Rogue Reverend

What Would Happen?

I reached into my purse today to pull out a small makeup bag with essentials like lotion and lipstick in it. I looked at the bag and realized that I’ve been looking for a makeup bag for weeks, every time I go to Target or cute makeup stores. And it hit me. I have everything I need.

So what if I just stop buying things?

For the last year, I’ve lived in two places. Inevitably, I would be at my southern home and find that I didn’t have a certain thing to wear to an event, so I’d go buy one. I would accidentally leave my dress shoes in my northern home, and need them in my southern home, so I’d replace them. And any time I bought toiletries, I’d buy 2. One for south, and one for north.

So, what if I just quit buying? I mean, of course I’d replace things that are falling apart and things that run out (like toothpaste), but nothing else. No pretties. No new outfits. No new makeup bags.

Draw it now from Eternity’s Jar by Rumi

Come, come, awaken all true drunkards!

Pour the wine that is Life itself!

O cupbearer of the Eternal Wine,

Draw it now from Eternity’s Jar!

This wine doesn’t run down the throat

But it looses torrents of words!

Cupbearer, make my soul fragrant as musk,

This noble soul of mine that knows the Invisible!

Pour out the wine for the morning drinkers!

Pour them this subtle and priceless musk!

Pass it around to everyone in the assembly

In the cups of your blazing drunken eyes!

Pass a philter from your eyes to everyone else’s

In a way the mouth knows nothing of,

For this is the way cupbearers always offer

The holy and mysterious wine to lovers.

Hurry, the eyes of every atom in Creation

Are famished for this flaming-out of splendour!

Procure for yourself this fragrance of musk

And with it split open the breast of heaven!

The waves of the fragrance of this musk

Drive all Josephs out of their minds forever!

God Takes Care

It’s not the first time in my life that I’ve known it, it’s not the first time I’ve even said it, but I’m reminded again that God takes care of fools and drunkards.

I know it’s not biblical… although there is that whole thing of Jesus healing some folks that might be considered in that category. But the Bible never says, “God takes care of fools and drunkards.”

But it should.

And when I remember, feel, discern, become aware of it, I realize, yet again, that God takes cares of fools and drunkards. As I said on twitter the other day, I’ll let you know which one of those I am.

And I am so grateful.

Prejudice

William Sloan Coffin:

As a man I consider myself at best a recovering chauvinist. As a white person I am a recovering racist, and as a straight person a recovering heterosexist. To women, African Americans, gays and lesbians, I am deeply grateful for stretching my mind, deepening my heart, and convincing me that no human being should ever be patient with prejudice at the expense of its victims.

Martin Luther King, Jr.:

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”