Category: Lent

God’s Righteous Frown: With Steady Gaze

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Directly in front of me
he is here,
him on this quiet morning
in a room of the Byzantine Museum, Athens,
in the hundred-degree heat and dust
of a city not yet fully awake.
Here, and I am suddenly confronted—
the oldest icon in existence—with
his image.

The rest of the room evaporates,
and all I see is him:
Pure mystery, great and wondrous,
dizzying and terrible.

How can wood and pigment
egg yolk and animal skin convey
such ethereal truth,
intensify the power,
captivate Christian eye and heart?

Christ of Sinai looks at me
with steady gaze.
His eyes—the famed twins
Justice and Mercy—
see straight through me
piercing the whitewashed tomb
of my exterior till it hurts.
One eye is dark, foreboding
shadows between the brow and lid
deepening and on the verge of righteous anger—
the other eye embraces all
even my unworthy soul.
I stand and cannot pray. My eyes swell with tears.
I cannot look anymore.
~Ed Higgins from “Icon: Christ of Sinai” from Near Truth Only 

Icon of Christ Pantocrator

I was not raised with religious icons. I have little understanding about how they may comfort and encourage those who value and even worship them. Yet I do understand inspiring art and words may deepen our faith in God. This has been true for millennia.

This particular Byzantine icon, the oldest known of Christ, is preserved from the 6th century, an early representation with an intense gaze from eyes that are both from man and God.

I look for tears in those eyes. My own fill up knowing Christ is able to see the depths beyond my white-washed exterior.

I look away, ashamed.

Because He sees what we try to keep from Him, Jesus weeps,
knowing the truth about us, yet loving us anyway.

the right and left sides of the icon shown in mirror image, illustrating the dual nature of divine and human

You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.
Matthew 23:27

Detail from “Descent from the Cross” by Rogier van der Weyden

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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When I Was Sinking Down: Every Falling Thing

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Look at the birds. Even flying
is born

out of nothing. The first sky
is inside you, open

at either end of day.
The work of wings
was always freedom, fastening
one heart to every falling thing.
~Li-Young Lee “One Heart” from Book of My Nights

Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”
And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.
We’re all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It’s in them all.
And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.
~Rainer Maria Rilke from “Autumn” translated by Robert Bly

Sometimes I wake from my sleep
with a palpitating start:
dreaming of falling,
an intense sinking down,
my body pitching and tumbling
yet somehow I land,
~oh so softly~
in my bed,
my fear quashed and cushioned by
wakening safe.

I feel caught up,
and held tightly,
rescued amid the fall.
Like leaves drifting down
from heaven’s orchard,
like wings that lift me to freedom,
the bed of earth rises to greet me
and Someone is waiting to cradle me there.

Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
Psalm 90:10

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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Laid Aside His Crown: The Quiet Mystery

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Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention…
            And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng’s clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed one, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.
~Denise Levertov from “Primary Wonder” from Sands of the Well

Here is the mystery, the secret,
one might almost say the cunning,
of the deep love of God:
that it is bound to draw upon itself
the hatred and pain and shame
and anger and bitterness and rejection of the world,
but to draw all those things on to itself
is precisely the means chosen from all eternity
by the generous, loving God,
by which to rid his world of the evils
which have resulted from
human abuse of God-given freedom.
~N.T. Wright from The Crown and The Fire

Inundated by constant bad news of the world,
I must cling to the mystery of His magnetism
for my own weaknesses, flaws and bitterness.
He willingly pulls evil onto Himself, out of us.
Hatred and pain and shame and anger disappear
into the vortex of His love and beauty,
the mucky corners of my heart vacuumed spotless.

We are let in on a secret:
He is not sullied by absorbing the dirty messes of our lives.

Created in His image, sustained and loved,
thus reflecting Him,
it is no mystery
we are washed forever clean.

…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…
Ephesians 3:9

This Lenten season reflects on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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I Will Sing: Wakeful and Whispering

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This is the season:
Cradle of quiet,
Trees, waiting,
Naked on the hill,
Branches entwined
Like lovers holding
Hands.

Nothing is hidden.
A lone leaf quivers
On the apple tree.
Snow has yet to fall.
Waiting, the grass
Lies mute.

It could be death but
Isn’t. Yet. Wings
Quicken serrated air
As nuthatch, junco,
Chickadee flit from
Tree to tree, oblivious
To the hawk circling
Overhead, waiting,
Like the grass, for what
Comes next.

And it will come,
To all of us—there’s
No exception—
But if that frightens
You, hold it like
A stone beneath
The tongue until
Fear softens, and
You realize that
Nothing is ever lost
But is, instead,
Transformed as one
Door opens to another,
As even now light
Lifts the shadows,
And, out of sight,
Sap, wakeful, whispers
In the apple tree.
~Sarah Rossiter “Winter”

The soul’s sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. 

