Category: certainty

Bring to Light the Mystery: Before Darkness Overtakes You

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No matter how deep our darkness, He is deeper still. 
~Corrie ten Boom from The Hiding Place

Then Jesus told them:
You are going to have the light just a little while longer.
Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you.
The man who walks in the dark does not know where he is going.
John 12:35

I think he planned it, sort of, from the start;
whether he knew they’d choose the fruit or not,
he scattered hints around the garden, what to do
in case they got themselves kicked out. A shirt
of fur around the lamb. The stream converting
water into syllables. Bamboo pipes.
The caps of mushrooms round as wheels.
Bluebirds composing tunes. He knew nothing
they started later would be new. Except he
didn’t factor in the thorns, how they would smart
as Adam—leaving—drove one through his foot.
How clever Romans would invent a crown.
He didn’t figure weeds could break His heart.
~Jeanne Murray Walker “Foreknowledge”

Thoughts on Holy Tuesday:

Many older people when stressed with illness, while hospitalized or disrupted from their routine, will become disoriented, even confused in the evening, unable to sleep, or be at ease.  It is referred to as “sundowning” by the care providers who must try to keep an older patient safe, calm and oriented to time and place.

It isn’t at all clear what is happening in the brain as the sun goes down, but over the years of watching this happen in my patients, I think it is a very primal fear response to loss of light. We don’t know where we are lost in the dark. We don’t know what is out there that may hurt us.

Jesus knew the dangers of the night, both as God and as man.  As the Light of the World, soon to hang from the cross as the sky blackened and the sun was covered over, His illumination will dim and die. 

At that moment, both God and man are plunged into enveloping darkness: an extreme  “sundowning” where all hope is lost, and we can lose our way.

Yet if we stay rooted to Jesus, not leave the cross, we can put down our heavy burden and rest. We can celebrate the arrival of brilliant light in our lives. Instead of darkness overcoming us, our lives are covered in the glory and grace of Resurrection Day.

The Son settled among us.  Darkness can no longer overtake us, even at death. The Light will illuminate the path we are meant to take.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:

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

Lyrics:
What if instead of more violence
We let our weapons fall silent?
No more revenge or retribution
No more war or persecution.

It could be beautiful.

What if instead of our judgment
We soften our hearts that have hardened?
Instead of certainty and pride
We love and sacrifice.

It could be beautiful.

Can we see the other as our brother?
Can we sing the darkness to light?
Sounding chords of compassion and grace
Set the swords of judgement aside

Let mercy’s eyes
See the other human face.
~Kyle Pederson

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Bring to Light the Mystery: Palms Before His Feet

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The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.  So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” 
 And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,

 “Fear not, daughter of Zion;
behold, your king is coming,
    sitting on a donkey’s colt!”
John 12: 12-15

On the outskirts of Jerusalem
the donkey waited.
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.

How horses, turned out into the meadow,
   leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
   clatter away, splashed with sunlight.

But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.

Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.

I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.
~Mary Oliver “The Poet thinks about the donkey” from her book Thirst.

photo by Anna Blake

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings…

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.
G. K. Chesterton from “The Donkey”

photo by Anna Blake, Infinity Farm

Palm Sunday is a day of dissonance and dichotomy in the church year, very much like the donkey who figured as a central character that day. 

Sadly, a donkey gets no respect, then or now – for his plain and awkward hairy looks, for his loud and inharmonious voice, for his apparent lack of strength — yet he was the chosen mode of transportation for an unlikely King riding to His death.

There was a motley parade to Jerusalem:
cloaks and palms at the feet of the donkey bearing the Son of God, disorderly shouts of adoration and blessings,
the rebuke of the Pharisees to quiet the people.

His response was “even the stones will cry out” about what is to come.

But the welcoming crowd waving palm branches, shouting sweet hosannas and laying down their cloaks did not understand the fierce transformation to come, did not know within days they would be a mob shouting words of derision and rejection and condemnation.

The donkey knew because he had been derided, rejected and condemned himself, yet still kept serving. Just as he was given voice and understanding centuries before to protect Balaam from going the wrong way, he could have opened his mouth to tell them, suffering beatings for his effort. 

Instead, just as he bore the unborn Jesus to Bethlehem,
stood over Him sleeping in the manger,
bore a mother and child all the way to Egypt to hide from Herod, 
the donkey keeps his secret well.  

