Tag: Jesus

And When From Death I’m Free: Quickened

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I lift mine eyes, but dimm’d with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the fallen leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall–the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.
~Christina Rossetti from “A Better Resurrection”

It dawned on me that perhaps the first thing the risen Lord did after he defeated death, as his heart once again began to beat, was to fold his grave clothes.

This seemed to me to be good news for laundry doers everywhere—and especially to moms who probably still carry out the bulk of this mundane chore.

The risen Christ folded his laundry.

I suppose the angels could have done it but angels probably don’t have much experience with laundry.
~Doug Basler from “The Poetry of a Pastor” from Ekstasis Magazine

<Peter> saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 
John 20: 6-7

I remember panicking as a child when my mother would help me take off a sweatshirt with a particularly tight neck opening, as my head would get “stuck” momentarily until she could free me. It caused an intense feeling of being unable to breathe or see – literally being shrouded. I was trapped and held captive by something as innocuous as a piece of cloth, but the panic was real. That same feeling still overwhelms me at times when I find myself stuck in my mistakes and sins, anxious and struggling to get free.

My impulse, once free of what smothers me, is to toss it as far away from me as possible. I want to be rid of it and never touch it again.
I certainly don’t take time to fold it up for all to see.

Jesus took the time to carefully fold His facial death cloth and leave it where all who entered the tomb would recognize it as proof that His body wasn’t stolen. He had risen, leaving a clear message that all was in good order, as He said it would be.

So I now find folding laundry more meaningful, not as mundane – a reminder that a tidy and empty tomb is something to celebrate: new life quickens like spring sap rising from a fallen leaf. 

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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What Wondrous Love: Something Way Down Deep

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We all know that something is eternal. 
And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, 
and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars 
. . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, 
and that something has to do with human beings. 
All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that 
for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised 
how people are always losing hold of it. 
There’s something way down deep 
that’s eternal about every human being.
~Thornton Wilder, from “Our Town”

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
~George Herbert “Love III”

Write as if you were dying.
At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients.
That is, after all, the case.
~Annie Dillard from “Write Till You Drop”

I began to write regularly after September 11, 2001 because more than on any previous day, it became obvious to me I was dying, though more slowly than the thousands who vanished that day in fire and ash, their voices obliterated with their bodies into eternity.  

Nearly each day since, while I still have voice and a new dawn to greet, I speak through my fingers to others dying with and around me.

We are, after all, terminal patients — some of us more prepared than others to move on — as if our readiness had anything to do with the timing.

Each day I get a little closer to the eternal, but I write in order to feel a little more ready.  Each day I want to detach just a little bit, leaving a trace of my voice behind.  Eventually, through unmerited grace, so much of me will be left on the page there won’t be anything or anyone left to do the typing.

There is no time or word to waste.

Listen, I tell you a mystery: 
We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
1 Corinthians 15: 51-52

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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When I Was Sinking Down: Entering Empty Time

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When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.
~John O’Donahue “For One Who Is Exhausted, a Blessing”

I know from experience that when I allow busy little doings to fill the precious time of early morning, when contemplation might flourish, I open the doors to the demon of acedia. Noon becomes a blur – no time, no time – the wolfing down of a sandwich as I listen to the morning’s phone messages and plan the afternoon’s errands.

When evening comes, I am so exhausted that vespers has become impossible. It is as if I have taken the world’s weight on my shoulders and am too greedy, and too foolish, to surrender it to God.
~Kathleen Norris from The Quotidian Mysteries

These are days with no breathing room,
no time to stop and appreciate
that each moment is a swelling bud
about to burst into bloom.

And it is my fault
that I’m not breathing deeply enough~
simply skimming the surface
in my race to the end of the day.

Time’s petals, so open, so brilliant, so eternal,
are closing up, unseen and unknown, just emptied,
without my even noticing.

Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom.
 He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.
Isaiah 40:28-29

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

Sing, Be, Live, See.
This dark stormy hour,
The wind, it stirs.
The scorched earth cries out in vain:
O war and power,
You blind and blur,
The torn heart cries out in pain.
But music and singing
Have been my refuge,
And music and singing
Shall be my light.
A light of song,
Shining Strong: Alleluia!
Through darkness, pain, and strife,
I’ll Sing, Be, Live, See…
Peace.

Oh, good shepherd, would you teach me how to rest
I’m rushing on, will you make me to lie down
Will you build a fold by the waters that refresh
Will you call my name and lead me safely out

From my anxious drive to labor on and on
From the restless grind that has put my mind to sleep
Will you call me back and gently slow me down
Will you show me now what to lose and what to keep

Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down
Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down

When my table’s bent with only greed and gold
And my grasping hands are afraid you won’t provide
Will you pour the wine that loosens up my hold
Set your table here with what truly satisfies

Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down
Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down

On the busy streets trying to make myself a name
If the work is yours, there is nothing I can claim
Will you lead me home to the pastures of your peace
And the house is yours, I’m sitting at your feet

Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down
Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down

Slow me down, slow me down

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When I Was Sinking Down: The Ache in My Heart

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Your cold mornings are filled
with the heartache about the fact that although
we are not at ease in this world, it is all we have,
that it is ours but that it is full of strife,
so that all we can call our own is strife;
but even that is better than nothing at all, isn’t it?

