Monday, February 23, 2009

Who you gonna get when all the slaves are free...

Tomorrow - MARDI GRAS - we'll start another round of practice/jams both to get ready for an up-coming TV show and the heart of this year's contemporary music worship on Good Friday. For some reason it feels like this song by Toad the Wet Sprocket...


We've got a hot little line up including Joni Mitchell's "Passion Play" as well as Chumbawumba's "Jacob's Ladder," Belle and Sebastian's "We Rule the School," an original upbeat song about peace as well as U2's "Mysterious Ways." (Probably Nanci Griffith's "Hard Life" and U2's "Dirty Day" along with some Taize, too, with "Pride in the Name of Love" to bring things to a close.) Probably Toad, too.

My sense of this year's Good Friday has something to do with the blessing amidst the darkness. John O'Donohue said it like this in the poem, "Bennacht" which is Gaelic for blessing.


I love this poem and one of the things that is becoming clear is that even in the worst darkness there can be a new light. Like this symbol from the Celtics for anam cara - soul friends - who help one another reclaim the light amidst the darkness.
The ancient prayer for the Easter Vigil on the Saturday before the Feast of the Resurrection says: O Happy fault, on necessary sin of Eve and Adam, that gained for us so great a redeemer! Not that it was God's plan for creation to suffer pain and alienation, but rather even in the midst of our mistakes the One who is Holy can bring us out of the darkness into the Light.
St. Paul got it right when he cried: We believe that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (NOTE: and let us say those who are in God's love) for we know that in everything God works good for those who love God and are called according to God's purposes.
And so I look forward to Mardi Gras - band practice especially - but also the start of a blessed and holy Lent.

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