Who, after all, would ever listen to a mere donkey?

Even so, we would do well to pay attention to this braying wisdom. 

The donkey knows – he’s a believer.

He bears the burden we have shirked. He treads with heavy heart over the palms and cloaks we lay down as meaningless symbols of honor. He is the ultimate servant to the Servant who laid aside His crown.

A day of dichotomy —
of honor and glory laid underfoot only to be stepped on, 
of blessings and praise turning to curses,
of the beginning of the end becoming a new beginning for us all.

And so Jesus wept, knowing all this. 
I suspect the donkey bearing Him wept as well, in his own simple, plain, and honest way, and I’m quite sure he kept it as his special secret.

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Zechariah 9:9

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:

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

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Bring to Light the Mystery: In God’s Eye

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As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins “As kingfishers catch fire”

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

We are far more than a simple flash of wing
or a clarion ring of stone or bell ~
We who are imaged in God’s eye,
first imagined, then brought to life.

We are His retina’s reflection
of who walks with Him in His creation,
ten thousand times ten thousand.

We are created lovely,
meant to be lovely in His eyes,
so much more than light and sound~

We are inscaped in Christ, steeped
in His holy justice and sanctity~

We who keep all his goings graces,
for that He came down,
for that He indwells,
for that He was sacrificed.

We cannot help but be changed.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:

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

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Bring to Light the Mystery: Trust the Leafing

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Trust your bones
Trust the pull of the earth
And the earth itself
Trust the hearts of trees
The stone at the edge of the sea
And all else true

Trust that water will bear you up
Trust the moon to keep faith
With ebb and flow
Trust the leafing
The chrysalis, the seed
And every other way
Death gives birth to resurrection
~Bethany Lee, “To Keep Faith” from The Breath Between


Something of God
flows into us from the blue of the sky,
the taste of honey,
the delicious embrace of water whether cold or hot,
and even from sleep itself.
~C.S.Lewis from God in the Dock

Are caterpillars told of their impending resurrection? How in dying they will be transformed from poor earth — crawlers into creatures of the air, with exquisitely pained wings? If told, do they believe it?

Is it conceivable to them that so constricted an existence as this should burgeon into so gay and lightsome a one as a butterfly’s?
I imagine the wise old caterpillars shaking their heads — no, it can’t be; it’s a fantasy, self–deception, a dream.
Similarly, our wise ones.
Yet in the limbo between living and dying, as the night clocks tick remorselessly on, and the black sky implacably shows not one single streak or scratch of grey, I hear those words; 
I am the resurrection, and the life, and feel myself to be carried along on a great tide of joy and peace.
~Malcolm Muggeridge from Bread and Wine

Out in the rain a world is growing green,
   On half the trees quick buds are seen
       Where glued-up buds have been.
Out in the rain God’s Acre stretches green,
   Its harvest quick tho’ still unseen:
       For there the Life hath been.

If Christ hath died His brethren well may die,
   Sing in the gate of death, lay by
       This life without a sigh:
For Christ hath died and good it is to die;
   To sleep when so He lays us by,
       Then wake without a sigh.

Yea, Christ hath died, yea, Christ is risen again:
   Wherefore both life and death grow plain
       To us who wax and wane;
For Christ Who rose shall die no more again:
   Amen: till He makes all things plain
       Let us wax on and wane.
~Christina Rossetti “Easter Monday”

We look to Jesus to make things plain to us:
we watch the waxing and waning of the seasons,
of the living and dying around us,
indeed, our own waxing and waning,
living and dying.

The transformation from death to life
is everywhere we look, if we look.

The huge chestnut tree in our front yard
fills with chrysalises of metamorphosis,
from bud to green-winged butterfly leaf.

We wax on in Christ who dies for our sake.

He emerges, new and fresh, from His shroud,
we are renewed, made eternal alongside Him.

Amen and Amen.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:

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

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Bring to Light the Mystery: Worlds Forming in My Heart

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All beings
are words of God,
His music, His art.

Sacred Books are we,
for the infinite camps
in our souls.

Every act reveals God and expands His Being.
I know that may be hard
to comprehend.

All creatures are doing their best
to help God in His birth
of Himself.

