Category: church

Afraid Our Words Will Not Be Heard

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…And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
~Audre Lorde from “A Litany for Survival”

We are all here so briefly, just trying to survive.

Although designed to live forever,
we are fallen,
running the clock out as long as we can.

Just one day more, we say. Give us just one more.

From the first, there has been struggle –
the pain of our birth, the cry of our laboring mother,
then feeding and protection of our children,
keeping them safe from the bombs of war
and the ravages of disease,
followed by weakening of our frail aging bodies.

If there is a reason for all this (and there is):
life’s struggles redeem us.

Heaven knows,
each life means something to God,
each death echoes His sorrow.

We fear we fail to make a difference
in such a short time.
So we speak.
Hear our voices.
Just one day more, Lord.
Please – one day more.

Tomorrow we’ll discover
What our God in Heaven has in store
One more dawn
One more day
One day more…
~from Les Miserable

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Feast of Fire, Air, and Water

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Today we feel the wind beneath our wings
Today  the hidden fountain flows and plays
Today the church draws breath at last and sings
As every flame becomes a Tongue of praise.
This is the feast of fire, air, and water
Poured out and breathed and kindled into earth.
The earth herself awakens to her maker
And is translated out of death to birth.
The right words come today in their right order
And every word spells freedom and release
Today the gospel crosses every border
All tongues are loosened by the Prince of Peace
Today the lost are found in His translation.
Whose mother tongue is Love in every nation.
~Malcolm Guite “Pentecost” from Sounding the Seasons

 I will show wonders in the heavens above
    and signs on the earth below,
    blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness
    and the moon to blood
    before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
And everyone who calls
    on the name of the Lord will be saved.
~Acts 2:19-21 The Holy Spirit Comes At Pentecost

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
the world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment

Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
~T.S. Eliot from “East Coker”

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “God’s Grandeur”

Today, when we feel we are without hope,
when faith feels frail,
when love seems distant…

We wait, stilled,
for the moment we are lit afire~
the Living God chose us
to be seen, heard, named, loved, known.

God forever burning in our hearts
in this moment
and for a lifetime.

It is the dearest freshest deep down thing…

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Yet Another Ode to Potlucks

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I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them.

It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence.
~Henri Nouwen from The Practice of the Presence of God

The church, I think, is God’s way of saying,
“What I have in the pot is yours,
and what I have is a group of misfits
whom you need more than you know
and who need you more than they know.” 

“Take, and eat,” he says,
“and take, and eat,
until the day, and it is coming,
that you knock on my door.
I will open it, and you will see me face to face.”

He is preparing a table.
He will welcome us in.
Jesus will be there, smiling and holy,
holding out a green bean casserole.
And at that moment, what we say, what we think, and what we believe will be the same:
“I didn’t know how badly I needed this.”
~Jeremy Clive Huggins from “The Church Potluck”

We celebrate end of winter’s overlong stay,
And find a respite from embittered mood,
Ignore our sagging incomes for a day,
With shared potluck communion of comfort food.

Beef stew stocked with veggies and potatoes,
Drizzled bread cubes over macaroni and cheese,
Salted nachos dotted with ripened tomatoes,
Meat loaf topped with ketchup please.

Home made bread from the oven, steaming and soft
Fresh hot chocolate and coffee provide reason to stay,
Remember the smell of shared food will lazily waft
So welcome and hardy with no debt to pay.

When the job is lost or the family is sour,
Too many nights lonely and aching in pain,
Fellowship together for only an hour,
Nurtured and nourished, is never in vain.

Once gratefully finishing up the last crumb,
When life’s feast is done, the journey’s end near
Hang on to your fork awaiting dessert that’s to come
Instead of clinging to worry and unknown fear.

Keep your fork when uncertain about what comes tomorrow
It will remind you of what you can not yet see;
The meal’s not quite over, there’ll be sweetness, not sorrow:
We’ll celebrate together, the best is yet to be.

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Feeling Them Resting There

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The sunlight now lay over the valley perfectly still.
I went over to the graveyard beside the church
and found them under the old cedars…
I am finding it a little hard to say that I felt them resting there,
but I did…

I saw that, for me, this country would always be populated
with presences and absences,
presences of absences,
the living and the dead.
The world as it is
would always be a reminder
of the world that was,
and of the world that is to come.
~Wendell Berry in Jayber Crow

In great deeds, something abides. 
On great fields, something stays. 
Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; 
but spirits linger, 
to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. 

And reverent men and women from afar, 
and generations that know us not and that we know not of, 
heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field, 
to ponder and dream; and lo!
the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, 
and the power of the vision pass into their souls. 

This is the great reward of service. 
To live, far out and on, in the life of others;
this is the mystery of the Christ,
–to give life’s best for such high sake
that it shall be found again unto life eternal.
~Major-General Joshua Chamberlain, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania 1889

A box of over 700 letters, exchanged between my parents from late 1941 to mid-1945, sat unopened for six decades.

