Category: pain

Ducks in a Muddy Pond

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Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.

Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”

But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.  Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.

Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!”  So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.
2Kings 5: 1, 9-14

He that is down needs fear no fall,
He that is low, no pride;
He that is humble ever shall
Have God to be his guide.
~John Bunyan from The Pilgrim’s Progress

Source: Pilgrim’s Progress,
duckchelan2

Perhaps it was his plain talk about the Word of God.
Perhaps it was his folksy stories tying that Word to our lives.
Perhaps it was because he was, like the rest of us,
so fully a flawed and forgiven human being.

Pastor Bruce Hemple ministered to thousands over his lifetime of service, yet the simple act of climbing the steps up to the pulpit at Wiser Lake Chapel was nearly impossible for him.

Bruce had one leg. The other was lost to an above the knee amputation due to severe diabetes. He wore an ill-fitting prosthetic leg that never allowed a normal stride and certainly proved a challenge when ascending stairs. He would come early to the sanctuary to climb the several steps to the chair behind the pulpit so he would not have to struggle in front of the congregation at the start of the service. As we would enter to find our pew seats, he would be deep in thought and prayer, already seated by the pulpit.

He often said he knew he was a difficult person to live with because of his constant pain and health problems. His family confirmed that was indeed true, but what crankiness he exhibited through much of the week evaporated once he was at the pulpit. Standing there balanced on his good leg with his prosthesis acting as a brace, he was transformed and blessed with clarity of thought and expression.

His pain was left behind.

He came to our church after many years of military chaplaincy, having served in Korea and Vietnam and a number of stateside assignments. He liked to say he “learned to meet people where they were” rather than where he thought they needed to be. His work brought him face to face with thousands of soldiers from diverse faiths and backgrounds, or in many cases, no faith at all, yet he ministered to each one in the way that was needed at that moment. He helped some as they lay dying and others who suffered so profoundly they wished they would die. He was there for them all and he was there for us.

One of his memorable sermons came from 2Kings 5:1-19 about the healing of the great and proud warrior Naaman who was afflicted with leprosy. Pastor Bruce clearly identified with Naaman and emphasized the message humility with obedience to God as the key to Naaman’s healing. Like Naaman, no one would desire “Seven Ducks in a Muddy Pond” but once Naaman was obedient despite his pride and doubts, he was cured of the incurable by bathing in the muddy Jordan River.

Even upon his retirement, Bruce continued to preach when churches needed a fill in pastor, and he took a part time job managing a community food and clothing bank, connecting with people who needed his words of encouragement. He was called regularly to officiate at weddings and funerals, especially for those without a church. He would oblige as his time and health allowed.

His last sermon was delivered on a freezing windy December day at a graveside service for a young suicide victim he had never known personally. Pastor Bruce was standing at the head of the casket and having concluded his message, he bowed his head to pray, continued to bend forward, appeared to embrace the casket and breathed his last.

He was gone, just like that.

He was not standing up high at the pulpit the day he died. He was obediently getting muddy in the muck and mess of life, and waiting, hoping, as we all are, for the moment he’d be washed clean.

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Come and See: Let Us Also Go…

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Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”  Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days,  and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

“But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”

Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light.  It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.”

After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”

His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

Then Thomas (also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
John 11: 1-16

There were moments, hours even,
when it was clear what I

was meant to do, as if
a landscape had revealed itself

in the morning light.
I could see the road

plainly now, imagining myself
walking towards the distant mountains

like a pilgrim in the old stories—
ready to take on any danger,

hapless but always hopeful,
certain that my simple belief

in the light
would be enough.
~Joyce Sutphen “Those Hours” from Carrying Water to the Field

All the paths of the Lord are loving and faithful.
Psalm 25:10

All does not mean “all – except the paths I am walking in now”
or “nearly all” – except this especially difficult and painful path.

All must mean all.

