When I said, ‘My foot is slipping,’ your unfailing love, LORD, supported me. Psalm 94:18
As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them, so would I learn to attain free fall, and float into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace, knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace. ~Denise Levertov “The Avowal”
I don’t like flying – at all. Human beings weren’t made with wings and I simply don’t think I belong up there. Then too is the feeling of the sudden drop which can happen with severe turbulence, the kind that leaves your stomach in your throat.
It is very much like the free-falling feeling that wakes you from a dream with an abrupt thud landing upon your pillow, your heart beating fast and your breath coming short, wondering what just happened.
It is good to know there is Someone there to hold me safely since I was born with no wings and own no parachute. There is nothing to be done but accept all-encompassing, all-embracing, all-surrounding grace that is pure gift. Such a rescue is not a reward, certainly not earned, nor does it arise out of my own skill or ingenuity.
God is simply there, ready to catch me as I fall.
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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The great mystery of God’s love is that we are not asked to live as if we are not hurting, as if we are not broken. In fact, we are invited to recognize our brokenness as a brokenness in which we can come in touch with the unique way that God loves us.
The great invitation is to live your brokenness under the blessing. I cannot take people’s brokenness away and people cannot take my brokenness away. But how do you live in your brokenness? Do you live your brokenness under the blessing or under the curse? The great call of Jesus is to put your brokenness under the blessing. ~Henri Nouwen from a Lecture at Scarritt-Bennett Center
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. Therefore we do not lose heart. 2 Corinthinians: 6-12, 16
It is a ceramic pot meant specially for our kitchen table — handmade by a potter friend using the abstract artistry of mane hairs from our farm’s Haflinger horses burnt onto the sides. But it hit the floor and broke into many pieces, looking completely beyond repair.
It is back on our table, repaired with love and care by another friend, using nothing more than copious amounts of Elmer’s Glue. This is the glue of every child’s school desk, the glue of every mother’s junk drawer, the glue of every heart that needs mending.
Elmer’s is not the gold of the Japanese art of kintsugi, where broken vessels are repaired with precious metals, creating an object even more valuable and beautiful than before, with streaks and tracks of gold highlighting their shattered history.
Yet it is now even more precious to me. Someone we love cared deeply enough to make it in the first place, and another we love cared deeply to repair it, making it even more beautiful and blessed in its brokenness, highlighting ragged pieces made whole again.
Someone made us. Someone repairs us when we fall apart. Someone blesses our brokenness with a glued-together beauty that makes us whole.
Every day, as the sun goes down, I pause, broken, remembering how often I messed up that day, in big and small ways. Cracked open, my mistakes are illuminated, weighing down my heart, impossible to forget. Yet, as I pray for mercy, there follows a peacefulness, as my errors are blotted out. My slate, one more time, is wiped clean.
Therefore do not lose heart.
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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Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Psalm 51:2-3
Sometimes I wish I could be drenched thoroughly when I’ve gotten myself completely covered with muck–muddy hands, dirty feet, smudged face, soiled soul. It takes work, but I can remove all the signs of griminess on the surface.
Yet when I look in the mirror, I can see everything that desperately needs spiritual soap–now. It is under the surface, harder to reach with soap, so I act helpless to do anything about it. Maybe tomorrow…
People can be pretty effective at hiding the problems in their lives, even from themselves. However, in the clinical work I did for decades, it wasn’t always so easy to conceal.
Patients came to inpatient detox because they had hit bottom in every way, so they are forced to confront the troubles that brought them there. I cared for people who had sold themselves, sold others, abandoned spouses as well as their own children, murdered others and tried to murder themselves. They come in so grimy, it is hard to even see their skin. They cry out for cleansing, for forgiveness, for healing.
Sometimes they willingly submit to that wash cycle, yet sometimes the scrubbing that is the detox process is just too physically hard and painful despite all my efforts to ease it. They can’t handle it and leave before they are truly clean. Maybe tomorrow.
I grieved for them when that happened.
Not once must I forget that their sin, ever so much more obvious, is no greater than mine–we are all tainted goods. Our only hope is the Lord holding onto us tightly over holy waters to make sure we’re scrubbed until we shine: a true cleansing baptism.
Not tomorrow.
Today.
