Category: suffering

Holding a Memory of Cherries

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We used to pick cherries over the hill
where we paid to climb wooden ladders
into the bright haven above our heads, the fruit
dangling earthward. Dark, twinned bells
ringing in some good fortune just beyond
our sight. I have lived on earth long enough
to know good luck arrives only on its way
to someone else, for it must leave you to the miracle
of your own misfortune, lest you grow weary
of harvest, of cherries falling from the crown of sky
in mid-summer, of hours of idle. Let there be
a stone of suffering. Let the fruit taste of sweetness
and dust. Let grief split your heart so precisely
you must hold, somehow, a memory of cherries—
tart talismans of pleasure—in the rucksack
of your soul. Taut skin, sharp blessing.

Luminous, ordinary and acute.
~Danusha Laméris “U-Pick Orchards”

Life is not a bowl of cherries,
unless you count the ones
that aren’t yet ripe, or are over-ripe,
or have a squirrel- or bird-bite taken,
or have shriveled to raisins on the tree.

Yes, there are perfect cherries
that shine in the dark, glistening with promise,
tempting us to climb high to pick them.

Those we really want usually are out of reach.

How can we know what perfection is
unless we experience where life falls short?

The lingering taste of grief,
the agony of waiting for word in a tragedy,
the gnawing emptiness of indescribable loss.

Only the memory of what was nearly perfect,
remembering what could have been
knowing what will someday be our reality
can ease the bitter pit of suffering now.

May the families of those swept away in flooding,
those who live in the path of war and violence,
those who hunger for justice, or starving for food,
those who struggle with life-threatening and chronic illness
somehow know the comfort of God’s perfection awaits them.
The Light and Goodness is there for us to taste,
yet just beyond our reach.

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As Gloom and Brightness Meet

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In the grey summer garden I shall find you 
With day-break and the morning hills behind you. 
There will be rain-wet roses; stir of wings; 
And down the wood a thrush that wakes and sings. 
Not from the past you’ll come, but from that deep
Where beauty murmurs to the soul asleep: 
And I shall know the sense of life re-born 
From dreams into the mystery of morn 
Where gloom and brightness meet. And standing there 
Till that calm song is done, at last we’ll share
The league-spread, quiring symphonies that are 
Joy in the world, and peace, and dawn’s one star. 
~Siegfried Sassoon “Idyll”

Seventy-one years ago today was a difficult day for both my mother and me.

She remembered it was a particularly hot July 4 with the garden coming on gangbusters and she having quite a time keeping up with summer farm chores. With three weeks to go in her pregnancy, her puffy legs were aching and she wasn’t sleeping well.

She was almost done gestating, with the planned C-section scheduled a few days before my due date of August 1.

She and my dad and my sister had waited eight long years for this pregnancy, having given up hope, having already chosen an infant boy to adopt, the papers signed and waiting on the court for the final approval. They were ready to bring him home when she discovered she was pregnant and the adoption agency gave him to another family.

I’ve always wondered where that little boy ended up, his life trajectory suddenly changed by my unexpected conception. I feel responsible, hoping and praying his life was blessed in another adoptive home.

Every subsequent July 4, my mother would tell me about July 4, 1954 when I was curled upside down inside her impatiently kicking her ribs in my attempts to stretch, hiccuping when she tried to nap, and dozing as she cooked the picnic meal they took to eat while waiting for the local fireworks show to start.

As I grew up, she would remind me as I cringed and covered my ears as fireworks shells boomed overhead, that in 1954 I leapt, startled, inside her with each explosion. She wondered if I might jump right out of her, so she held onto her belly tight, trying to calm and reassure me. Perhaps I was justifiably fearful about what chaos was booming on the outside, as I remained securely inside until the doctor opened Mom up three weeks later.

Now I know I am meant for quieter things, greeting the mystery of each morning with as much calm as I can muster. I still cringe and jump at fireworks and recognize I was blessed to be born to a family who wanted me and waited for me, in a country that had just fought a terrible war. Each child born in those post-war years was a testament to the survival of the American spirit and hope for the future.

Our country now has lost its way in caring first and foremost
for the poor, the ill, the hungry, the helpless, the homeless,
not only within our borders, but as an outreach beyond our shores to those countries where our help has saved millions of lives.

Will there ever come a day when a baby born in this world will not be threatened with starvation, potentially fatal yet preventable pathogens, or the devastation of war?