So, your path with its unexplained sorrow or turmoil,
and mine with its sharp flints and briers –
and both our paths,
with their unexplained perplexity,
their sheer mystery –
they are His paths,
on which he will show Himself loving and faithful.
Nothing else; nothing less.
~Amy Carmichael–from You Are My Hiding Place

When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer from “The Cost of Discipleship”

When I need to walk down the grassy slope to the barn from our house at night, I risk falling without carrying a light to shine ahead of me. In darkness, I stumble and trip, unable to see where the ground dips or rises unexpectedly when I take a step.

Jesus is pointing out the obvious to his disciples: travel is safest in the daylight. What is not as obvious to them is what lies ahead for Him and them.

Nor is it obvious to us as we try to see through a glass darkly.

We know only that all paths of the Lord are loving and faithful, even when full of potholes, thorns, obstacles and hazards.

Our belief in His Light and His Word is enough.
Nothing else; nothing less.

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.

Lyrics:

In love, we find our way
With trust, hope remains

I’ll be here
Stay right here
Don’t you fear

In love, we find our way through the night
In love, we find our way

In love, we find a way
Your love leads the way

Tell me, where is the road
I can call my own,
That I left, that I lost
So long ago?
All these years I have wandered,
Oh when will I know
There’s a way, there’s a road
That will lead me home?

After wind, after rain,
When the dark is done,
As I wake from a dream
In the gold of day,
Through the air there’s a calling
From far away,
There’s a voice I can hear
That will lead me home.

Rise up, follow me,
Come away, is the call,
With the love in your heart
As the only song;
There is no such beauty
As where you belong;
Rise up, follow me,
I will lead you home.

Unanswerable Questions

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Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

   Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
~Carl Sandburg “Under the Harvest Moon”

I mistake the sound of a recycling cart
hitting the curb

for the latch of our gate
and picture him instantly:

my father stumbling
into the light of the backyard

to shoot himself.

I’d been looking at the fruit trees
and the fire pit,

the loose board of the old fence
in the wind.

I’d been thinking of how lost
you’d have to be

to believe you knew
everything there was to know

about yourself.
And now this sound

I mistake for my father
going through with it: one

awful letter in his coat pocket
to me, another

to my unborn son.
~Bobby Elliot “Mondegreen” from The Same Man

I’ve been there, and so have you.

I might hear or see or smell something
completely benign and insignificant,
but my brain processes it differently,
its similarity to past memory or experience
bringing it front and center and real again.

Often it is a song, or a smell, or a date on the calendar.
It can be an unexpected, sudden sound,
like a slammed door
or a recorded voice or photo from long ago.

This can lead to time travel
back to that previous moment in time,
with the feeling of being right there again.

It can be a lovely memory, warm and comforting,
or it can be a total nightmare
I never want to remember or reexperience.

When it happens to me,
to distract from the distress it can cause,
I instead admire the stickiness of my stored memories,
how powerful chemical connections are
between my body and my feelings.

There is poignancy in how I
relive those moments of past joy and struggles,
trying to capture in words what just happened,
all the while knowing, for the rest of my days,
some questions will forever remain unanswered.

A Knock on the Door of Your Life

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When a great moment knocks on the door of your life,
it is often no louder than the beating of your heart,
and it is very easy to miss it.
~Boris Pasternak

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,   
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses   
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,   
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;  
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;   
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,   
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners   
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight   
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,   
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken   
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,   
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,   
’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even   
Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,   
That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,   
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house   
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,   
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,   
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
~Walter De La Mare “The Listeners”

Years ago, a young woman I’d been treating for depression for several weeks in my clinic called unexpectedly on a Friday afternoon and canceled an upcoming appointment for the following Monday and did not reschedule.

The receptionist sent me a message as was our policy for patients who “cancel and do not reschedule.” It gave me a bad feeling that she was turning her back on her treatment plan and I was uneasy about the upcoming weekend without knowing what was going on with her.

I could have just put on my coat and headed home at the end of that long Friday after a very stressful work week and even more stressful year. I was discouraged about many aspects of my clinic work load and my after-hours responsibilities only seemed to get heavier. I was frustrated at how ineffectively I was communicating to administrative supervisors about the need for change. 

I was ready to quit and walk away.

Even so, in a moment of clarity about my role and commitment to those I was responsible for, I called my patient to find out how she was doing. She didn’t answer her phone.

