell

It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell

The guilty pair bowed down with care God gave his Son to win

His erring child He reconciled and pardoned from his sin.

Could we with ink the ocean fill and were the sky of parchment made

Were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade

To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry

Nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky.

Oh love of God how rich and pure how measureless and strong

It shall forever more endure, the saints and angels song.

- Frederick M Lehman

The lyr­ics are based on the Jew­ish poem Had­da­mut, writ­ten in Ara­ma­ic in 1050 by Meir Ben Isaac Ne­hor­ai, a can­tor in Worms, Ger­ma­ny. It is said that the second stanza of this song was found written on the wall of an inmate in an insane asylum, after he had been carried to his grave.

Before I opened my eyes this morning the words of this song were flowing through my head. I lay there and repeated them to myself several times with a smile.

How has the western Christian world wandered so far from this amazing reality? Last night I was reading Evolving in Monkeytown by Rachel Held Evans, and as I read her musings about John’s vision on the lone island, I was moved to tears—even as I sit here now, my eyes fill up and I could very quickly melt again.

I’m not sure what the copyright rules are, but I have to share this, with credit to Rachel Held Evans:

…I wondered what exactly John saw and heard to convince him that the kingdom of God includes people from every nation, tribe, people, and language, people from the north and the south and the east and the west. I imagined that he must have seen women wearing glorious red, green and gold saris beneath their white robes. He must have seen voluminous African headdresses of every shape and color. He must have seen the turquoise jewelry of the Navajo, the rich wool of the Peruvians, the prayers shawls of the Jews. He must have seen faces of every shade and eyes of every shape. He must have seen orange freckles and coal-colored hair and moonlike complexions and the lovely flash of brilliant white teeth against black skin. He must have heard instruments of all kinds—bagpipes and lutes and dulcimers and banjos and gongs. He must have heard languages of every sound and cadence, melodies of every strain and rhythms of every tempo. He must have heard shouts of praise to Elohim, Allah, and Papa God, shouts in Farsi and Hindi, Tagalog and Cantonese, Gaelic and Swahili, and in tongues long forgotten by history. And he must have seen the tears of every sadness—hunger and loneliness, sickness and loss, injustice and fear, tsunami and drought, rape and war—acknowledged and cherished and wiped away. In one loud and colorful moment, he must have witnessed all that makes us different and all that makes us the same.

Last evening I read this aloud to my youngest daughter. It’s what I want her to know about God. This is the Good News of the Gospel that changed my life. That compels me to keep on and to resist the forces around me that would try to turn me against the different and keep me in a small confining box. This is the truth I want her to take in her heart to her college campus. This is what I want her to remember when she encounters the superficial and the counterfeit. God’s love is measureless and strong. It’s extravagant and lavish. And it’s present along side all the hurt and pain and injustice and evil, and it wins. Not just in the end, but now. It wins our hearts. It makes us compassionate and kindhearted. It gives us the strength and courage to fight injustice and bigotry, and to be peacemakers. And it’s the only truth that will forevermore endure.

The love of God is greater far…