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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So it is ourselves that we must spread under Christ’s feet, not coats or lifeless branches or shoots of trees, matter which wastes away and delights the eye only for a few brief hours. But we have clothed ourselves with Christ’s grace, with the whole Christ– “for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ”— so let us spread ourselves like coats under his feet. ~Andrew of Crete, 8th century bishop
This child through David’s city Shall ride in triumph by; The palm shall strew its branches, And every stone shall cry. And every stone shall cry, Though heavy, dull, and dumb, And lie within the roadway To pave his kingdom come.
Yet he shall be forsaken, And yielded up to die; The sky shall groan and darken, And every stone shall cry. And every stone shall cry For stony hearts of men: God’s blood upon the spearhead, God’s love refused again.
But now, as at the ending, The low is lifted high; The stars shall bend their voices, And every stone shall cry. And every stone shall cry In praises of the child By whose descent among us The worlds are reconciled. ~Richard Wilbur from “A Christmas Hymn”
Castlerigg Stone Circle in Cumbria
When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” Luke 19: 37-44
Feeling heavy, dull and dumb, I am convinced I’m no more than a simple rock among a multitude of rocks~ inconsequential and immobile, trod upon and paved over, forgettable and forgotten.
I might believe there exists no pulse in my stony heart.
I might believe I am incapable of love if I turn away from this God descending to walk the same humble ground where I lie.
Yet even the low are lifted high by His descent– every stone, even the dumb and lifeless, shall cry out in community with Him, even the silent will find a voice to praise.
Even my own voice, meager and anemic, shall be heard.
I am no longer forgotten. In fact, never have been forgotten.
So hard to reconcile- if the stones have known all along, so should I.
So must I.
This year’s Lenten theme:
…where you go I will go… Ruth 1:16
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Nothing is so beautiful as Spring – When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing; The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy? A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy, Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning, Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy, Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning. ~Gerard Manley Hopkins “Spring”
Once, we were innocent, now, no longer.
Cloyed and clouded by sin.
Given a choice, we chose sour over the sweetness we were born to, giving up walks together in the cool of the day to feed an appetite that could never be sated.
God made a choice to win us back with His own blood as if we are worthy of Him. He says we are. He dies to prove it.
Every day I try to believe our earth can be sweet and beautiful again. And then maybe so can I.
This year’s Lenten theme:
…where you go I will go… Ruth 1:16
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’Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer Thought it scarcely worth his while, To waste his time on the old violin. But he held it up with a smile, “What am I bid, good friends,” he cried. “Who’ll start the bidding for me?” “A dollar, a dollar. Then two! Only two? Two dollars, and who’ll make it three?”
“Three dollars once. And three dollars twice. And going, and going, . . . ” But no, From the back of the room a gray-haired man Came forward and picked up the bow. And wiping the dust from the old violin And tightening the loose strings He played a melody pure and sweet As caroling angels sing.
The music ceased and the auctioneer With a voice that was quiet and low, Said “What am I bid for the old violin?” As he held it up with the bow. “One thousand dollars, and who’ll make it two? Two thousand dollars, and three! Three thousand, once, and three thousand twice, And going, and going, and gone!” said he.
The people cheered, but some of them cried, “We don’t quite understand What changed its worth.” Swift came the reply. “’Twas the touch of the master’s hand.” And many a man with life out of tune And battered and scarred with sin, Is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd, Much like the old violin.
A mess of pottage, a glass of wine, A game, and he travels on. He’s going once, and going twice, And going, and almost gone. But the Master comes and the thoughtless crowd Never can quite understand The worth of a soul, and the change that is wrought, By the touch of the Master’s hand. ~Myra Brooks Welch “The Touch of the Master’s Hand”
Strange shape, who moulded first thy dainty shell? Who carved these melting curves? Who first did bring Across thy latticed bridge the slender string? Who formed this magic wand, to weave the spell, And lending thee his own soul, bade thee tell, When o’er the quiv’ring strings, he drew the bow, Life’s history of happiness and woe, Or sing a paean, or a fun’ral knell?
Oh come, beloved, responsive instrument, Across thy slender throat with gentle care I’ll stretch my heart-strings; and be quite content To lose them, if with man I can but share The springs of song, that in my soul are pent, To quench his thirst, and help his load to bear. ~Bertha Gordon “To a Violin”
My maternal grandfather, a Palouse wheat farmer starting in the late 1800s, was a self-taught fiddle player. My mother, born in 1920, remembered him pulling the violin out of its case at the end of a long day working in the fields, enjoying playing jigs and ditties for his family.
The history of how he acquired this violin has been lost three generations later. The fiddle itself became a veteran of many sad and joyous tunes over the years.