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 by David Wilton
Wash me clean In the warm sun dry me Cleanse my heart From all iniquity Baptize me In the Holy Spirit sea Renew my mind That wickedness may flee
Barren fields will sprout trees Deaf and blind will hear and see Dead will raise and begin to breathe
Restore my soul Holy Spirit take hold Bathe me in Your peace and let it flow Grant me hope In the dark have Your light shown Sing Your love The sweetest song I’ve ever known
Earth groans in pain to see Sons of God declare to be The full and glorious family
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Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals.Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades.Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?” The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him.In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. John 5: 1-18
I am overcome by ordinary contentment. What hurt me so terribly all my life until this moment? How I love the small, swiftly beating heart of the bird singing in the great maples; its bright, unequivocal eye. ~Jane Kenyon from “Having it out with Melancholy”
Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must Disappointment all I endeavour end?
…birds build—but not I build; no, but strain, Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain. ~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “Thou art indeed just, Lord”
It seems so obvious: someone lying on a mat near a healing pool for 38 years – an Old Testament reference to Israel’s wilderness journey and inability to enter the promised land – wants to get well.
Jesus knows this man’s heart is troubled.
Yet Jesus asks this paralyzed man whether he wants to be healed. Not if he is ready to be healed, but whether he wants to be well. It doesn’t seem like a hard question to answer, but at times in our own lives, we too may not feel ready for a transformation to wholeness?
Maybe we really aren’t sure what “well” and being healed will mean to our lives. We wander in the wilderness of weak, struggling bodies and minds, hoping and praying to be led into a promised land of no illness or limitations. But often we aren’t sure. We only know there are many compelling reasons – no help, no hope, isolation from family and friends – to explain why we are stuck where we are.
We can’t imagine it being any other way.
Some are born with disabilities determining what they can and can’t do, knowing no other existence than to be dependent on others for help and care. Others develop illness or experience injury that changes everything for them, creating overwhelming needs leading to profound discouragement.
Some try anything and everything, proven or unproven, to find relief from their symptoms, to find their way out of their wilderness — sometimes with lasting results, often with no improvement.
Jesus is asking this man and asking us: are you ready to live a full life that takes you beyond your current limits? If so, we are transformed from who we have been, to someone we and others may no longer recognize.
It is a scary prospect to pick up our mat, carry our own baggage and walk. But when Jesus enters our life and asks us, point blank, if we want to get well, to become whole, to leave our wilderness behind and join Him – we should not hesitate – wasting precious time explaining all the reasons it hasn’t worked so far.
Jesus is ready, willing and able. And we will be transformed.
…our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Romans 8:18
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. 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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Ms. Marcus says that an occasional poem is a poem written about something important or special that’s gonna happen or already did. Think of a specific occasion, she says—and write about it.
Like what?! Lamont asks. He’s all slouched down in his seat. I don’t feel like writing about no occasion.
How about your birthday? Ms. Marcus says. What about it? Just a birthday. Comes in June and it ain’t June, Lamont says. As a matter of fact, he says, it’s January and it’s snowing.
Then his voice gets real low and he says And when it’s January and all cold like this feels like June’s a long, long ways away.
The whole class looks at Ms. Marcus. Some of the kids are nodding.
Outside the sky looks like it’s made out of metal and the cold, cold air is rattling the windowpanes and coming underneath them too.
Then write about January, Ms. Marcus says, that’s an occasion. But she looks a little bit sad when she says it Like she’s sorry she ever brought the whole occasional poem thing up.
I was gonna write about Mama’s funeral but Lamont and Ms. Marcus going back and forth zapped all the ideas from my head.
I guess them arguing on a Tuesday in January’s an occasion So I guess this is an occasional poem. ~Jacqueline Woodson from “Occasional Poem”
I like these cold, gray winter days. Days like these let you savor a bad mood. – Bill Watterson in Calvin and Hobbes
The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued. ~Robert Frost “Dust of Snow”
Now one year later after the occasion of an inauguration, most of us wish things could be different than they are~ nothing feels right, rights feel like nothing, we’re more than out of sorts, grumpy, in a bad mood – we’re all sadly angry and angrily sad.
And we thought the pandemic was bad.
But moral decay at the highest level is doing more damage than any virus did. We’ve allowed politics to sow and reproduce discord, distrust, discouragement into our very beings.
There is no vaccine for this aching of the heart.
An infection of the spirit will far outlast any pandemic virus by spreading to future generations, eroding trust as we allow justice to decay, as human bonds break, withering our faith and our hope that our country can survive anything.
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I have left my wife at the airport, flying out to help our daughter whose baby will not eat. And I am driving on to Kent to hear some poets read tonight.
I don’t know what to do with myself when she leaves me like this. An old friend has decided to end our friendship. Another is breaking it off with his wife.
I don’t know what to say to any of this-Life’s hard. And I say it aloud to myself, Living is hard, and drive further into the darkness, my headlights only going so far.
I sense my own tense breath, this fear we call stress, making it something else, hiding from all that is real.