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;

And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well…
~T.S. Eliot – lines from “Little Gidding” in the Four Quartets

In the eternal “already, but not yet”
my wintry soul struggles to find its footing.
I can feel stuck in ice,
immobile and numb.
I wait impatiently
for a wakening thaw,
a whisper of the internal movement
caught between frozen and melting.
My soul’s sap smells the coming spring.
I tremble, anticipating a bloom that will not fade.
It may not happen quite yet,
but I know it is coming.

This Lenten season will reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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When I Was Sinking Down: Held Fast

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I had grasped God’s garments in the void
but my hand slipped on the rich silk of it.

The ‘everlasting arms’ my sister loved to remember
must have upheld my leaden weight from falling, even so,

for though I claw at empty air and feel nothing, no embrace,
I have not plummeted.
~Denise Levertov “Suspended” from Evening Train

Reaching out in hopeless grasp to save myself,
sinking down, prepared to fall,
yet twisting and turning in a chill wind,
in helpless wait for what is to come.

Now I dangle suspended
rather than plummet,
held fast through sheer grace
by a slender thread of faith.

This is my Rescuer revealed,
here is my Salvation
holding me fast from above
when I was sure I was lost forever.

Rescue me from the mire,
    do not let me sink
Psalm 69:14


…even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
Psalm 139:10

This Lenten season will reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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What Wondrous Love: A Handful of Dust

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I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
~T.S. Eliot in “Burial of the Dead” from “The Wasteland”

On this Valentine’s and Ash Wednesday,
I begin the dusty journey
into the ash heap
of my soul, confronting
my limitations,
my temptations,
my inability to think of myself second,
my acknowledgement that salvation
comes from no effort of my own.

This shadowland I live in is not all there is nor will ever be.

I am so tangible — dust arising and settling back when the soil reclaims me. I do not want to think of myself as a mere handful of dust. I feel alive and solid, casting a shadow before or behind me, depending on the time of day and time of life. Although today I have substance, my shadow remains an ephemeral reflection of who I am.

The dust I am is a humbling, fearful thing – until God lifted me up in the palm of His hand and blew life into me.

I am His; a reflection of Him.
I breathe and pulse and weep and bleed.

This is His wondrous love on this Valentine’s Day and every day: we each are more than a handful of dust or an incorporeal shadow.

So much more.

By the sweat of your face You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.
Genesis 3:19

This Lenten season will reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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Fixing Eyes on the Unseen – Expecting the Impossible

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…to break through earth and stone of the faithless world
back to the cold sepulchre, tearstained
stifling shroud; to break from them
back into breath and heartbeat, and walk
the world again, closed into days and weeks again,
wounds of His anguish open, and Spirit
streaming through every cell of flesh
so that if mortal sight could bear
to perceive it, it would be seen
His mortal flesh was lit from within, now,
and aching for home. He must return,
first, In Divine patience, and know
hunger again, and give
to humble friends the joy
of giving Him food – fish and a honeycomb.
~Denise Levertov “Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell” from A Door in the Hive

The Holy Saturday of our life must be the preparation for Easter,
the persistent hope for the final glory of God. 
The virtue of our daily life is the hope which does what is possible
and expects God to do the impossible. 
To express it somewhat paradoxically, but nevertheless seriously: 
the worst has actually already happened; 
we exist,
and even death cannot deprive us of this. 
Now is the Holy Saturday of our ordinary life, 
but there will also be Easter, our true and eternal life. 
~Karl Rahner “Holy Saturday” in The Great Church Year

This is the day in between when nothing makes sense: 
 we are lost, hopeless, grieving, aching.

We are brought to our senses by this one Death, this premeditated killing, this senseless act that darkened the skies, shook the earth and tore down the curtained barriers to the Living Eternal God.

The worst has already happened, despite how horrific are the constant tragic events filling our headlines.

Today, this Holy Saturday we are in between, stumbling in the darkness but aware of hints of light, of buds, of life, of promised fruit to come.

The best has already happened; it happened even as we remained oblivious to its impossibility.

We move through this Saturday, doing what is possible even when it feels senseless, even as we feel split apart, torn and sundered.

Tomorrow it will all make sense: our hope brings us face to face with our God who is and was and does the impossible.

This year’s Lenten theme:
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4: 18

Fixing Eyes on the Unseen – Waiting for the Door to Open

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In a daring and beautiful creative reversal, 
God takes the worse we can do to Him
and turns it into the very best He can do for us.
~Malcolm Guite from The Word in the Wilderness

Samwise, one of our two Cardigan Corgis, does barn chores with me, always has.  He runs up and down the aisles as I fill buckets, throw hay, and he’ll explore the manure pile out back and the compost pile and check out the dove house and have stand offs with the barn cats (which he always loses).  We have our routine.  When I get done with chores, I whistle for him and we head to the house. 