Now scratched and tarnished and stringless, it is hardly a thing of beauty. My research suggests it is one of many mass-produced factory-made violins sold through Sears Roebuck back in the early 1900’s. It was made to “appear” like a rare hand-crafted German Stradivarius, but affordable for the common man.
Still, its value isn’t in how it was made, or who actually glued it together and stamped a brand on it. Its value is found in the hands that cradled it, holding it carefully under the chin, drawing heart-felt sounds from its strings.
Just like this old violin, aged and out of tune, I’m looking a bit scratched up and battered from years of use.
God has picked me up, blowing away my dustiness. He has tightened and tuned my strings to coax a song from me.
Restored, I can resonate in joy and tears.
This year’s Lenten theme:
…where you go I will go… Ruth 1:16
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Dear Daughter, Your father and I wish to commend you on the wisdom of your choices and the flawless conduct of your life
Dear Poet! Where is the full-length manuscript you promised us? Your check is waiting The presses are ready and the bookstores are clamoring for delivery
Dear Patient: The results of your blood tests reveal that your problem stems from a diet dangerously low in pizza and chocolate
Dear Mom, You were right about everything and I was an idiot not to listen ~Rhina Espaillat from “Undelivered Mail”
I never thought we’d end up Living this far north, love. Cold blue heaven over our heads, Quarter moon like chalk on a slate.
This week it’s the art of subtraction And further erasure that we study. O the many blanks to ponder Before the night overtakes us once more On this lonely stretch of road Unplowed since this morning; Mittens raised against the sudden Blinding gust of wind and snow, But the mailbox empty. I had to stick My bare hand all the way in To make sure this is where we live.
The wonder of it! We retraced our steps Homeward lit by the same fuel As the snow glinting in the gloom Of the early nightfall. ~ Charles Simic “Rural Delivery” from Selected Poems: 1963-1983
In snowy winter weather, our mailbox ends up in the middle of a huge drift from the blowing northeast wind. The box sits at the peak of the highest hill on our rural road, so the mail carrier can have a clear view of who is coming and going when they stop to put our mail inside.
The blowing snow also stops right here on our hill; no mail can be delivered. So, either my husband digs out the access to the mailbox or we choose to wait for the melt and thaw, and allow our mailbox to languish unopened for as long as it takes.
An empty mailbox is a lonely thing.
Junk mail isn’t the answer any more than junk food nourishes the body. These days, personal letters in the mailbox are few and far between. And even rarer are those heart-felt letters which are hand-written, lovingly stamped to be gratefully read and treasured.
When you write such letters to me, I delight as they fill my heart and my lonely mailbox – especially so on a dark, chilly winter night…
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Something about that nose, round as a licorice gumdrop and massively inquiring.
It brings the world to him, the lowdown on facts denied to us.
He knows the rabbit has been in the garden and where the interloper has traveled.
He knows who has wandered through the neighborhood and can sniff out the bad guys.
He would like to get a whiff of you. He has an inside track and will know more about you than you can imagine.
But for now, he has other concerns. The cat got into my pen and is making me nervous, so let me out now please. ~Lois Edstrom “Homer” from Almanac of Quiet Days
As young as I look, I am growing older faster than he, seven to one is the ratio they tend to say. Whatever the number, I will pass him one day and take the lead the way I do on our walks in the woods. And if this ever manages to cross his mind, it would be the sweetest shadow I have ever cast on snow or grass ~Billy Collins “A Dog on his Master”
Oh, Homer, dog of my heart, when I open the gate to your pen to set you free for farm chores, you race after your corgi buddy Sam who must get to the cat food bowl before you, but then you stop mid-run, each time, circle back to me to say hello, thank you, jumping high enough to put that licorice gumdrop nose in my glove as a greeting, so I can stroke your furry brow without bending down.
You jump one, two, three times – for those three pats on the head (I think you can count) – and then you are off again running, having greeted your human with respect and affection.
You watch me do chores with your nose in the straw, checking out the smells of the day – I work at the cleaning and feeding the ponies as the barn cat embarrasses you with her attention. You wait patiently, your brown eyes watching my gray eyes. You are listening carefully for those words that mean you can race back to your pen for breakfast – “All done!”
We speak the same language, you and I. Your eyes and your nose tell me all I need to know. I know you know I know…
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Everything remembers something. The rock, its fiery bed, cooling and fissuring into cracked pieces, the rub of watery fingers along its edge.
The cloud remembers being elephant, camel, giraffe, remembers being a veil over the face of the sun, gathering itself together for the fall.
The turtle remembers the sea, sliding over and under its belly, remembers legs like wings, escaping down the sand under the beaks of savage birds.
The tree remembers the story of each ring, the years of drought, the floods, the way things came walking slowly towards it long ago.