I mulled over my options. Protocol was to call the police to go to her address for a “well-being” check. I looked up her apartment address and decided instead to drive the few blocks to get there.

As I approached her door, I could hear someone moving around in her apartment, but she ignored my knocks and my voice and when I tried to open the door, it was locked.

So I stayed right there, talking to her through the door for about 15 minutes, letting her know I wasn’t leaving until she opened up the door. I finally told her she could decide to open the door or I would call 911 and ask the police to come to make sure she was okay. She then unlocked the door, tears streaming down her face. She had been drinking heavily, with liquor bottles strewn around on the floor. She admitted an intent to overdose on aspirin and vodka. The vodka was already consumed but the unopened aspirin bottle was in her hand.

I was the last person she expected to see at her door.

Miraculously, the inpatient mental health unit at the local hospital had an open bed. I told my patient that we could save time and hassle by heading over there together right then and there, and avoid the emergency room chaos and delay, and the possibility of an involuntary detainment.

She agreed to come with me and be admitted voluntarily for stabilization. When I went to the hospital to see ger the next day, she greeted me with a hug and thanked me for not giving up on her when she had given up on herself.

In sobriety, her eyes were brighter and she was more hopeful. She never expected anyone to care enough to come knock on her door when she was at her lowest point. It was the start of her climb out of her pain and depression.

Four years later, a small card arrived in my clinic mailbox on another most challenging work day from an unfamiliar address two thousand miles away. The name looked vaguely familiar to me but when I opened and read the contents, this time it became the knock on the door to get my attention, to focus the beating of my heart on what was most important – not the stresses of my work place — and it was my turn to let tears flow:

“Dear Doctor,

I am not sure if you will remember me considering you see a number of patients daily; however, I am a patient whose life you changed in the most positive way. I never truly THANKED YOU for listening to me and hearing my silent words of grief and hearing my cries for help. If it had not been for you, had you not knocked on my door, I would not be writing this letter to you today. I don’t know exactly what to say to the person who saved me from hurting myself fatally. You were a stranger in my life, but a dear friend in my time of need. THANK YOU, for everything that you did for me. You have a permanent place in my heart, you have given my spirit hope, you have reminded me that a life is worth living. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Sincerely, L_____”

Somehow I had the sense that I needed to go knock on her door because I was keeping my word to take care of her at her lowest point. I had the stubbornness to stay put until she responded, and most of all, I’m appreciative for her gracious note letting me know it made a difference.

When I needed it the most, she made a difference for me that kept me on the job for another twenty years.

With her letter, she knocked, oh so gently, on my own locked door. I opened it, amazed that someone cared enough to let me know I kept my word.

Go Help Your Dad

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We will grieve not, rather find                     
Strength in what remains behind;                     
In the primal sympathy                     
Which having been must ever be;    

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
~William Wordsworth from “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”

It was hard work, dying, harder
than anything he’d ever done.

Whatever brutal, bruising, back-
Breaking chore he’d forced himself

to endure—it was nothing
compared to this. And it took

so long. When would the job
be over? Who would call him

home for supper? And it was
hard for us (his children)—

all of our lives we’d heard
my mother telling us to go out,

help your father, but this
was work we could not do.

He was way out beyond us,
in a field we could not reach.
~Joyce Sutphen, “My Father, Dying” from Carrying Water to the Field: New and Selected Poems.

                 

Henry Polis 1968
Pouring the sidewalk by hand
Grouting the tile perimeter

Thirty-one years ago today
we watched by your bedside as you labored,
readying yourself to die;
we could not help
other than to be there while you
slipped farther away from us.

This dying, the hardest work you had ever done:

harder than handling the plow behind a team of draft horses,
harder than confronting a broken, alcoholic and abusive father,
harder than slashing brambles and branches to clear the woods,
harder than digging out stumps, shoring up foundations, fixing roofs,
harder than shipping out to war,
harder than leaving behind a new wife after a week of marriage,
harder than leading a battalion to battle on Saipan, Tinian and Tarawa,
harder than returning home so changed there were no words,
harder than returning to school, working long hours to support family,
harder than running a farm with nothing but muscle and will power,
harder than coping with an ill wife, infertility, job conflict, discontent,
harder than building your own garage, your own house, a pool,
harder than ending your marriage, a second wife dying,
and returning home forgiven.

