Transcript of “Release The Feast” – a poem by Propaganda

This year, the 30 Hour Famine is held from today Thursday 13/3/14 until Saturday 15/3/14 and the theme is “Release The Feast”.

The theme-titled poem can be found here on my other blog and I took the liberty of transcribing it (Accuracy is 90-99% guaranteed) so even if you can’t watch the poem on video, you may still benefit from the message.

Enjoy!

Release The Feast – a poem by Propoganda

Theme for “30-Hour Famine” 2014

(Transcribed by Mar)

So when they’re closing all the curtains to convince you that it’s night time

Don’t believe ‘em

Don’t believe ‘em

And when they tell you “It’s a must have” and “You can’t live without it”

Listen

You don’t need it

You don’t need it

And when they tell you that “The Feast is full” and “The underdressed ain’t invited”

Listen

Tell them “That’s not what the King said”

He said “Release The Feast”

Don’t believe ‘em

You don’t need it

Release The Feast

Release The Feast

Took us so long to get here

And here really ain’t that special

I remember the daydreams of a preteen boy on grandmama’s porch

*[A motley crew of SUV coloured boys]*

Yelling “That’s my car!” when a nice one rolls by

Bathed in the summer Cali afternoon sunset

Heads back on the driveway

Eyes straight up into the clouds so as to drown out the smog of drug transactions we were obviously surrounded by

“One day, Imma make it”

But what is “it”?

Objects. Things. Comfort. Calm.

And it’s all to realize that “calm”

Really ain’t that calm

And that struggle is much more enjoyable

When the end they clutch more

The moment you realize you’re consumed with First World Problems like

Is it a really a party if there’s way too much food and plenty of empty chairs?

You up in there licking your fingers while there are thousands of starving stomachs

Right outside the door

This is “making it”?

This is “it”?

It’s eerie how uncomfortable it is

We get too comfortable

I mean

Are we ignoring the obvious?

Were we not blessed to be a blessing?

Can you not spare one day and 6 hours to change a lifetime?

When did we become the prodigal son’s older brother?

“Son, everything I have is yours. Just come join the party.”

Release The Feast

But you’ve “done enough” right?

Like the notion that if you accept these set of notions then your soul’s premium is secured

You searching new mountains to climb like you conquered the first one

Like that car you pointed out right?

You been saving your money right?

You “making it”

But the work of the Gospel’s not done

You’re just comfortable

Like this journey to “okayness”

That’s what we been working for

To “homeostasis”

That we mistakenly see as “peace”

Only to realize that “making it” is so anti-climactic

Because this type of “perfect” is just ain’t working

Don’t you dare close them curtains in the night time

You don’t need another object

You’re already in the party

Release The Feast

There’s no “making it”

There is no there

Because there is here

With us

We are in this together

Act like it

No comfort till we’re all in the party

Release The Feast

Release The Feast

*This part may be inaccurate

 

For the video of the poem and more details, pls visit http://30hourfamine.org/

 

Saved from the start…

Personally, I have always struggled with the story of the Prodigal Son*…why? ‘Cos I always identified myself NOT as the Prodigal Son who wished his Father dead, took his share of his Father’s possession and left home, wasted away everything he had, realised his err and returned to the Father…but as the Older Son, who always did as he was told, obedient to his Father, hardworking, good…who upon the return of his younger brother was filled with anger that his Father joyfully welcomed his brother home, and not only that, threw a HUGE party for him! While as for himself, the Father never did such for him…

IF I WAS THAT OLDER SON, I would have felt betrayed that my Father appeared to care more for my “wild” brother than me, the obedient one…unloved by my Father, who never threw any party for me unlike what the Father did when my younger brother returned…jealousy…anger…hurt… dissapointment…if being good doesn’t get me my Father’s love, maybe I should stop being good…

Maybe I should become like my brother…maybe I should sin more…in order that I can experience my Father’s love…Afterall, as is said, “…there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent…”(Luke 15:7) that when a sinner repents, God will forgive him…therefore, in order to experience God’s forgiveness, I should sin…

And that always bothered me…because I know I don’t want to sin…and yet I feel “underchanged” cos if being a sinner who repents and being good both find favor with God (perhaps even more so with the repentant sinner) might as well I do sin…

But then a friend shared during our Faith Formation last night that Mother Mary, sinless as she is, called God her SAVIOUR**.

Now if Mary, the Mother of God, unblemished, without sin acknowledges that she needed saving…who are WE to think otherwise?

The truth is, the Older Son has always been with the Father, and all that belonged to the Father belonged to him…unlike his younger brother who fell from that union with the Father, needed to be saved…the Older Son was already saved from the very beginning…saved from actually falling into sin in the first place!

Now that really gave me a whole new way to look at my life…true, while I don’t claim to be sinless, I sin less than some people…it is not about me! Instead, it is about God who saved me from falling into sin in the first place – keeping me away or making me strong enough to say NO in the face of temptations…in fact, I only very recently found out how the family found Christ when I was just a young girl (and that I wasn’t BORN into a Catholic family as I had always thought…)…I was PRE-saved from the very beginning…and after 27 years of my life, I only now realised it…WOW!

*Luke 15: 11-32

**Luke 1:47

 

Why worry?

Why worry…when God himself told us not to worry???

25″Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?

26″Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 28And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

31″So do not worry, saying, `What shall we eat?’ or `What shall we drink?’ or `What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” – Mathew 6: 25 – 34

 

The Return

Rembrandt’s “The Return Of The Prodigal Son”

Any Christian, and maybe non-Christians too (?), is sure to have come across Luke 15: 11-32, “The Parable of the Prodigal Son”

15:11

And he said, “There was a man who had two sons;

15:12
and the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that falls to me.’ And he divided his living between them.

15:13
Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took his journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in loose living.

15:14
And when he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country, and he began to be in want.

15:15
So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed swine.

15:16
And he would gladly have fed on the pods that the swine ate; and no one gave him anything.

15:17
But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger!

15:18
I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;

15:19
I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants.”‘

15:20
And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

15:21
And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

15:22
But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet;

15:23
and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry;

15:24
for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to make merry.

15:25
“Now his elder son was in the field; and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing.

15:26
And he called one of the servants and asked what this meant.

15:27
And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has received him safe and sound.’

15:28
But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him,

15:29
but he answered his father, ‘Lo, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command; yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends.

15:30
But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf!’

15:31
And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.

15:32
It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.'”

I recently realised that this parable has a personal meaning to me and thus, after much contemplation on my part, I have decided to begin this blog…

…to document the spiritual journey back to my Father’s house…

…although I never “physically” left…

(but that’s a story for another time) 😉

God Bless.

– The Prodigal Daughter