Enough talk for the night.
He is laboring in me;

I need to be silent
for a while,

worlds are forming
in my heart.
~Meister Eckhart  “Expands His Being”

These first few days of spring are a reawakening of nature’s rebirthing rhythms, with increased activity of all the wild creatures and birds around us, and most importantly, God’s renewal of our weary wintery hearts.

Some late winter and early spring mornings still are pitch black with blustering winds and rain, even hail – looking and feeling like the bleakest of December mornings about to plunge into the death spiral of winter all over again.

What self-respecting God would birth Himself into recalcitrant hearts as dark as night?

This God would.

He labors in our bleakest of hearts for good reason. We are unformed and unready to meet Him in the light, clinging as we do to our dark ways and thoughts. Though we soon celebrate the rebirth of springtime, it is just so much talk until we accept the change of being transformed ourselves.

Though the woodpeckers are already noisily hammering on the bark, the birds singing their hearts out and the frogs chorusing in the warming ponds, we, His people, are silenced as He prepares for birth within us. The labor pains are His, not ours; we are awed witnesses to His first and last breath when He makes all things, including us, new again.

The world with its creatures, including us, is reborn — even where dark reigned before, even where it is bleakest, especially inside our healing wintery hearts.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:

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

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Come and See: Do Not Be Afraid

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chihuly7
chihuly8

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum.

It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 
The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 

When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat,

…and they were frightened. 

But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.”  

Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.
John 6: 16-21

chihuly5

So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
~Isaiah 41:10

Maybe, after the sermon,
 after the multitude was fed,
  one or two of them felt
   the soul slip forth

like a tremor of pure sunlight
 before exhaustion,
  that wants to swallow everything,
   gripped their bones and left them

miserable and sleepy,
 as they are now, forgetting
  how the wind tore at the sails
   before he rose and talked to it —

tender and luminous and demanding
 as he always was —
  a thousand times more frightening
   than the killer sea.
~Mary Oliver from “Maybe”

chihuly9

Here is the world.
Beautiful and terrible things will happen.
Don’t be afraid.
~Frederich Buechner

chihuly4

Most days I depend on beauty to give me hope,
knowing somewhere, it will show its face.

Sometimes, in fearsome times,
I must search in unexpected places.

It is then I worry
I’ll not ever see beauty in quite the same way again:
perhaps Beauty itself frightens me…

Yet we are told, again and again and again
so we might listen and believe:

“It is I; fear not.”

…do not be afraid
do not be afraid…
…do not be afraid…

chihuly11

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…

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Bring to Light the Mystery: Overcoming

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

It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.
~J.R.R. Tolkien from Lord of the Rings

With all that happens daily in this disordered world, in order to even walk out the door on this spring equinox day, I fall back on what we are told in God’s Word, in 365 different scripture verses for each and every day of the year:

Fear not.

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

And so – we must overcome — despite our fears in this world of pain.

As demonstrated by the anointing of Jesus’ feet by Mary of Bethany, we must do what we can to sacrifice for others, to live in such a way that death cannot erase the meaning and significance of a life. We are called to give up our own selfish agendas in order to consider the needs of others.

It is crystal clear from Christ’s example as we observe His journey to the cross: we are to cherish life -all lives- even unto death. As Christ Himself forgave those who hated and murdered Him, He forgives us as well.

Our only defense against the evil we witness is God’s offense through His Love. Only God 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.

On this first day of Spring, we are longer overcome by evil but overcome with goodness, all to God’s glory.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:

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

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Bring to Light the Mystery: Being and Breath

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With wide-embracing love
Thy spirit animates eternal years
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

Though earth and moon were gone
And suns and universes ceased to be
And Thou wert left alone
Every Existence would exist in thee

There is not room for Death
Nor atom that his might could render void
Since thou art Being and Breath
And what thou art may never be destroyed.
~Emily Bronte from “No Coward Soul is Mine” The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Bronte

There is nothing else apart from God,
There is nothing apart from His Breath and Being.

Not even death sets us apart
in the already, but not yet.

Why then do we struggle to know Him
and to be known?

Our DNA pulses His image ~
our very atoms designed to celebrate and worship Him.

So let us listen for a change,
to our atoms blossoming richly
with the Breath of His Spirit.

It’s time already.