Dying was the hardest of all
as no amount of muscle or smarts could stop it from crushing you,
you, who could do nearly anything you put your mind and muscle to,
taking away the strength you relied on for nearly 73 years.

So as you lay helpless,
moaning,
struggling to breathe,
we knew most of your hard work was complete;
what was yet undone was not for us
to finish up for you.

Within That Grip Until the End of Time

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The severest pain will send you
to your bed, drop you to the floor.

The severest pain will roll you
into a fetal ball, and squeeze.

Within that grip, you might descend
into your long-abandoned core,

where, mid uncommon darkness, you
may find the door, whose opening

avails at last that lacuna
wherein the nous proves yet to be

also more spacious than heaven,
bearing also the Very God,

who is most pleased to meet you there.
~Scott Cairn “The End of Suffering” from Lacunae

Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason,
you sing. For no reason, you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose
from all else and electing a world
where you go where you want to.

Arbitrary, a sound comes, a reminder
that a steady center is holding
all else. If you listen, that sound
will tell you where it is and you
can slide your way past trouble.

Certain twisted monsters
always bar the path—but that’s when
you get going best, glad to be lost,
learning how real it is
here on earth, again and again.
~William Stafford “Cutting Loose” from Dancing with Joy: 99 Poems

Before my fever broke,
And the pains lessened, I could actually see
Myself, in the exact center of that square.
How still it had become in my absence, & how
Immaculate, windless, sunlit. I could see
The outline of every leaf on the nearest tree,
See it more clearly than ever, more clearly than
I had seen anything before in my whole life:
Against the modest, dark gray, solemn trunk,
The leaves were becoming only what they had to be—
Calm, yellow, things in themselves & nothing
More—& frankly they were nothing in themselves,
Nothing except their little reassurance
Of persisting for a few more days, or returning
The year after, & the year after that, & every
Year following—estranged from us by now—& clear,
So clear not one in a thousand trembled; hushed
And always coming back—steadfast, orderly,
Taciturn, oblivious—until the end of Time.
~Larry Levis from The Widening Spell of the Leaves 

I did not sleep well last night —
my mind would not stop turning over and over,
my blankets twisted in turmoil,
my muscles too tense and tight.  

The worries of the day
needed serious wrestling in the dark
rather than settling forgotten under my pillow.

Yet this morning dawns anew.

I’m comforted by the rhythm
of hours starting fresh, like leaves on the trees
steadfast, orderly,
taciturn, oblivious—until the end of Time…

So today, I’ll get my hands dirty
digging a hole deep enough to hold my worries;
tomorrow I’ll forget where exactly I buried them.

Cut and Tumble, Sickness and Weeping

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God keep my jewel this day from danger;
From tinker and pooka and bad-hearted stranger.
From harm of the water, from hurt of the fire.
From the horns of the cows going home to the byre.
From the sight of the fairies that maybe might change her.
From teasing the ass when he’s tied to the manger.
From stones that would bruise her, from thorns of the briar.
From evil red berries that wake her desire.
From hunting the gander and vexing the goat.
From the depths o’ sea water by Danny’s old boat.
From cut and from tumble, from sickness and weeping;
May God have my jewel this day in his keeping.
~Winifred Lett (1882-1973) “Prayer for a Child“

photo by Nate Gibson

I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.
~C.S. Lewis

I want to make a case for the Lighthouse Parent, a term that the pediatrician Kenneth Ginsburg and others have used. A Lighthouse Parent stands as a steady, reliable guide, providing safety and clarity without controlling every aspect of their child’s journey. 

