two giant fat people

God

and I have become

like two giant fat people living

in a tiny

boat.

We

keep bumping into

each other

and

l

a

u

g

h

i

n

g

.

+ Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafez (1320-1389)

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Thanks to Kristinn Eiriksson for these mischievous, laughing Buddhas!

let's burn the bible

I think it’s time we burned the Bible.  Fred Phelps uses the Bible to say that God hates fags and that the U.S war casualties are God’s revenge for our country’s permissive culture.  The Rev. Terry Jones in Gainesville, FL threatened to burn the Quran because he says that the God of the Bible tells him that Islam is the Devil.  For nearly two millennia there have arisen groups of Christians, many of them mainstream, which have found in the Gospels warrant to eradicate Jews.  It’s time to call a stop to it.  It’s time to recognize the evil contained in this book.  I say, it’s time to burn the Bible!

Now, of course, I have no intentions of burning the Bible.  I have a deep, abiding love for the scriptures.  To this day, when I hold the Bible in my hands, its sacredness makes me tremble.  I can never think of the Bible except I think that through it God is calling me to be more than I am.  The Bible coaxes me to forgive, to love my neighbor and even my enemy, to do unto others as I would have them do unto me, to trust in the loving presence of God through whom all things are possible and through whom I may live and move and have my being.  None of these things come naturally.  Be I alone, they are beyond me.  The sacred scriptures are one instrument by which God intends to make more of me than I am.  Burning the Bible would incinerate my soul, for it would be to deny God’s claim on me.

The scriptures of every religious tradition create such responses.  The Quran of Islam, the Torah of Judaism, the Sutras of Buddhism – and all the others, too–are holy.  To burn any of them is an unthinkable atrocity. Nonetheless, the scriptures of most traditions have been marshaled for terrible purposes; certainly the Bible and the Quran have.  The scriptures of every tradition call their followers beyond themselves, beyond their own possibilities, beyond and their own greed and self-centeredness, beyond their fear and prejudice.  But these human failings are nothing if they are not enduring, inventive and seductive.  Our most egregious human instincts, given half a chance, will trick us into believing that our scriptures call us to hatred, condemnation and vengeance.  It’s enough to make you want to burn the books – until you remember that the books would call us to be better than we are.  It is our sin, if you will, that gives voice to our worst selves.

So, let’s not burn the Bible, or the Quran, or any other holy book.  Indeed, let us remind ourselves that, as the Bible would say it, the very idea comes from that within us which is corrupt, not from God.

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Thanks to Dudley Rose, Associate Dean for Ministry Studies at Harvard Divinity School, for this provocative post and to Bogdan Bârlea for the picture of this beautiful Bible.

arise

The voice of my beloved!  

Look, my love comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills.

Look, my love is standing behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice.  

My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.  The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.  The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away." + Song of Songs 2: 8-13

God of figs and flowers in bloom, let us fall in love with you, and with your world, again and again.  Slow us down.  Quicken our hearts.  Guide us into your great Sabbath of love, rest, and delight.

+++++

Thanks to Carolyn for this 'love'ly shot!  And, remember, you're all invited to keep Sabbath with SALT during the month of August.  Can't you hear God calling, "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away!" Shall we?

the seed of god

The seed of God is in us.

Given an intelligent

and hardworking farmer,

it will thrive and grow

up into God, whose seed

it is; and accordingly its

fruits will be God-nature.

Pear seeds grow into

pear trees, nut seeds

into nut trees, and

God seeds into God.

+ Meister Eckhart 

Dear God, make us intelligent, hardworking farmers, one to another.  Let us grow into our true nature.  Challenge us.  Nourish us.  Thrive in us, and let us thrive in you.  Amen.

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Thanks to Geoff Quinn for these beautiful, farmer's market pears!

delight

"I never knew gardening could be such a restorative and healing exercise. My mother's garden seemed like a chore — something we had to tend to before we could have fun. 

But now I have my own garden and I find that I can sit for hours gently pulling weeds here, thinning things out there, and delighting in how dirty my little ones get digging in the warmth of the sun.  

As sure as God turns mourning into dancing, this particular chore has been turned into pure delight."

Tell us: what gives you delight?

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Thanks to Zoe Krohne for her delightful words and to Holly Wolsey Soper for the cherry tomatoes.  Both word and image were submitted through "a thousand words."