Talking Life and Death

It's change that's radical

chasm-hopping

death-bearing 

change

Behavioral-fluff and trite words

are many

when truth's underground

and all shadows thrown down

neath the eclipsing sun

The pollution of applause

smothers moral issues

for popularity and appeal

The hanging tree bears flowers

unable to hide its fruit

a fruit souring mouths

born from toxic hearts

smelling of righteous offal

rising from the thrones of the just

We're talking life and death

cases of the accused of the land

reflectors of our inner life

of us who haven't been caught

*Reflections of Alan Jones:

-The doctrine of the Trinity speaks to our basic need to be able to say I and We at the same time.

-This truth is expressed in the central act of Christian worship, the Eucharist.  There is only one bread.  Thus each bit of consecrated bread is not a piece or part of the Body of Christ (as if we had to gather all the bits together in order to make up the whole Christ).  No - each piece of bread is the bearer, sacramentally, of the whole Christ.  In the same way the Church is not a federation or consortium of isolated congregations, the fullness of which is only expressed in great gatherings of the World Council of Churches or at the Vatican Council.  The fullness of the Church as the Body of Christ is present where two or three are gathered together.

-When it comes to more intimate personal relations, the Trinity speaks to the structure of love itself.  Love, to be love, requires both union and identity. The lovers seek to be united, but in such a way that each remains his or her unique person.  Indeed there is a tenderness and deference in true love concerning the separateness and uniqueness of the other.  The question is, "How can you and I be totally one, and at the same time honor the special and glorious differences between us - those things which make you you and me me?"  The doctrine of the Holy and Undivided Trinity (as torturous as it seems to some) is a paradigm of loving.  It shows us first that we are loved; and second, how to love in such a way that unity and identity are perfectly balanced.

-"How true it is that mutual help and delight are without prejudice to distinctness" (Thomas Aquinas)