famine psalm

We wrote psalms in church last night. This is mine.

Father in heaven, I have a matter to raise with you.
I read it on the guardian online this week, and I know you did too.
It concerns the land of Kenya, a place that is near my heart,
And I know that you and I share a love for its people.

As you will be aware, without the help of the guardian,
there has been no rain,
and much of East Africa is in the grip of drought.

The land has dried up and hardened,
The earth is warped and cracked.
The riverbeds run dry,
And no water is found in the well.

The trees are shrivelled like driftwood,
No grass, no leaves, nothing green.

The dogs lie panting in the shade,
And the goats stagger in the sun.
The cattle drop to their knees in the wasteland.
Their bleached bones lie white in the sand.
The sheep are led out to graze and find only dust,
And the wind throws it back in their faces.

How much worse it is for the people,
Who know of cities and supermarkets,
Who have seen in movies and magazines,
McDonalds and KFC.

God, how is it that I can choose from a thousand places to eat, while others scratch among the rocks?
How is this fair? How is this right? God, where is your justice?
It makes me angry, and yet, I am angry that I am not angrier.
I am familiar with the images of famine.
The starving children no longer move me.
I am saddened at how de-sensitised I have become,
Even when disaster strikes a place I know and love.
Lord move me, break me, show me what I must do,
For I feel so powerless in the face of such a system.

But I digress. For Kenya Lord, send rain.
Send a harvest.
And until then, Lord, send food,
with honest distribution and good government.
Aid with no conditions, a gift to those who can give nothing in return.
Stir up those who have to provide for those who have nothing.

And again Lord, send rain, and revive the land.
Coax grass from the desert plains
And fields of maize from the windswept hills.

Bring life from the dust,
for you are a God who specialises in life out of death.

Hear my prayer Lord, from this your well-fed servant,
and feed the hungry.

article: killer drought threatens east africa
article: only god knows how we will survive

Ice sculpture

The Snow Show

The mad farmer liberation front

In everything I read at the moment there seems to be a quote from Wendell Berry. Has anyone read any?
This is something of his that I liked:

The mad farmer liberation front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.


So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.


Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.


Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?


Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

subverting the empire

I'm reading this at the moment. Here are a couple of quotes I liked.

''Dreams, by definition, are supposed to be unique and imaginative. Yet the bulk of the population is dreaming the same dream. It's a dream of wealth, power, fame, plenty of sex and exciting recreational opportunities' When a whole population dreams the same dream, empire is triumphant.'

'Even in a post-modern world, the human mind continues to think in terms of stories, and naturally seeks to order experience, looks for explanations of sequences of events, is attracted to dramas. There is, if you will, a narrative quality to human experience. In allowing ourselves to adopt and be adopted by a particular story, we are in fact assuming a set of practices which will shape the way we relate to our world and destiny.'

I'd never made the link between idolatry and imagination before, but in the modern context you can see how this plays out - we take on the dreams of the idol of consumerism, and we cannot imagine any other way things could be.