Like a lighthouse that helps sailors avoid crashing into rocks, Lighthouse Parents provide firm boundaries and emotional support while allowing their children the freedom to navigate their own challenges. They demonstrate that they trust their kids to handle difficult situations independently. The key is learning when to step back and let them find their own way.
~Russell Shaw from “Lighthouse Parents Have More Confident Kids”

celebrating a long-awaited pregnancy – 1985

This “prayer for a child” has hung on the wall in our home for four decades, purchased when I was pregnant with our first of three children.

The drawing of the praying mother watching her toddler leave the safety of the home to explore the wide world addressed my worries as a new mama. I would glance at it daily, knowing the world is full of peril; it would remind me of God’s care for our family through every scary thing, real or imagined.

It helped me smile at a few of my irrational fears. Tinkers and pookas and fairies were unlikely to find our children in our rural landscape but at times the world seems full of “black-hearted strangers” and other threats, known and unknown.

Decades later, I continue to pray for our grown children and their God-given spouses, and for six adventuresome grandchildren.

I pray because I can’t not pray, and because I’m helpless without the care and compassion of our sovereign God for each of us, especially when we are brand new, completely dependent and helpless. He is a true “lighthouse” in our lives,

May I be changed by my prayers, molded into a “grand” mother and a light for our half dozen cherished grandchildren, each a jewel in His keeping.

A Delicate Sadness of Dusk

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The talkative guest has gone,
and we sit in the yard
saying nothing. The slender moon
comes over the peak of the barn.

The air is damp, and dense
with the scent of honeysuckle. . . .
The last clever story has been told
and answered with laughter.

With my sleeping self I met
my obligations, but now I am aware
of the silence, and your affection,
and the delicate sadness of dusk.
~Jane Kenyon, “The Visit” from Collected Poems

From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came:
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
The space between, is but an hour,
The frail duration of a flower.
~Philip Freneau from “The Wild Honey Suckle”

It sprang up wild along the chain link fence—thick,
with glorious white
and yellow summer blooms, and green tips that we
pinched and pulled for one
perfect drop of gold honey. But Dad hated
it—hated its lack
of rows and containment, its disorder. Each
year, he dug, bulldozed,
and set fire to those determined vines. But each
year, they just grew back
stronger. Maybe that’s why I felt the urge to
plant it that one day
in May, when cancer stepped onto my front porch
and rang the doorbell,
loose matches spilling out of its ugly fists.
~Karla Morton “Honeysuckle” from Accidental Origami: New and Selected Works

Some things are very dear to me–
Such things as flowers bathed by rain
Or patterns traced upon the sea
Or crocuses where snow has lain . . .
The iridescence of a gem,
The moon’s cool opalescent light,
Azaleas and the scent of them,
And honeysuckles in the night.
And many sounds are also dear–
Like winds that sing among the trees
Or crickets calling from the weir
Or Negroes humming melodies.
But dearer far than all surmise
Are sudden tear-drops in your eyes
~Gwendolyn Bennett— Sonnet 2

I am an easy cryer. It takes very little to tip me over the edge: a hymn, a poem, simply witnessing a child’s joy.

Suddenly my eyes fill up.

I blame this on my paternal grandmother who was in tears much of the time while visiting our family, crying happy, crying sad, crying frustrated and angry tears, crying desperate tears after being diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer. I think of her often as she was the age I am now, grateful I too have not been visited with such dire news.

My greatest trigger to weep myself is watching someone else tear up.
I think my grandmother left behind some powerful empathy genes and I will honor that when I visit her grave this weekend to lay flowers.

I needed to desensitize my response to others’ tears to be effective as a physician/healer. Witnessing tears in the exam room is a normal part of the job: patients are anxious, ill, in pain or just need to decompress in safety. I learned early on to be unobtrusive and not interrupt, letting the flow of tears be part of how the patient was trying to communicate their distress. It was a struggle when my inclination was to cry right along with them.

But I needed to remain the rock in the room, solid and steady. I could understand their tears as yet another symptom of a clinical presentation, allowing me to observe without being clouded by my own emotional response.

Sometimes that worked. Sometimes not. At times overwhelmed myself, I wept at births, I wept at deaths, I wept at the sharing of bad news.

