Month: March 2015

Prepare for Joy: Before It Sours

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seedy

cherrybuds

hooterjasmine

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –         
   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;         
   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush         
   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush         
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.         

What is all this juice and all this joy?         
   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,         
   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,         
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,         
   Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.        
~Gerard Manley Hopkins  “Spring”
Once we were innocent, now no longer.  Cloyed and clouded by sin.
Given a choice, we chose sour over the sweetness we were born to,
giving up walks together in the cool of the day
to feed an appetite never sated.
So Christ made a choice to win us back with His blood
as if we were worthy of Him.
He says we are.  He dies to prove it.
Every day I try to believe it can be sweet again.
grapehyacinth
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homerroll2

Prepare for Joy: Took Flesh and Flew

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morningswans
Out of the shame of spittle,
the scratch of dirt,
he made an anointing.

Oh, it was an agony-the gravel
in the eye, the rude slime, the brittle
clay caked on the lid.

But with the hurt
light came leaping; in the shock and shine,
abstracts took flesh and flew;

winged words like view and space,
shape and shade and green and sky,
bird and horizon and sun,

turned real in a man’s eye.
Thus was truth given a face
and dark dispelled and healing done.
~Luci Shaw  “The Sighting” John 9 from God for Us-Rediscovering the Meaning of Lent and Easter

 

Blinded I am by clinging to my finite understanding. I resist digging deeper than necessary in order to get by each day, skimming the surface of existence to avoid getting down and dirty.  But He doesn’t allow the easy way of darkness to continue.

He smears me with mortal mud made of His spit — essentially soiling my soul — and only then can I see His truth when opening my eyes.

The dark dispelled, winged words turned real.

No longer blind, I stare afresh, pondering the Face of Truth through muddy lashes.

Prepare for Joy: An Unlovely Thorn

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berrysprout

 

Christ … is a thorn in the brain.
Christ is God crying I am here,
and here not only in what exalts and completes and uplifts you,
but here in what appalls, offends, and degrades you,
here in what activates and exacerbates all that you would call not-God.
To walk through the fog of God
toward the clarity of Christ is difficult
because of how unlovely,
how ungodly that clarity often turns out to be.
~Christian Wiman from Image Journal “Varieties of Quiet”

We spent over 20 hours traveling yesterday, through two train stations, finding a crowded bus shuttle on the streets of New York City, then passing through four airports, enduring one cancellation and another delay.  It was a painfully difficult trial of endurance, something so ungodly and unlovely after experiencing wonderfully clarifying and nurturing visits with beloved family members.

Yet we made it home despite the long lines, the packed planes and trains, the noise, the security pat downs, the overpriced everything, the sea of humanity everywhere.

We would endure anything in order to be together with family — Christ endured so much more to bring us into His family, declaring “I am here for you!”   He leads us through the fog to come home to Him — even though the process may be appalling, offensive, degrading, and requiring painful endurance.

We are home, clearly one of His family.

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Prepare for Joy: Regard for the Truth

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…one can never wrestle enough with God
if one does so out of pure regard for the truth.
Christ likes us to prefer truth to him because,
before being Christ, he is truth.
If one turns aside from him
to go toward the truth,
one will not go far
before falling into his arms.
~Simone Weil

Shall I wrestle with an angel to hold on to the ephemeral and grasp the truth? Shall the angel leave His mark upon me, will I bear it in humility?   Shall I seek the truth knowing the comfort of being wrapped in His arms forever?

Prepare for Joy: Wounds Undressed

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sunsetcoastalrange

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Out into the sun,
After the frightful operation.
She lies back, wounds undressed to the sun,
To be healed,
Sheltered from the sneapy chill creeping North wind,
Leans back, eyes closed, exhausted, smiling
Into the sun. Perhaps dozing a little.
While we sit, and smile, and wait, and know
She is not going to die.
~Ted Hughes from “March Morning Unlike Others

Winter, that dying to self, is last summer’s fruit lying rotted when once it was sweet and firm. There seems no hope, no chance of life renewed, only gaping wounds covered and festering.

Mysterious and unexpected, the sun breaks through the clouds, the breezes hint of warmth and blossom scent, the birds dare to sing, the stone rolls back a crack, allowing the light to flood in where darkness once reigned.

We wait and know our wounds will be opened, cleaned and healed; there is no death this day, only beginnings, no more death forever, only life everlasting.

Prepare for Joy: Two Moments

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“There are two moments that matter. One is when you know that your one and only life is absolutely valuable and alive. The other is when you know your life, as presently lived, is entirely pointless and empty. You need both of them to keep you going in the right direction. Lent is about both. The first such moment gives you energy and joy by connecting you with your ultimate Source and Ground. The second gives you limits and boundaries, and a proper humility, so you keep seeking the Source and Ground and not just your small self.”