And the skin remembers its scars, and the bone aches where it was broken. The feet remember the dance, and the arms remember lifting up the child.
The heart remembers everything it loved and gave away, everything it lost and found again, and everyone it loved, the heart cannot forget. ~Joyce Sutphen “What the Heart Cannot Forget” from Coming Back to the Body
The main thing is this– when you get up in the morning you must take your heart in your two hands. You must do this every morning. Then talk softly to your heart, don’t yell. Say anything but be respectful. Say–maybe say, Heart, little heart, beat softly but never forget your job, the blood. You can whisper also, Remember, remember. ~Grace Paley from “The Art of Growing Older” in Just As I Thought
Approaching seventy, she learns to live, at last. She realizes she has not accomplished half of what she struggled for, that she surrendered too many battles and seldom celebrated those she won. Approaching seventy, she learns to live without ambition: a calm lake face, not a train bound for success and glory. For the first time, she relaxes her hands on the controls, leans back to watch the coming end. Asked, she’d tell you her life is made out of the things she didn’t do, as much as the things she did do. Did she sing a love song? Approaching seventy, she learns to live without wanting much more than the light in the catbird window seat where, watching the voracious fist-sized tweets, she hums along. ~Marilyn Nelson “Bird Feeder”
I’ve relaxed my grip on the controls on the runaway train of ambition. This is a change for someone driven for decades to succeed in various professional and personal roles.
Who I am is defined by what I haven’t gotten done and what I managed to do. And now, at seventy, I hope I still have some time to explore some of those things I left undone.
I want to remember those who I wish were still here, their time over.
Reflecting to my grandchildren the calm I feel. Holding my own heart gently and treasuring theirs. Humming as I go. Just sitting when I wish to. Watching out the window. Loving up those still around me.
My heart remembers. It won’t forget. It is sweet to still have some time.
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…when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. Galatians 4: 4-5
You, who are beyond our understanding, have made yourself understandable to us in Jesus Christ. You, who are the uncreated God, have made yourself a creature for us. You, who are the untouchable One, have made yourself touchable to us. You, who are most high, make us capable of understanding your amazing love and the wonderful things you have done for us. Make us able to understand the mystery of your incarnation, the mystery of your life, example and doctrine, the mystery of your cross and passion, the mystery of your resurrection and ascension. ~Angela of Foligno (1248-1309)– prayer
There is nothing I can give you Which you have not; But there is much that, While I cannot give, you can take.
No heaven can come to us Unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven.
No peace lies in the future Which is not hidden in this present instant. Take peace.
The gloom of the world is but a shadow; Behind it, yet within reach, is joy. Take joy.
And so, at this Christmastime, I greet you with the prayer that for you, Now and forever, The day breaks and the shadows flee away. – Fra Giovanni Giocondo letter to Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi, Christmas Eve 1513
To each one of you who come to this page each day to read words, hear music, immerse in pictures: take heart!
The shadows flee away with day break.
May you be encouraged to explore the mystery of Who has been born within us, in the fullness of time.
Merry Christmas Day to one and all from our hilltop farm –
May all be well for you and yours.
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Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. “Now they are all on their knees,” An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearthside ease. We pictured the meek mild creatures where They dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then.
So fair a fancy few would weave In these years! Yet, I feel, If someone said on Christmas Eve, “Come; see the oxen kneel, “In the lonely barton by yonder coomb Our childhood used to know,” I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so. ~Thomas Hardy “The Oxen”
Says a country legend told every year: Go to the barn on Christmas Eve and see what the creatures do as that long night tips over. Down on their knees they will go, the fire of an old memory whistling through their minds!
So I went. Wrapped to my eyes against the cold I creaked back the barn door and peered in. From town the church bells spilled their midnight music, and the beasts listened – yet they lay in their stalls like stone.
Oh the heretics! Not to remember Bethlehem, or the star as bright as a sun, or the child born on a bed of straw! To know only of the dissolving Now!
Still they drowsed on – citizens of the pure, the physical world, they loomed in the dark: powerful of body, peaceful of mind, innocent of history.
Brothers! I whispered. It is Christmas! And you are no heretics, but a miracle, immaculate still as when you thundered forth on the morning of creation! As for Bethlehem, that blazing star still sailed the dark, but only looked for me. Caught in its light, listening again to its story, I curled against some sleepy beast, who nuzzled my hair as though I were a child, and warmed me the best it could all night. ~Mary Oliver“Christmas Poem” from Goodness and Light
Growing up on my childhood farm, remembering the magic of Christmas eve night, I bundled myself up to stay warm in our barn, to witness an unbelievable sight.
At midnight we knew the animals knelt down, speaking words we could all understand, to worship a Child born in Bethlehem town, in a barn, long ago in a far away land.