We always return home together.

Except this particular morning.  I whistled when I was done and his furry little fox face didn’t appear as usual.  I walked back through both barns calling his name, whistling, no signs of Sam.  I walked to the fields, I walked back to the dog yard, I walked the road (where he never ever goes), I scanned the pond where he once fell in as a pup (yikes), I went back to the barn and glanced inside every stall, I went in the hay barn where he likes to jump up and down on stacked bales, looking for a bale avalanche he might be trapped under, or a hole he couldn’t climb out of.  Nothing.

I’m really anxious about him at this point, fearing the worst. He was nowhere to be found, utterly lost.

Passing through the barn again, I heard a little faint scratching inside one Haflinger’s stall, which I had just glanced in 10 minutes before.  The mare was peacefully eating hay.  Sure enough, there was Sam standing with his feet up against the door as if asking what took me so long.  He must have scooted in when I filled up her water bucket, and I closed the door not knowing he was inside, and it was dark enough that I didn’t see him when I checked.  He and his good horse friend kept it their secret.

Making not a whimper or a bark when I called out his name, passing that stall at least 10 times looking for him, he just patiently waited for me to open the door and set him free.

It’s a Good Friday.

The lost is found even when he never felt lost to begin with.  

Yet he was lost to me.  And that is all that matters. We have no idea how lost we are until someone comes looking for us, doing whatever it takes to bring us home.

Sam was just waiting for a closed door to be opened.  And today, of all days, that door is thrown wide open.

photo by Nate Gibson

This year’s Lenten theme:
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4: 18

Though you are homeless
Though you’re alone
I will be your home
Whatever’s the matter
Whatever’s been done
I will be your home
I will be your home
I will be your home
In this fearful fallen place
I will be your home
When time reaches fullness
When I move my hand
I will bring you home
Home to your own place
In a beautiful land
I will bring you home
I will bring you home
I will bring you home
From this fearful fallen place
I will bring you home
I will bring you home
~Michael Card

Fixing Eyes on the Unseen – Made Worthy By His Word

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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”

On this Maundy Thursday
we are called to draw near Him,
to gather together among the
hungry and thirsty
to the Supper He has prepared.

He washes the dirt off our feet;
we look away, mortified.
He serves us from Himself;
we fret about whether
we are worthy.

We are not.

Starving and parched,
grimy and weary,
hardly presentable
to be guests at His table,
we are made worthy only because
He has made us so.

This year’s Lenten theme:
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4: 18

By the magnet of Christ I am drawn to stillness
My joy is to live as a recluse of Love
Resting my head on the heart of all Mercy
Living in the presence of the Presence

This is my home where I will live forever:
Hidden with Christ in God

This breath and this heartbeat, the rhythm of my praising,
sounding to the wing-beats of angel-song.
My will is an anchor in the depths of silence –
Living in the presence of the Presence

Each morning I rise in the Holy of Holies
to sacrifice each moment of time.
Burning like a lamp with the oil of gladness –
Living in the presence of the Presence

Fasting from all things to feast on your manna,
bread in the wilderness gathered each dawn.
Tasting your sweetness in quiet communion –
Living in the presence of the Presence

With my prayer I am sowing / sewing the seeds of heaven,
a garden of paradise to bloom on earth.
Spinning and weaving, revealing the beauty
of Living in the presence of the Presence

In the silence of the senses I know only Being –
the vast fields of heaven in the smallest thing.
Unknowable mystery that cannot be spoken
living in the presence of the Presence
~Kathleen Deignan

Fixing Eyes on the Unseen – Hope is All We Know

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It hovers in dark corners
before the lights are turned on,
     it shakes sleep from its eyes
     and drops from mushroom gills,
          it explodes in the starry heads
          of dandelions turned sages,
               it sticks to the wings of green angels
               that sail from the tops of maples.

It sprouts in each occluded eye
of the many-eyed potato,
     it lives in each earthworm segment
     surviving cruelty,
          it is the motion that runs
          from the eyes to the tail of a dog,
               it is the mouth that inflates the lungs
               of the child that has just been born.

It is the singular gift
we cannot destroy in ourselves,
the argument that refutes death,
the genius that invents the future,
all we know of God.

It is the serum which makes us swear
not to betray one another;
it is in this poem, trying to speak.
~Lisel Mueller “Hope” from Alive Together

During this Holy Week when all hope seems lost, we hold onto what we see and know:
God has not abandoned us.

Instead He allowed us to abandon Him when He needed hope and love most.

He declared finished the mess we had started.

What greater hope is there than being given a fresh start?

This year’s Lenten theme:
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4: 18