My Psalm of Exile with extended comments about my journey

A Psalm Of Exile                   Joel Usher 2010

Leaving is part of finding...
disillusionment and failed certainty
Fuel the agonizing pregnancy of desire to be free.
Free from that world of half truths and of bad "good news"
Leaving that which, in Loves name, excluded the "other"
It sometimes healed, but it sometimes smothered

The crushing yet hopeful choice to move from the familiar,
to push away from that cadence of myopic pseudo-living,
which impeded my daily breaths.
That choice....invites me into a new but ancient journey,
escaping a half-lived, partially tasted story...

But for now I'm...
In this place of in-betweens where the path behind is hardly seen
In a place. of in-betweens
Being drawn to where I've never been

Letting go is no substitute for holding on,
But it's a necessary middle place.
Hands have to be emptied in order to grasp well,
but emptiness sometimes wishes to own us,
before we grasp the life we know we were meant to loudly live

And this always seems to happen...
In this place of in-betweens
where the path behind is hardly seen
In this place of in-betweens
Being drawn to where I long to be

Sitting by the waters in this Babylon
I wont hang my harp and I won't weep
And if songs must be sung in this foreign land
Then these songs are the songs I will sing
Yes, these songs are the songs I will sing...

I'll do it, yea I'll do it...
In this place of in-betweens
where the path behind is hardly seen
In this place of in-betweens
Being drawn to where I've got to be

This poem/song of mine is not so much an inditement against any person, or even community which I belonged to, but more about a system of beliefs which I have held to with many people and groups throughout my years. So many, and most of the people in and out of these groups and systems of beliefs for me...are and were dear friends and fun people and some people who poured into my and my families lifes in deep and meaningful and playful ways....for which I have no regret or complaint. It is with a few of the toxic ways in which my faith and faith communities practiced or beliefs we were to hold to which I must disassociate with in order to feel like an honest integrated human being part of the whole family. I mean no disrespect to Scriptures as they stand alone. Nor to the over all diverse christian church with its many expressions of faith [often contradictory to one another and ever increasing in the purest form of supposed enlightnemnets within the "family"] I have had some of my best years and seen some of the most sacrificial ways of living and loving....alongside some of the worst ways. My change of mind and heart is not to throw away or exclude the rich roots of much of what I have grown up with, but to enlargen the circle of people included in Gods Love. To enlargen the possibilities of what this god might be like. To broaden the possibilities of other cultures and faith communities to be included in the pursuit of god as mysterious and as close to our breath that God might be. It is with the exclusiveness and the dogged certainty which my religion often practiced or if one pushed or questioned beyond the walls of its dogma or creed...one was seen as backsliding, or compromising or becoming wordly or worse yet unscriptural or heretical.


I am guessing that many in my old world of faith would share my disdain for our creeds about hell, pre-occupation with "spiritual" things which seem so disconnected from actual living in and with the world. With exclusiveness..... and for most these issues never come up. the remain as footnotes to our religion...as fine print which we dont spend much time with, and are willing to tolerate because of all the other rich enjoyments we get out of the other beautiful parts of the faith and community. Me too! but for those outside out circles...the footnotes are headlines....the small print is Capital ad Bold.




This is why it matters. Because it is people we are talking about.




Mothers in Iraq who bleed and hope for there children like you and I - are they going to hell? Really?




Native Americans whose land we love and live in and have done many great things with....did God really give us their land? Was it the City On A Hill and The Promised Land to Gods people escaping religious intolerance?? And when the last child was seperated from his mother so he could be properly trained as a good Christian boy and renounce his demonic voodoo religion...were we too rejoice that Gods work was getting done...his promises coming true to America? As the populations declined from the tens of millions to the tens of thousands of native Americans being exterminated in a variety of ways...either by primary or secondary causes...so that the Light and the Glory of the Columbus god dreams would come true....can we get an Amen or a Halleluia for this???




Are these the christian roots we want to fight to get back to reclaim for our heritage?




This and many other examples of how parts of our christian story have been hi-jacked and parasitized are what have made it hard for me to say I am a Christian. And at some point it becomes hard for those "outside the camp" to be able to do the hard work of figuring out "is that what Jesus would do?" as they look at us.... and they shouldn't have to work so hard to do that. And many of them think Jesus would not do or hold to that sort of doctrine/creed.




I am not talking about the fools we make of ourselves sometimes, this failings and fallings we experience as broken imperfect people.... for these we merely need to be humble about. and ask forgiveness and get up and try again.




I am talking about the core beliefs which we try to defend some of which are destructive, inhuman and fly in the face of the relentless aparantly renegade love and grace practiced by Jesus upon "sinners" which pissed off, and still pisses off some people.




The amazingness of grace seems to have stopped at the need to affirm our creed before tasting it. I think the amazingness of grace spill all over the mess of humanity and our funny attempts to understand and circumscribe God into our communities.




More to follow....[I know this sounded cynical...it probably is....still coping....don't leave me!]