As I glide past Twin Lakes, flat bodies of water under stars, I hold the wheel gently, slowing my body to the road, and know again that this is just living, not a trauma nor dying, but a lingering pain reminding us that we are alive. ~Larry Smith “Following the Road” from A River Remains
The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you. There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too. ~Frederich Buechner from Wishful Thinking
You get out of bed, wash and dress; eat breakfast, say goodbye and go away never maybe, to return for all you know, to work, talk, lust, pray, dawdle and do, and at the end of the day, if your luck holds, you come home again, home again. Then night again. Bed. The little death of sleep, sleep of death. Morning, afternoon, evening— the hours of the day, of any day, of your day and my day. The alphabet of grace. If there is a God who speaks anywhere, surely he speaks here: through waking up and working, through going away and coming back again, through people you read and books you meet, through falling asleep in the dark. Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day’s chalking. ~Frederich Buechner from “The Alphabet of Grace
Our six year old grandson, hoping to calm his older sister’s melt-down: “Life is life – it’ll be okay tomorrow…“
So tomorrow – move forward to leave a mark on a new day after tonight’s erasing rest.
No matter what took place this day, no matter the misgivings, no matter what should have been left unsaid, no matter how hard the heart, no matter the lingering pain, there is another day to make it right.
Forgiveness finds a foothold in the dark, when eyelids close, thoughts quietly open, voices hush in prayers of praise, petition and gratitude.
And so now simply sleep on it knowing his grace abounds in blameless dreams.
Morning will come awash in new light, another chance freely given.
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It’s when we face for a moment the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know the taint in our own selves, that awe cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart: not to a flower, not to a dolphin, to no innocent form but to this creature vainly sure it and no other is god-like, God (out of compassion for our ugly failure to evolve) entrusts, as guest, as brother, the Word. ~Denise Levertov “The Mystery of the Incarnation”
In the Christmas story, God … takes the risk of incarnation. The flesh God chooses is not that of a warrior but of a vulnerable baby, a claim that brought me tears of wonderment when I was young. But my adult knowledge of that infant’s fate — a fate shared by so many who have devoted their lives to love, truth, and justice — brings tears of anger and grief, along with a primal fear of what might happen if I followed suit.
…I know I’m called to share in the risk of incarnation. Amid the world’s dangers, I’m asked to embody my values and beliefs, my identity and integrity, to allow good words to take flesh in me. Constrained by fear, I often fall short — yet I still aspire to incarnate words of life, however imperfectly.
What good words wait to be born in us, and how can we love one another in ways that midwife their incarnation? ~Parker Palmer from “The Risk of Incarnation”
I, like you, am entrusted to care for the Word in its earthly incarnation: born into impoverished, humble, and homeless circumstances, He has no where to dwell in this world except within me and within you.
And that is no small price for Him to pay, as my human heart can be inhospitable, hardened, cold and cracked.
I, like you, am capable of the worst our kind can do.
So it is up to me to embody the Word in what I say and do, even if it means being rejected just as He was rejected, knowing that is the risk I must take.
For me, it feels as vulnerable as if I were a bare tree standing naked in the chill winter wind. I’m fearful I could break or topple over. Yet if I’m created to welcome, harbor and spread the incarnated Word, I must reach my roots deep, stand tall and find others who will stand alongside me.
This Advent, Iet us midwife the Word here on earth, delivering it over the threshold from heaven, straight to receptive, warm, and loving hearts.
My 2025 Advent theme: On the threshold between heaven and earth
On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord— with no distinction between day and night. When evening comes, there will be light. Zechariah 14:6-7
So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid. ~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk
Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life: Such a Way, as gives us breath: Such a Truth, as ends all strife: Such a Life, as killeth death.
Come, My Light, my Feast, my Strength: Such a Light, as shows a feast: Such a Feast, as mends in length: Such a Strength, as makes his guest.
Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart: Such a Joy, as none can move: Such a Love, as none can part: Such a Heart, as joys in love. ~George Herbert “The Call”
1.Let all mortal flesh keep silence, And with fear and trembling stand; Ponder nothing earthly-minded, For with blessing in his hand, Christ our God to earth descendeth, Our full homage to demand.
2.King of kings, yet born of Mary, As of old on earth he stood, Lord of lords, in human vesture, In the body and the blood; He will give to all the faithful His own self for heavenly food.
3.At his feet the six-winged seraph, Cherubim, with sleepless eye, Veil their faces to the presence, As with ceaseless voice they cry: Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Lord Most High!