I started reading. I felt them resting in those inked words.

My parents barely knew each other before marrying quickly on Christmas Eve 1942 – the haste due to the uncertain future for a newly trained Second Lieutenant in the Marine Corps. They only had a few weeks together before she returned home to her rural teaching position and he readied himself to be shipped out for the island battles to come.

They had no idea they would not see each other for another 30+ months or even see each other again at all. They had no idea their marriage would fall apart 35 years later and they would reunite a decade after the divorce for five more years together before Dad died of cancer at age 73.

A presence of absence: the letters do contain the long-gone but still-familiar voices of my parents, but they are the words and worries of youngsters of 20 and 21, barely prepared for the horrors to come from war and interminable waiting. When he was fighting battles on Tarawa, Saipan, and Tinian, no letters or news would be received for a month or more, otherwise they tried to write each other daily, though with minimal news to share due to military censorship. They speak mostly of their desire for a normal life together rather than a routine centered on mailbox, pen and paper and waiting – lots and lots of waiting.

I’m not sure what I hoped to find in these letters. Perhaps I hoped for flowery romantic whisperings and the poetry of longing and loneliness. Instead I am reading plain spoken words from two people who somehow made it through those awful years to make my sister and brother and myself possible.

Our inheritance is contained in this musty box of words bereft of poetry. But decades later my heart is moved by these letters – I carefully refold them back into their envelopes and replace them gently back in order. A six cent airmail stamp – in fact hundreds and hundreds of them – was a worthwhile investment in the future, not only for themselves and their family to come, but for generations of U.S. citizens who tend to take their freedom for granted.

Thank you, Dad and Mom, for the early years together you gave up to make today possible for us and the generations to follow.

I hear the mountain birds
The sound of rivers singing
A song I’ve often heard
It flows through me now
So clear and so loud
I stand where I am
And forever I’m dreaming of home
I feel so alone, I’m dreaming of home

It’s carried in the air
The breeze of early morning
I see the land so fair
My heart opens wide
There’s sadness inside
I stand where I am
And forever I’m dreaming of home
I feel so alone, I’m dreaming of home

This is no foreign sky
I see no foreign light
But far away am I
From some peaceful land
I’m longing to stand
A hand in my hand
…forever I’m dreaming of home
I feel so alone, I’m dreaming of home
~Lori Barth and Philippe Rombi “I’m Dreaming of Home”

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A Sentence That Changes Your Life

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As we walk into words that have waited for us to enter them, so
the meadow, muddy with dreams, is gathering itself together

and trying, with difficulty, to remember how to make wildflowers.
Imperceptibly heaving with the old impatience, it knows

for certain that two horses walk upon it, weary of hay.
The horses, sway-backed and self important, cannot design

how the small white pony mysteriously escapes the fence everyday.
This is the miracle just beyond their heavy-headed grasp,

and they turn from his nuzzling with irritation. Everything
is crying out. Two crows, rising from the hill, fight

and caw-cry in mid-flight, then fall and light on the meadow grass
bewildered by their weight. A dozen wasps drone, tiny prop planes,

sputtering into a field the farmer has not yet plowed,
and what I thought was a phone, turned down and ringing,

is the knock of a woodpecker for food or warning, I can’t say.
I want to add my cry to those who would speak for the sound alone.

But in this world, where something is always listening, even
murmuring has meaning, as in the next room you moan

in your sleep, turning into late morning. My love, this might be
all we know of forgiveness, this small time when you can forget

what you are. There will come a day when the meadow will think
suddenly, water, root, blossom, through no fault of its own,
and the horses will lie down in daisies and clover. Bedeviled,
human, your plight, in waking, is to choose from the words

that even now sleep on your tongue, and to know that tangled
among them and terribly new is the sentence that could change your life.
~Marie Howe “The Meadow” from The Good Thief

I am constantly looking for the sentence that will change my life.

I search high and low:
in books, on tape, in sermons,
and in everyday conversation.

I listen.

I realize it will not be a brand new revelation.
Instead, it is a very very old sentence:

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
John 8:12

I look for the Light in the most unexpected places, and if I find it, I always try to share it here…

What is a sentence that has changed your life?

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Stained Glass

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People are like stained-glass windows.
They sparkle and shine when the sun is out,
but when the darkness sets in,
their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
~ Elisabeth Kübler–Ross

Photo from http://www.fumcoly.org

The Methodist church of my childhood had a sanctuary lined by colorful rectangles of stained glass windows. Each church member had an opportunity to choose and place a colored pane matching his or her stage of life, to become a permanent part of the portrait of a diverse church family. Mosaics of colored sections represented the transition through life, moving from childhood in the windows at the entrance, on to adolescence,  then to young adulthood, moving to middle age, and then finally to the elder years nearest the altar.