Where gloom and brightness meet:
defining the drawn lines and borders
around and within our country right now…

partial lyrics:
And I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered
I don’t have a friend who feels at ease
I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered
Or driven to its knees

But it’s alright, it’s alright
For we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the
Road we’re traveling on
I wonder what’s gone wrong
I can’t help it, I wonder what has gone wrong

Text: Where charity and love are, God is there.

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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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I’m Comfortable in this Spot

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There are no creatures you cannot love.
A frog calling at God
From the moon-filled ditch
As you stand on the country road in the June night.
The sound is enough to make the stars weep
With happiness.
In the morning the landscape green
Is lifted off the ground by the scent of grass.
The day is carried across its hours
Without any effort by the shining insects
That are living their secret lives.
The space between the prairie horizons
Makes us ache with its beauty.
Cottonwood leaves click in an ancient tongue
To the farthest cold dark in the universe.
The cottonwood also talks to you
Of breeze and speckled sunlight.
You are at home in these
great empty places
along with red-wing blackbirds and sloughs.
You are comfortable in this spot
so full of grace and being
that it sparkles like jewels
spilled on water.
~Tom Hennen “From a Country Overlooked”, from Darkness Sticks to Everything

There are some God’s creatures I struggle to love –
fleas, chiggers, mosquitoes, ticks, slugs, yellow jackets among them. Also poisonous snakes, spiders and scorpions come to mind.
And then there are pathogenic bacteria, parasites and viruses…

It is not their fault I struggle to find their value –
only God knows why He made them as He did.

What I have learned over 7 decades is to try to look for beauty wherever I am.

To listen to the breezes and the birds, to look for how the light plays with leaves and water and how it is all created to help us feel at home for the time we are here.

Yet, this is an imperfect world where beauty doesn’t provide shelter to those with their basic needs unfulfilled – where there is no comfort, no safety, no hope.

God, deliver us from being too comfortable when others suffer.
Help us feel Your love to pass on to those in need.
Help us to know how to make a difference for them.
We know that makes a difference to You.

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Where You Go, I Will Go: The In-Between

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Here at the centre everything is still
Before the stir and movement of our grief
Which bears it’s pain with rhythm, ritual,
Beautiful useless gestures of relief.
So they anoint the skin that cannot feel
Soothing his ruined flesh with tender care,
Kissing the wounds they know they cannot heal,
With incense scenting only empty air.
He blesses every love that weeps and grieves
And makes our grief the pangs of a new birth.
The love that’s poured in silence at old graves
Renewing flowers, tending the bare earth,
Is never lost. In him all love is found
And sown with him, a seed in the rich ground.
~Malcolm Guite “Station XIV of the Cross”

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

I said to my mind, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; yet there is faith
But the faith and the hope and the love are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be light, and the stillness the dancing.
~T. S. Eliot, from “East Coker”  The Four Quartets

The happy ending has never been easy to believe in.
After the Crucifixion the defeated little band of disciples
had no hope, no expectation of Resurrection.
Everything they believed in had died on the cross with Jesus.
The world was right, and they had been wrong.
Even when the women told the disciples
that Jesus had left the stone-sealed tomb,
the disciples found it nearly impossible to believe
that it was not all over.
The truth was, it was just beginning.
Madeleine L’Engle from “Waiting for Judas” in Plough Magazine

This in-between day
after all had gone so wrong:
the rejection, the denials,
the trumped-up charges,
the beatings, the burden,
the jeering, the thorns,
the nails, the thirst,
the despair of being forsaken.

This in-between day
before all will go so right:
the forgiveness and compassion,
the grace and sacrifice,
the debt paid in full,
the immovable stone rolled away,
our name on His lips,
our hearts burning
to hear His words.

What does it take to move the stone?
When it is an effort to till the untillable,
creating a place where simple seed
can drop, be covered and sprout and thrive,
it takes muscle and sweat and blisters and tears.

What does it take to move the stone?
When it is a day when no one will speak out of fear,
the silent will be moved to cry out
the truth, heard and known and never forgotten.

What does it take to move the stone?
When it is a day when all had given up,
gone behind locked doors in grief.

When two came to tend the dead,
there would be no dead to tend.

Only a gaping hole left
Only an empty tomb
Only a weeping weary silence
broken by Love calling our name
and we turn to greet Him
as if hearing it for the first time.