~Richard Rohr from Wondrous Encounters

So much of Lent is about facing our limitations, our finite capacity and our original grounding in dust.  We find ourselves wanting to shake off our dusty beginnings to reach for the infinite and transcendent since we are neither until He grabs hold and pulls us up.

We seek to do what we are created to do — be watchful, be receptive, be prayerful, be more than dust.   We do what we can: be ready for the offered Hand.

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Prepare for Joy: A Breath of Fresh Air

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freezingrain

wwu6121813

 

I am a breath
Of fresh air for you, a change
By and by.

Black March I call him
Because of his eyes
Being like March raindrops
On black twigs.

(Such a pretty time when the sky
Behind black twigs can be seen
Stretched out in one
Uninterrupted
Cambridge blue as cold as snow.)

But this friend
Whatever new names I give him
Is an old friend. He says:

Whatever names you give me
I am
A breath of fresh air,
A change for you.
~Stevie Smith from “Black March”

Life is not a matter of creating a special name for ourselves, but of uncovering the name we have always had.~Richard Rohr

He knows me, and calls my name when I least expect  it, when I am in despair, alone, grieving.  Only then do I know Him and in naming Him, am changed. Together, our voices are a breath of fresh air.

plumblossoms20152

plumblossoms20151

Prepare for Joy: Even Darkness Must Pass

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J.R.Tolkien's writing desk at the Wade Center at Wheaton College
J.R.Tolkien’s writing desk at the Wade Center at Wheaton College

It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass.”

~J.R.Tolkien

When we feel overwhelmed, when it seems all is in shadow, we know we are part of a great story and the plot progression is a mystery.   We are promised light and joy at the end, no question about it.  We pass through the shadows and the darkness will pass through us.

 

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Prepare for Joy: Waiting to be Filled

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irisinnard

The call came in the middle of a busy night
as we worked on a floppy baby with high fever,
a croupy toddler whose breathing squeezed and squeaked,
a pale adolescent transfusing due to leukemia bleeding.

It was an anencephalic baby just born, unexpected, unwanted
in a hospital across town, and she needed a place to die.

Our team of three puzzled how to manage a baby without a brain–
simply put her in a room, swaddled, kept warm but alone?
Hydrate her with a dropper of water to moisten her mouth?
Offer her a taste of milk?

She arrived by ambulance, the somber attendants
leaving quickly, unnerved by her mewing cries.

I took the wrapped bundle and peeled away the layers
to find a plump full term baby, her hands gripping, arms waving
once freed;  just another newborn until I pulled off her stocking cap
and looked into an empty crater — only a brainstem lumped at the base.

Neither textbook pictures nor cruel jokes about frog babies had prepared me
for the wholeness, the holiness of this living, breathing child.

Her forehead quit above the eyebrows with the entire skull missing,
tufts of soft brown hair fringed her perfect ears, around the back of her neck.
Her eyelids puffy, squinting tight, seemingly too big
above a button nose and rosebud pink lips.

She squirmed under my fingers, her muscles strong, breaths coming steady
despite no awareness of light or touch or noise.

Yet she cried in little whimpers, mouth working, seeking,
lips tentatively gripping my fingertip. A bottle warmed,
nipple offered, a tentative suck allowing tiny flow,
then, amazing,  a gurgling swallow.

Returning every two hours, more for me than for her,  I picked her up
to smell the salty sweet scent of amnion still on her skin as she grew dusky.

Her breathing weakened, her muscles loosened, giving up her grip
on a world she would never see or hear or feel to behold
something far more glorious, as I gazed
into her emptiness, waiting to be filled.

Prepare for Joy: Through the Open Door

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the wardrobe from C.S. Lewis' childhood home built by his grandfather, later to serve as his inspiration for "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" in his home "The Kilns" at Oxford. Now at the Marion Wade Center at Wheaton College, Illinois
the wardrobe built by C.S. Lewis’ grandfather that served as his inspiration for “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” — it first stood in his childhood home and later in his home “The Kilns” at Oxford. Now part of the C.S. Lewis collection at the Marion Wade Center at Wheaton College, Illinois

“We do not take responsibility for people disappearing.”

This is no mere piece of furniture;
Enchantment hangs within
Among the furs and cloaks
Smelling faintly of mothballs.

Touch the smooth wood,
Open the doors barely
To be met with a faint cool breeze~
Hints of snowy woods and adventure.

Reach inside to feel smooth soft furs
Move aside to allow dark passage
Through to another world, a pathway to
Cherished imagination of the soul.

Seek a destination for mind and heart,
A journey through the wardrobe,
Navigate the night path to reach a
Lit lone lamp post in the wood.

Beaming light as it shines undimmed,
A beacon calling us home, back home
Through the open door, to step out transformed,
No longer lost or longing, now found and filled.

lewiswardrobe