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! 
As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”  
And with that he breathed on them and said,
“Receive the Holy Spirit…”
John 20: 21-22

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…

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Bring to Light the Mystery: When It is All Said and Done

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When it’s all been said and done
There is just one thing that matters
Did I do my best to live for truth?
Did I live my life for you?
~James Cowan

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.
~Raymond Carver “Late Fragment”

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
~Mary Oliver from “When Death Comes”

We don’t know when we will be done with this world – some have a bit of warning and others disappear unexpectedly in the course of an ordinary day.

We all should consider ourselves warned.

When it’s all been said and done, have we spent our time on what is truly meaningful or are we determined to accumulate fame and fortune, stuff and status?

Christ lived His life for us. He was “all in” from the beginning and knew His destiny.

When it all is said and done,
what matters is the love He brought to this hurting earth.

We are called to live like Him.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…

Lyrics:
When it’s all been said and done
There is just one thing that matters
Did I do my best to live for truth
Did I live my life for you

When it’s all been said and done
All my treasures will mean nothing
Only what I’ve done for love’s reward
Will stand the test of time

Lord your mercy is so great
That you look beyond our weakness
And find purest gold in miry clay
Making sinners into saints

I will always sing your praise
Here on earth and ever after
For you’ve shown me Heaven’s my true home
When it’s all been said and done
You’re my life when life is gone

When it’s all been said and done
There is just one thing that matters
Did I do my best to live for truth
Did I live my life for you
Lord I’ll live my life for you

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Bring to Light the Mystery: Fixed Upon the Rock

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Six years a slave, and then you slipped the yoke,
Till Christ recalled you, through your captors cries!
Patrick, you had the courage to turn back,
With open love to your old enemies,
Serving them now in Christ, not in their chains,
Bringing the freedom He gave you to share.
You heard the voice of Ireland, in your veins
Her passion and compassion burned like fire.

Now you rejoice amidst the three-in-one,
Refreshed in love and blessing all you knew,
Look back on us and bless us, Ireland’s son,
And plant the staff of prayer in all we do:
A gospel seed that flowers in belief,
A greening glory, coming into leaf.
~Malcolm Guite  — A St. Patrick Sonnet

Downpatrick Cathedral, Northern Ireland

I rise today
in the power’s strength,
invoking the Trinity
believing in threeness,
confessing the oneness,
of creation’s Creator.

I rise today
in heaven’s might,
in sun’s brightness,
in moon’s radiance,
in fire’s glory,
in lightning’s quickness,
in wind’s swiftness,
in sea’s depth,
in earth’s stability,
in rock’s fixity.

I rise today
with the power of God to pilot me,
God’s strength to sustain me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look ahead for me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to protect me,
God’s way before me,
God’s shield to defend me,
God’s host to deliver me,
from snares of devils,
from evil temptations,
from nature’s failings,
from all who wish to harm me,
far or near,
alone and in a crowd.

Around me I gather today all these powers
against every cruel and merciless force
to attack my body and soul.

May Christ protect me today
against poison and burning,
against drowning and wounding,
so that I may have abundant reward;
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me;
Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me;
Christ to the right of me, Christ to the left of me;
Christ in my lying, Christ in my sitting, Christ in my rising;
Christ in the heart of all who think of me,
Christ on the tongue of all who speak to me,
Christ in the eye of all who see me,
Christ in the ear of all who hear me.

For to the Lord belongs salvation,
and to the Lord belongs salvation
and to Christ belongs salvation.
May your salvation, Lord, be with us always.

—”Saint Patrick’s Breastplate,”
Old Irish, eighth-century prayer.

St. Patrick’s grave marker

On March 17, St. Patrick is little remembered for his selfless missionary work in Ireland in the fifth century.

When we visited his grave in Ireland years ago – a humble stone fixed upon on a hill top next to a cathedral overlooking the sea – I wondered what he would make of how this day, dubbed with his name, is celebrated now.

Patrick, in his prayer, urges us to rise up to meet God’s power of salvation in our lives, even in the toughest scariest times.

God is our Rock and our Redeemer. May we be fixed upon Him.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…

May the strength of God pilot us,
May the wisdom of God instruct us,
May the hand of God protect us,
May the word of God direct us.
Be always ours this day and for evermore.

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