Rainbows of color crisscrossed the pews and aisles, starting with pale and barely defined green and yellow at the outset, blending into a blossom of blue, then becoming a startling fervor of red,  fading into a tranquil purple past the center, and lastly immersed in the warmth of orange as one approached the brown of the wood paneled altar. 

Depending on where one chose to sit, the light bearing a particular color combination was cast on open pages of scripture, or favorite hymns, or on the skin and clothing of the people,  reflecting the essence of that life phase. 

Included in the design was the seemingly random but intentional scattering of all of the colors in each panel. Gold and orange panes were sprinkled in the “youth” window predicting the wisdom to come, and a smattering of some greens, blues and reds were found throughout the “orange” window of old age,  just like the “spark”  of younger years so often seen in the eyes of the our eldest citizens.

The colored windows reflected the truth of God’s plan for our lives. There was certainty in the unrelenting passage of time; there was no turning back or turning away from what was to come. 

Although each stage shone with its own unique beauty,  none was as warm and welcoming as the fiery glow of the autumn of life. Those final windows focused their brilliance on the plain wood of the cross above the altar.

Beyond the stained glass,
as life fades from the richest of colors
to the earthy tones of dusty frames,
the kaleidoscope of God’s illumination
continues to shine, glorious.

Photo from http://www.fumcoly.org
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We are like windows
Stained with colors of the rainbow
Set in a darkened room
Till the bridegroom comes to shining through

Then the colors fall around our feet
Over those we meet
Covering all the gray that we see
Rainbow colors of assorted hues
Come exchange your blues
For His love that you see shining through me

We are His daughters and sons
We are the colorful ones
We are the kids of the King
Rejoice in everything

My colors grow so dim
When I start to fall away from Him
But up comes the strongest wind
That he sends to blow me back into his arms again

And then the colors fall around my feet
Over those I meet
Changing all the gray that I see
Rainbow colors of the Risen Son
Reflect the One
The One who came to set us all free

We are His daughters and sons
We are the colorful ones
We are the kids of the King
Rejoice in everything

We are like windows
Stained with colors of the rainbow
No longer set in a darkened room
Cause the bridegroom wants to shine from you

No longer set in a darkened room
Cause the bridegroom wants to shine from you

Lyrics by Keith Green

Simply Lost

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Perhaps she came down for the apples,
or was flushed out by the saws powering
the far woods, or was simply lost,
or was crossing one open space for another.

She was a figure approaching, a presence
outside a kitchen window, framed
by the leafless apple trees, the stiff blueberry bushes,
the after-harvest corn, the just-before-rain sky,

a shape only narrow bones could hold,
turning its full face upward, head tilted to one side, as if to speak.

I want my life back.

Morning settles around her like a silver coat.
Rustling branches, hooves in flight.
~Philip Terman “Deer Descending”

Who among us does not feel this?

Everything changing faster than we can respond:
loss of jobs,
research halting mid-study,
inconsistency abounds,
families shattered,
uncertainty prevails.

What happened to
of the people,
by the people,
for the people
rather than dictated by just a few

We are so lost,
how to find our way back
to caring for the poor, the weak, the vulnerable
with a spirit of commitment, compassion and sacrifice.

For God alone – no one else – remains our strength and shield.
Lost and afraid, we want our lives back.

We need His Refuge where we may rest.
We seek Sanctuary from this darkness,
to once again awaken hopeful to a new morning.

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Where You Go, I Will Go: He Got Up and So Will We

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So what do I believe actually happened that morning on the third day after he died?
…I speak very plainly here…

He got up.  He said, “Don’t be afraid.”

Love is the victor.  Death is not the end.  The end is life.  His life and our lives through him, in him.

Existence has greater depths of beauty, mystery, and benediction than the wildest visionary has ever dared to dream. 

Christ our Lord has risen.
~Frederick Buechner from The Magnificent Defeat

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall…

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.
~John Updike from “Seven Stanzas at Easter”

Our flesh is so weak, so temporary,
as ephemeral as a dew drop on a petal
yet with our earthly vision
it is all we know of ourselves
and it is what we trust knowing
of Him.

He was born as our flesh, from our flesh.
He walked and hungered and thirsted and slept
as our flesh.
He died, His flesh hanging in tatters,
blood spilling freely
breath fading
to nought,
speaking Words
our ears can never forget.

And He rose again
as His flesh like ours
to walk and hunger and thirst alongside us
and here on this hill we meet together,
–flesh of His flesh–
here among us He is risen
–flesh of our flesh–
married forever
as the Church
and its fragile, flawed
and everlasting body.