…rejoice that your uncertainty is God’s will
and His grace toward you and that that is beautiful,
and part of a greater certainty…

…be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart
and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive,
still human, and still open to the beauty of the world,
even though you have done nothing to deserve it.
~Paul Harding in Tinkers

I think there is no suffering greater than
what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. 
I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, 
in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened. 
What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. 
They think faith is a big electric blanket, 
when of course it is the cross. 
It is much harder to believe than not to believe. 
If you feel you can’t believe, you must at least do this: 
keep an open mind. 
Keep it open toward faith, 
keep wanting it, 
keep asking for it, 
and leave the rest to God.
~Flannery O’Connor from The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor

Nothing that comes from God, even the greatest miracle, can be proven like 2 x 2 = 4. It touches one; it is only seen and grasped when the heart is open and the spirit purged of self. Then it awakens faith.  … the heart is not overcome by faith, there is no force or violence there, compelling belief by rigid certitudes.  What comes from God touches gently, comes quietly; does not disturb freedom; leads to quiet, profound, peaceful resolve within the heart.
~Romano Guardini from The Living God

On my doubting days, days too frequent and tormenting,
I recall how the risen Christ
invited Thomas to place his hand in His wounds,
gently guiding Thomas to His reality,
so it became Thomas’s new reality.
Thomas left it up to a God whose
open wounds called out
Thomas’s mind and heart.
Christ’s flesh and blood
awakened a hidden faith
by a simple touch.

…he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
John 20: 27-28

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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To God and to the Lamb: We Would See Him

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The sacred moments,
the moments of miracle,
are often the everyday moments,
the moments which,
if we do not look with more than our eyes or listen with more than our ears reveal only…
a gardener,
a stranger coming down the road behind us,
a meal like any other meal.
But if we look with our hearts,
if we listen with all our being and imagination..
what we may see is Jesus himself.
~Frederick Buechner from The Magnificent Defeat

Farmer with a pitchfork by Winslow Homer

We can be blinded by the everyday-ness of it:
A simple loaf of bread is a meal we take for granted.
A gardener looks up and smiles as he hoes a row of weeds,
trying to restore order in chaos.
A wanderer along the road catches up to engage in conversation.

Every day contains millions of everyday moments lost and forgotten, seemingly meaningless.

Perhaps we would see Jesus if only we opened our eyes
and listened with our ears.
At the table, on the road, in the garden at sunrise.

With the new vision we have been given, we discover:
there is nothing everyday about the miracle of Him abiding with us –
always in plain sight.

“Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.”
John 12: 21

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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God’s Righteous Frown: With Steady Gaze

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Directly in front of me
he is here,
him on this quiet morning
in a room of the Byzantine Museum, Athens,
in the hundred-degree heat and dust
of a city not yet fully awake.
Here, and I am suddenly confronted—
the oldest icon in existence—with
his image.

The rest of the room evaporates,
and all I see is him:
Pure mystery, great and wondrous,
dizzying and terrible.

How can wood and pigment
egg yolk and animal skin convey
such ethereal truth,
intensify the power,
captivate Christian eye and heart?

Christ of Sinai looks at me
with steady gaze.
His eyes—the famed twins
Justice and Mercy—
see straight through me
piercing the whitewashed tomb
of my exterior till it hurts.
One eye is dark, foreboding
shadows between the brow and lid
deepening and on the verge of righteous anger—
the other eye embraces all
even my unworthy soul.
I stand and cannot pray. My eyes swell with tears.
I cannot look anymore.
~Ed Higgins from “Icon: Christ of Sinai” from Near Truth Only 

Icon of Christ Pantocrator

I was not raised with religious icons. I have little understanding about how they may comfort and encourage those who value and even worship them. Yet I do understand inspiring art and words may deepen our faith in God. This has been true for millennia.

This particular Byzantine icon, the oldest known of Christ, is preserved from the 6th century, an early representation with an intense gaze from eyes that are both from man and God.

I look for tears in those eyes. My own fill up knowing Christ is able to see the depths beyond my white-washed exterior.

I look away, ashamed.