We cannot imagine what is to come
in the dawn tomorrow as
the stone lifted and rolled,
giving way so our separation is bridged,
darkness overwhelmed by light,
the crushed and broken rising to dance,
and inexplicably,
from the waiting stillness He stirs
and we, finding death emptied,
greet Him with trembling
and are forever moved,
just like the stone.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Beaten to Death by the Whole World

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frost125143

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from saving me,
    so far from my cries of anguish?
2 My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
    by night, but I find no rest.

I am poured out like water,
    and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
    it has melted within me.
15 My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
    and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
    you lay me in the dust of death.

16 Dogs surround me,
    a pack of villains encircles me;
    they pierce my hands and my feet.
17 All my bones are on display;
    people stare and gloat over me.
18 They divide my clothes among them
    and cast lots for my garment.

19 But you, Lord, do not be far from me.
    You are my strength; come quickly to help me.
~Psalm 22: 1-2, 14-19


  his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
    and his form marred beyond human likeness—
 so he will sprinkle many nations,
    and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see,
    and what they have not heard, they will understand.
Isaiah 52: 13-15

When I was wounded
whether by God, the devil, or myself
—I don’t know yet which—
it was seeing the sparrows again
and clumps of clover, after three days,
that told me I hadn’t died.
When I was young,
all it took were those sparrows,
those lush little leaves,
for me to sing praises,
dedicate operas to the Lord.
But a dog who’s been beaten
is slow to go back to barking
and making a fuss over his owner
—an animal, not a person
like me who can ask:
Why do you beat me?
Which is why, despite the sparrows and the clover,
a subtle shadow still hovers over my spirit.
May whoever hurt me, forgive me.
~Adelia Prado “Divine Wrath” translated from Brazilian Portuguese by Ellen Doré Watson

*************************************

“My God, My God,” goes Psalm 22, “hear me, why have you forsaken me?”  

This is the anguish all we of Godforsaken heart know well. But hear the revelation to which Christ directs us, further in the same psalm:

For He has not despised nor scorned the beggar’s supplication,
Nor has He turned away His face from me;
And when I cried out to Him, He heard me.

He hears us, and he knows, because he has suffered as one Godforsaken. Which means that you and I, even in our darkest hours, are not forsaken. Though we may hear nothing, feel nothing, believe nothing, we are not forsaken, and so we need not despair.

And that is everything.

That is Good Friday and it is hope, it is life in this darkened age, and it is the life of the world to come.
~Tony Woodlief from “We are Not Forsaken”

*******************************

Emmett Till’s mother
speaking over the radio

She tells in a comforting voice
what it was like to touch her dead boy’s face,

how she’d lingered and traced
the broken jaw, the crushed eyes–

the face that badly beaten, disfigured—
before confirming his identity.

And then she compares his face to
the face of Jesus, dying on the cross.

This mother says no, she’d not recognize
her Lord, for he was beaten far, far worse

than the son she loved with all her heart.
For, she said, she could still discern her son’s curved earlobe,

but the face of Christ
was beaten to death by the whole world.
~Richard Jones “The Face” from Between Midnight and Dawn

******************************

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

IMG_6229

Strangely enough~
it is the nail,
not the hammer,
that fastens us together~
becoming the glue,
the security,
the permanence of
solid foundation
and strong supports,
or protecting roof.

The hammer is only a tool
to pound in the nail
to where it binds so tightly;
the nail can’t blend in or be forgotten,
where the hole it leaves behind
is a forever wounded reminder
of what the hammer has done,
yet, how thoroughly
the hammer, and we, are forgiven.

nailhole

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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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

AI image created for this post

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: Weary with Weeping

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Jesus comes near and he beholds the city
And looks on us with tears in his eyes,
And wells of mercy, streams of love and pity
Flow from the fountain whence all things arise.
He loved us into life and longs to gather
And meet with his beloved face to face
How often has he called, a careful mother,
And wept for our refusals of his grace,
Wept for a world that, weary with its weeping,
Benumbed and stumbling, turns the other way,
Fatigued compassion is already sleeping
Whilst her worst nightmares stalk the light of day.
But we might waken yet, and face those fears,
If we could see ourselves through Jesus’ tears.
~Malcolm Guite “Jesus Weeps”

When Jesus wept, the falling tear
in mercy flowed beyond all bound;
when Jesus groaned, a trembling fear
seized all the guilty world around.
~William Billings

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!
But now they are hidden from your eyes. 
~Luke 19:41-42

Commencing this holy week of remembrance,
knowing how our world is in a terrible disarray,
too many sleeping in the street, some in graves,
many grieving losses,
all wondering what comes next.