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here; he has risen!”
Luke 24: 5-6

Thank you for following along during this Lenten season. May you have a blessed Easter celebration to carry with you through the weeks, months and years ahead.

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Love Kneels at Our Feet

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…having loved his own who were in the world,
he now showed them the full extent of his love.
John 13:1

What e’er the soul has felt or suffered long,
Oh, heart! this one thing should not be forgot:
Christ washed the feet of Judas.
~George Marion McClellan from “The Feet of Judas” in 
The Book of American Negro Poetry 1922

Here is the source of every sacrament,
The all-transforming presence of the Lord,
Replenishing our every element
Remaking us in his creative Word.

For here the earth herself gives bread and wine,
The air delights to bear his Spirit’s speech,
The fire dances where the candles shine,
The waters cleanse us with His gentle touch.

And here He shows the full extent of love
To us whose love is always incomplete,
In vain we search the heavens high above,
The God of love is kneeling at our feet.

Though we betray Him, though it is the night.
He meets us here and loves us into light.
~Malcolm Guite “Maundy Thursday”

May the power of your love, Lord Christ, 
fiery and sweet as honey, 
so absorb our hearts 
as to withdraw them 
from all that is under heaven. 
Grant that we may be ready to die 
for love of your love, 
as you died for love of our love. 
~St. Francis of Assisi

On Maundy Thursday, this is how to love Jesus’s love:

No arguing over who is the greatest.
No hiding dirty feet needing washing.
No making promises we don’t keep.
No holding back the most precious of gifts.
No falling asleep when asked to keep watch.
No selling out with a kiss.
No drawing of swords.
No turning and running away.
No lying and denying.
No covering up our face and identity.
No looking back.
No clinging to the comforts of the world.

But of course I fail again and again when I’m fearful.
My heart resists leaving behind the familiar.

Plucked from the crowd,
we must pick up and carry His load
(which is, of course, our load) for Him.
Now is our turn to hold on and not let go, as if life depends on it.
Which it does — requiring no nails.

The fire of His love leaves our sin in ashes.
The cleansing of His sacrifice washes us.
The food of His body nurtures our souls.

From nurture and washing and ashes rises new life:
Love of His love for our love.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Lyrics:
Angels where you soar
up to God’s own light
take my own lost bird
on your hearts tonight
and as grief once more
mounts to heaven and sings
let my love be heard

Lyrics:
I, your Lord and Master,
Now become your servant.
I who made the moon and stars
Will kneel to wash your feet.
This is My commandment:
To love as I have loved you.

Kneel to wash each other’s feet
As I have done for you.
All the world will know You are My disciples
By the love that you offer,
The kindness you show.
You have heard the voice of God
In the words that I have spoken.
You beheld Heaven’s glory
And have seen the face of God.

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Constant and Changeable

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Light changes slowly with subtle words
such as cautious and determined,
marking a demarcation line across the horizon,
delineating between day and night
taking over the sky. Drakes in the wetlands
are excited by the transformation.

In daylight, the moon is a white wafer.
Perception only amazes
the participant who never notices
the daily occurrences with minor variations.

What difference are the blending shades,
clouds wheeling like hawks, the way light
haunches on the edge while day begins or ends.
There is always this anticipation of the differences,
and the end results are that our expectations are met—

not in color or uncertain times for the transfers
but in the way no two days begin or end the same.
For thousands of years, the universe has palpitated,
expanded, and contracted like a heart
with such restlessness we barely notice
what is plain to the eye: the universe is constant
and changeable. We barely break the surface
of observation, and when we do, we take for granted
the drakes will migrate when marshes are ice-tinged,
and the drakes will return when spring returns,
never considering it might be otherwise.
~Martin Willitts Jr., “Transformation” from Leave Nothing Behind

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.
~Jane Kenyon “Otherwise”

No two days begin or end the same way.
It is my privilege to watch and take note.

I spent much of seven decades barely noticing, absorbed in all but what transpired right beneath my feet and over my head.

Now I take the time and effort to appreciate each day’s uniqueness and share what I see and hear and feel.

Yes, palpitations in the world and within me catch my breath.
There is expansion and contraction
and some moments of skipped beats.

The point is that the beat goes on.

I’ll never take transformation for granted again.
I welcome it, even as it focuses and fascinates and frightens me.
I am well aware, now ever aware,
it always could be otherwise.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

English translation:

Hear, smith of the heavens,
what the poet asks.
May softly come unto me
thy mercy.
So I call on thee,
for thou hast created me.
I am thy slave,
thou art my Lord.

God, I call on thee
to heal me.
Remember me, mild one,
most we need thee.
Drive out, O king of suns,
generous and great,
human every sorrow
from the city of the heart.

Watch over me, mild one,
most we need thee,
truly every moment
in the world of men.
Send us, son of the virgin,
good causes,
all aid is from thee,
in my heart.

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