They were there that night, to see and to hear, the blessings that came from the sky. They patiently stood watch at the manger near, in a barn, while shepherds and kings stopped by.
My trips to the barn were always too late, our cows would be chewing, our chickens asleep, our horses breathing softly, cats climbing the gate, in our barn, there was never a neigh, moo or peep.
But I knew they had done it, I just missed it again! They were plainly so calm, well-fed and at peace in the sweet smelling straw, all snug in their pens, in a barn, a mystery, once more, took place.
Even now, I still bundle to go out Christmas eve, in the hope I’ll catch them just once more this time. Though I’m older and grayer, I still firmly believe in the barn, a Birth happened amid cobwebs and grime.
Our horses sigh low as they hear me come near, that tells me the time I hope for is now, they will drop to their knees without any fear in our barn, as worship, all living things bow.
I wonder anew at God’s immense trust for His creatures so sheltered that darkening night – the mystery of why of all places, His Son must begin life in a barn: a welcoming most holy and right. ~ “In the Barn” (written Christmas Eve 1999)
I walk to the barn tonight as I do each year, Counting my blessings, knowing my flaws, Praying for family and friends so dear, And for each precious creature with hooves or paws.
Each horse is content and a witness to peace, And I wish every person could know, Sadness and worry for a moment can cease, While patting noses down a stall row.
For once I see the sky is clear And stars are shining bright The northeast wind is coming near And briskly chills this special night.
For weeks stars hid behind a cloud Of doubt, of fear, of weeping rain, Explosions at once so horrid and loud The whole world instantly felt the pain.
Like stars that glow through blackest dark Good overwhelms bad with barely left trace All owed to a Child who left His mark By giving Himself in infinite grace.
(written Christmas Eve 2001)
O magnum mysterium Et admirabile sacramentum Ut animalia viderent Dominum natum Jacentem in praesepio! Beata Virgo, cujus viscera Meruerunt portare Dominum Christum Alleluia
O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the newborn Lord, lying in a manger! Blessed is the virgin whose womb was worthy to bear the Lord, Jesus Christ. Alleluia!
And in despair I bowed my head; “There is no peace on earth,” I said; “For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men.” ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellowfrom Christmas Bells
On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke?
The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return. ~Annie Dillard from Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters
Let the stable still astonish; Straw – dirt floor, dull eyes, Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen; Crumbling, crooked walls; No bed to carry that pain, And then, the child, Rag-wrapped, laid to cry In a trough. Who would have chosen this? Who would have said: “Yes, Let the God of all the heavens and earth Be born here, in this place?” Who but the same God Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms Of our hearts And says, “Yes, Let the God of Heaven and Earth Be born here – In this place. ~Leslie Leyland Fields “Let the Stable Still Astonish”
During Advent, I too am guilty of nostalgia and sentiment, invoking the gentle bedtime story of that silent night, with the infant napping away in a hay-filled manger, His devoted parents hovering, the humble shepherds peering in the stable door.
All is calm. All is bright.
No, this is not a sentimental story. It is astonishing.
God never sleeps.
This is no gentle bedtime story: – a teenage mother gives birth in a smelly among animals, with no alternative but to lay her baby in a rough feed trough.
– the heavenly host appearing to shepherds – the lowest of the low in society – shouting and singing glories which causes terror.
– Herod’s response to the news that a Messiah had been born was to kill a legion of male children whose parents undoubtedly begged for mercy, clinging to their children about to be murdered.
– a family’s flight to Egypt as refugees seeking asylum so their son would not be yet another victim of Herod.
– Jesus grew up to become itinerant and homeless, tempted while fasting in the wilderness, owning nothing, rejected by His own people, betrayed by His disciples, sentenced to death by acclamation before Pilate, tortured, hung on a cross until He gave up his spirit.
– Jesus understood He was not of this world. He knew the power that originally brought him to earth as a helpless infant lying in an unforgiving stone trough would eventually move the stone covering His tomb.
He would be sacrificed, He would die and rise again, He would return again as King of all nations.
When I hear skeptics scoff at Christianity as a “crutch for the weak”, they underestimate the courage it takes to walk into church each week admitting we are a desperate people seeking rescue. We cling to the life preserver found in the Word, lashed to our seats and hanging on. It is only because of grace that we survive the tempests of temptation, shame, guilt and self-doubt to worship an all-knowing God who is not dead and who never ever sleeps.
This bedtime story is not for the faint of heart. It is meant to astonish. The power invoked created the very dust we are made of, and breathed His life into us.
So be not afraid: the wrong shall fail the Right prevail. He chose this place. Peace on earth, good-will to men.
The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever. Isaiah 40:8
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