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In those days, we finally chose to walk like giants and hold the world in arms grown strong with love. And there may be many things we forget in the days to come, but this will not be one of them. ~Brian Andreas from Traveling Light: Stories & Drawings for a Quiet Mind
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Hebrews 12:11-12
She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks. ~Proverbs 31:17
I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. ~Philippians 4: 12-13
Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go. ~Hermann Hesse
The world asks of us only the strength we have and we give it. Then it asks more, and we give it. ~Jane Hirshfield from “The Weighing” from The Beauty
A few years ago, I dislocated and broke my elbow in a clumsy fall while doing barn chores.
After a trip to the ER to have it set and put in a restrictive brace for three months, I learned letting go takes far more strength than holding on and pushing through.
I had to figure out how to “be flexible” when in reality, I felt immobilized.
I discovered how to ask for help when I’m in need which is tough for someone who has always been the helper – there was unity in our mutual need for one another.
Others watched me carefully to see if I’d quietly go stir-crazy with my new temporary limitations. Instead, I began seeing the world in a different light: what could I do on my own and what was impossible without assistance.
I needed to rely on others. For a stubborn person who thrives on self-sufficiency, this is a humbling reminder of my brokenness and frailty.
May the Lord have mercy on all those with broken wings who still endeavor to lift up the weight of the world and fly as high as ever.
Instead, may we find our strength is in Him, not in our feeble (and very breakable) arms.
photos of “Feats of Strength” by Tom Otterness at Western Washington University
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Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness. ~Blaise Pascalfrom Pensées
We yearn for perfection, to be flawless and faultless, unblemished, aiming for symmetry, remaining straight and smooth.
Life serves up something far different and our eye searches for what is broken like us: to find the cracks, scratches and damage, whether it is in a master’s still life portrait replete with crawling flying insects and broken blossoms, or in the not so still life of what is around us.
Somehow Christ bridges Himself between God and us, becoming a walkway for the wretched.
In the beginning we were created unblemished, image bearers of perfection.
No longer.
We bear witness to brokenness with our shattered lives, fragile minds and weakening bodies. It is our leaks and warts that stand out now.
To restore our lost relationship with Him, Christ strikes the balance and bridges the gap; He hung broken to mend us, to lift and carry us over the chasm, binding us to Him forever.
My father would lift me to the ceiling in his big hands and ask, How’s the weather up there? And it was good, the weather of being in his hands, his breath of scotch and cigarettes, his face smiling from the world below. O daddy, was the lullaby I sang back down to him as he stood on earth, my great, white-shirted father, home from work, his gold wristwatch and wedding band gleaming as he held me above him for as long as he could, before his strength failed down there in the world I find myself standing in tonight, my little boy looking down from his flight below the ceiling, cradled in my hands, his eyes wide and already staring into the distance beyond the man asking him again and again, How’s the weather up there? ~George Bilgere “Weather”.
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”
Deep in one of our closets is an old film reel of me about 16 months old sitting securely held by my father on his shoulders. I am bursting out with giggles as he repeatedly bends forward, dipping his head and shoulders down. I tip forward, looking like I am about to fall off, and when he stands back up straight, my mouth becomes a large O and I can almost remember the tummy tickle I feel. I want him to do it again and again, taking me to the edge of falling off and then bringing me back from the brink.
My father was a tall man, so being swept up onto his shoulders felt a bit like I was touching heaven.
It was as he lay dying 30 years ago this summer that I realized again how tall he was — his feet kept hitting the foot panel of the hospital bed my mother had requested for their home. We cushioned his feet with padding so he wouldn’t get abrasions even though he would never stand on them again, no longer towering over us.
His helplessness in dying was startling – this man who could build anything and accomplish whatever he set his mind to was unable to subdue his cancer. Our father, who was so self-sufficient he rarely asked for help, did not know how to ask for help now.
So we did what we could when we could tell he was uncomfortable, which wasn’t often. He didn’t say much, even though there was much we could have been saying. We didn’t reminisce. We didn’t laugh and joke together. We just were there, taking shifts catching naps on the couch so we could be available if he called out, which he never did.
This man: who had grown up dirt poor, fought hard with his alcoholic father left abruptly to go to college – the first in his family – then called to war for three years in the South Pacific.
This man: who had raised a family on a small farm while he was a teacher, then a supervisor, then a desk worker.
This man: who left our family to marry another woman but returned after a decade to ask forgiveness.
This man: who died in a house he had built completely himself, without assistance, from the ground up.
He didn’t need our help – he who had held tightly to us and brought us back from the brink when we went too far – he had been on the brink himself and was rescued, coming back humbled.
No question the weather is fine for him up there. I have no doubt.
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