On this journey, we face our own fears of vulnerability and mortality,
these days when thorns overwhelm emerging blossoms~~

To remember what He did this week long ago,
and still does today
to conquer the shroud and the stone,
to defy death,
makes all the difference to me.

Indeed Jesus wept and groaned for us.

To be known for who we are
by a God who weeps for us
and moans with pain we caused:
we can know
no greater love.

This week ends our living for self, only to die,
and begins our dying to self, in order to live.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: God is Not Immune to the World’s Pain

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I’m still discovering, right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities.

In so doing, we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer from The Cost of Discipleship

In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?
~John Stott from “Cross”

With all that is happening daily in this disordered and confused world, we fall back on what we are told, each and every day, in 365 different verses in God’s Word itself:

Fear not.

Do not be overwhelmed with evil but overcome evil with good.

And so – we must overcome — despite the evil happening within our own country, despite our fear of one another and what might happen next.

As demonstrated by the anointing of Jesus’ feet by Mary of Bethany on Wednesday of Holy Week, we do what we can to sacrifice for the good of others, to live in such a way that death can never erase the meaning and significance of a life. 

We are called to give up our own self-aggrandizing agendas to consider the dignity and well-being of others.

It is crystal clear from Christ’s example as we follow His journey to the cross this week: we are to cherish life – all lives – born and unborn, the stranger and the refugee. If Christ Himself forgave those who hated and murdered Him, He will forgive us for not understanding the damage we cause by our actions and inactions.

Our only defense against the evil we witness is God’s victory through His Love. Only God who knows pain can lead us to Tolkien’s “where everything sad will come untrue”, where we shall live in peace, walk hand in hand, no longer alone, no longer afraid, no longer shedding tears of grief and sorrow, but tears of relief and joy.

No longer overcome by evil but overcome with the goodness of a God who makes all things right.

All to God’s glory.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: If Still in Darkness, Not in Fear

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‘Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself.’ 
is. xlv. 15.

God, though to Thee our psalm we raise
No answering voice comes from the skies;
To Thee the trembling sinner prays
But no forgiving voice replies;
Our prayer seems lost in desert ways,
Our hymn in the vast silence dies.

We see the glories of the earth
But not the hand that wrought them all:
Night to a myriad worlds gives birth,
Yet like a lighted empty hall
Where stands no host or door or hearth
Vacant creation’s lamps appal.

We guess; we clothe Thee, unseen King,
With attributes we deem are meet;
Each in his own imagining
Sets up a shadow in Thy seat;
Yet know not how our gifts to bring,
Where seek thee with unsandalled feet.

And still th’unbroken silence broods
While ages and while aeons run,
As erst upon chaotic floods
The Spirit hovered ere the sun
Had called the seasons’ changeful moods
And life’s first germs from death had won.

And still th’abysses infinite
Surround the peak from which we gaze.
Deep calls to deep and blackest night
Giddies the soul with blinding daze
That dares to cast its searching sight
On being’s dread and vacant maze.

And Thou art silent, whilst Thy world
Contends about its many creeds
And hosts confront with flags unfurled
And zeal is flushed and pity bleeds
And truth is heard, with tears impearled,
A moaning voice among the reeds.

My hand upon my lips I lay;
The breast’s desponding sob I quell;
I move along life’s tomb-decked way
And listen to the passing bell
Summoning men from speechless day
To death’s more silent, darker spell.

Oh! till Thou givest that sense beyond,
To shew Thee that Thou art, and near,
Let patience with her chastening wand
Dispel the doubt and dry the tear;
And lead me child-like by the hand;
If still in darkness not in fear.

Speak! whisper to my watching heart
One word—as when a mother speaks
Soft, when she sees her infant start,
Till dimpled joy steals o’er its cheeks.
Then, to behold Thee as Thou art,
I’ll wait till morn eternal breaks.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins “Nondum (Not Yet)”

There is great darkness right now in our country’s leadership, spilling shadows over the rest of the world.

Each day brings a new proclamation of presumed earthly power, exacting great cost to those who are most vulnerable and powerless.

Though it may seem God is silent, He is not.

God broods, as do parents who protect their offspring.
He hears the cries of His people who are harmed and helpless.
He will respond, and His children understand
we are still in the “not yet” of His kingdom on earth,
and we wait for His return to set all things right.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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