Wake up...

For weeks I have not been able to look at the news or the papers as they report what is happening in Somalia. I have wanted to - but I have been so afraid - and when I do all I can do is weep.  Lord, have mercy.

And then, damn I heard this song again... and I LOVE it so that it became a prayer and a call to me!

Everything about it speaks to this moment:

+ There is NO reason why 600,000 children have to be on the brink of starvation in the Horn of Africa.

+ There is NO good cause for the rioting in Britain.

+ There is NO sensible explanation for the collapse of cooperation in Washington.

+ There is NO way we should  STILL be destroying mother earth.

And it kept saying to me this is the time to WAKE UP:

Somethin’ filled up
my heart with nothin’,
someone told me not to cry.

But now that I’m older,
my heart’s colder,
and I can see that it’s a lie.

Children wake up,
hold your mistake up,
before they turn the summer into dust.

If the children don’t grow up,
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We’re just a million little god’s causin rain storms turnin’ every good thing to rust.

I guess we’ll just have to adjust.

With my lighnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am goin’ to be
when the reaper he reaches and touches my hand.
With my lighnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am goin’
With my lighnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am go-goin’

You better look out below!

This Sunday, as I consider the prophetic presence of God in contemporary music, Jesus' words from Matthew 16: Some Pharisees and Sadducees were on him again, pressing him to prove himself to them. He told them, "You have a saying that goes, 'Red sky at night, sailor's delight; red sky at morning, sailors take warning.' You find it easy enough to forecast the weather—why can't you read the signs of the times? An evil and wanton generation is always wanting signs and wonders. The only sign you'll get is the Jonah sign." Then he turned on his heel and walked away.

The Purple Genius also understood it was time to WAKE UP...

The poet, Scott Cairns, put it like this:
Repentance, to be sure,
but of a species far
less likely to oblige
sheepish repetition.

Repentance, you'll observe,
glibly bears the bent
of thought revisited,
and mind's familiar stamp
 - a quaint, half-hearted
doubleness that couples
all compunction with a pledge
of recurrent screw-up.

The heart's metanoia,
on the other hand, turns
without regret, turns not
so much away, as toward,

as if the slow pilgrim
has been surprised to find
that sin is not so bad
as it is a waste of time.

WAKE UP, yes?  Wake up and help:  be in touch today with Church World Service who are on the ground and bringing aid to Somalia. Check it out @ http://www.churchworldservice.org/site/PageServer

WAKE UP, please? Be in touch with ONE @ http://www.one.org/us/


WAKE UP, god dammit.  Not in guilt - not in shame or fear - but because we are ONE in the Spirit and ONE in the Lord.