Now retired and liberated from the exam room, I freely and regularly weep at the state of the world, or when I read of disaster and tragedy, and especially when I witness intentional harm and cruelty in others. I’m no longer a stone, but more like an over-filled sponge being squeezed – everything builds up until I can hold it no more.

Reading headlines in the news is sometimes more than I can bear.
I cry myself dry.

And that is okay, thanks to Grandma. Once emptied out, I can be filled again by so much that is good and precious and beautiful in this life – a sad and delicate dusk, the promising light of dawn, the persistence of the wild honeysuckles, the raindrops on colorful blooms, the resonance of a heartfelt spiritual, the love of my husband, children, grandchildren and friends.

Now those are worth weeping over.

Come and See: Why Be Angry?

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About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?” 
So Jesus answered them, 
“My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood. Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?” 
The crowd answered, 
“You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?” 
Jesus answered them, 
“I did one work, and you all marvel at it. Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
John 7:14-24

The onening, she saw, the onening
with the Godhead opened Him utterly
to the pain of all minds, all bodies
– sands of the sea, of the desert –
from first beginning
to last day. The great wonder is
that the human cells of His flesh and bone
didn’t explode
when utmost Imagination rose
in that flood of knowledge. Unique
in agony, infinite strength, Incarnate,
empowered Him to endure
inside of history,
through those hours when He took Himself
the sum total of anguish and drank
even the lees of that cup:
within the mesh of the web, Himself
woven within it, yet seeing it,
seeing it whole, Every sorrow and desolation
He saw, and sorrowed in kinship.
~Denise Levertov from “On a Theme from Julian’s Chapter XX”

Jesus seems perplexed:
He came to deliver a new covenant with God’s people so why did those He came to save now seek to kill him?

Why are they angry when He healed one of their own, no matter what day of the week?

This makes no sense to the One who shares human cells
with those who now want Him dead,
with whom He came alongside to become “one,”
experiencing all our pain and sorrows and loneliness.

He is “one-ning” with those who seek to crush Him.

Jesus is – incredibly – our kin within our skin, woven within us and yet, knowing all our sins, He still loves us and wants to bring us home to Him.

Amazing grace.

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.

Bring to Light the Mystery: This In-between Day

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Holy Saturday is the day between promise and sight.
Good Friday has done its work.
Easter morning has not yet dawned.
The body of Jesus lies in the tomb, and the church waits in silence.
It is the day when believers must reckon with the full weight of Christ’s death before they can speak of resurrection.
~Hardin Crowder from “Christ’s Saturday in the Grave”

God goes, belonging to every riven thing he’s made
sing his being simply by being
the thing it is:
stone and tree and sky,
man who sees and sings and wonders why

God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he’s made,
means a storm of peace.
Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
trying to will himself into a stillness where

God goes belonging. To every riven thing he’s made
there is given one shade
shaped exactly to the thing itself:
under the tree a darker tree;
under the man the only man to see

God goes belonging to every riven thing. He’s made
the things that bring him near,
made the mind that makes him go.
A part of what man knows,
apart from what man knows,

God goes belonging to every riven thing he’s made.
~Christian Wiman “Every Riven Thing”

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 “Jesus Laid in the Tomb”

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

Fellow sufferers, you know as well as I do
that Friday is rarely the worst.
It’s Saturday morning, when the body’s
lizard-dry from crying and the blood
has stiffened to a stop. You ping rocks
off the walls of your tomb, thinking,
at least Friday’s nails offered some hope
of relief—an absence of pain
to look forward to. But here we are,
beloved, in the dumb quiet
of having cried out to God
and fermented in forsakenness
with nothing to show for it
but six dozen pounds of burial
spices. There’s still a world
knocking around outside
that remembers our gashes and screams
but has no idea how lonely it is
to have come to the other side,
linen still stuck to our eyes
and so much hell left to harrow.
~Tania Runyon “Holy Saturday” from Poet Jesus

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

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.

So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid.
Mark 15:46-47

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.
Psalm 27:14

I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.

I see his face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but his voice-and carven by his power
Rocks are his written words.

All pathways by his feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.
~Joseph Plunkett “I See His Blood Upon the Rose”