Because He sees what we try to keep from Him, Jesus weeps,
knowing the truth about us, yet loving us anyway.

the right and left sides of the icon shown in mirror image, illustrating the dual nature of divine and human

You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.
Matthew 23:27

Detail from “Descent from the Cross” by Rogier van der Weyden

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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A Little Shriveled at the Top

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O lovely apple!
beautifully and completely
                 rotten
hardly a contour marred–

                 perhaps a little
shrivelled at the top but that
                 aside perfect
in every detail! O lovely

                 apple! what a
deep and suffusing brown
                 mantles that
unspoiled surface! No one

                 has moved you
since I placed you on the porch
                 rail a month ago
to ripen.

                 No one. No one!
~William Carlos Williams “Perfection”

When a newspaper posed the question, “What’s Wrong with the World?” the Catholic thinker G. K. Chesterton reputedly wrote a brief letter in response:

“Dear Sirs:
I am.
Sincerely Yours,
G. K. Chesterton.“

That is the attitude of someone who has grasped the message of Jesus.
~Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God 

I am what’s wrong with the world and so are you.

Not one of us escapes the rottenness that lies not-so-deep beneath our shiny surface.  We are full of wormholes, inviting the worms of the world to eat us alive.

One look at the news headlines of the day is enough mar the most perfect surface. No one moves to save us from our over-ripening fate; we sit untouched, withering and shriveling.

We are the problem and the problem is us.

We need rescue by a Savior who is the one good apple among a barrel of contagiously bad apples. We are so tainted, it takes Someone who truly is Perfect to transform us from the inside out, from worm-holes back to wholeness and on to holiness.

May we fall to our knees, grateful, that Christ, who is the Leader of all in His Kingdom, will grant us a grace and sanctuary and perfection we emphatically don’t deserve.

May He retrieve us before the worms (or the hornets) do. We are in this together.

We have met the enemy and he is us.
~Walt Kelly (in the words of Pogo)

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Sharers in the Guilt

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Do you know why this world is as bad as it is?
It is because people think only about their own business, 
and won’t trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed, 
nor bring the wrong-doers to light. 
My doctrine is this: 
that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, 
and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.
~Anna Sewell from Black Beauty

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question
the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.
On the one hand, we are called to play the good Samaritan
on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act.
One day the whole Jericho road must be transformed
so that men and women will not be beaten and robbed
as they make their journey through life.
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar;
it understands that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring.
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world,
can well lead the way in this revolution of values.
There is nothing, except a tragic death wish,
to prevent us from reordering our priorities…
~Martin Luther King, Jr. from a speech April 4, 1967

We live in a time where the groaning need
and dividedness of humankind
is especially to be felt and recognized.
Countless people are subjected to hatred,
violence and oppression which go unchecked.
The injustice and corruption which exist today
are causing many voices to be raised to protest
and cry out that something be done.
Many men and women are being moved to sacrifice much
in the struggle for justice, freedom, and peace.
There is a movement afoot in our time,
a movement which is growing, awakening.

We must recognize that we as individuals are to blame
for every social injustice,
every oppression,
the downgrading of others
and the injury that man does to man,
whether personal or on a broader plane.…
God must intervene with his spirit and his justice and his truth.
The present misery, need, and decay must pass away
and the new day of the Son of Man must dawn.
This is the advent of God’s coming.
~Dwight Blough from the introduction to When the Time was Fulfilled (1965)

I weep to see ongoing bitter divisions among our citizens
as we fail to learn from history’s past errors.
Here we are again, groaning against one another once more,
ignited by front-running candidates for president
whose ethics and values do not represent
freedom and justice for all.

As we once again walk this hazardous Jericho Road together,
we cannot pass by those who lie dying in the ditch,
our brother, our sister, our neighbor, a stranger.

We must stop and help lest we share the guilt of their suffering.

It could be you or me there bleeding, beaten, abandoned
until Someone took our place
so we can get up and walk Home.

Maranatha.

At the edge of Jericho Road
Beneath the street light’s yellow orange glow
The feared and the fallen go
In the way of predator and prey
No one’s spared
Because hate is too great a weight to bear

In a cage of shadows we meet
Naked and bloodied in the street
At the mercy, at the feet
Of the way of predator and prey
No one’s spared
Because hate is too great a weight to bear

In the darkness on shattered pavement
The better angels fade
Blurred in slumber, murder by numbers
Do you know my name?
Do you know my name?
I believe in you

Because everyone holds some part of the truth
And now, I’m in your way
Do we stay on Jericho Road, forever going nowhere
Till hate is too great a weight to bear

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Journeying

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All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

I should be glad of another death.
~T.S. Eliot from “Journey of the Magi”

O God,
who am I now?
Once, I was secure

in familiar territory
in my sense of belonging

unquestioning of 

the norms of my culture
the assumptions built into my language
the values shared by my society.

But now you have called me out and away from home
and I do not know where you are leading.
I am empty, unsure, uncomfortable.
I have only a beckoning star to follow.

Journeying God,
pitch your tent with mine
so that I may not become deterred
by hardship, strangeness, doubt.
Show me the movement I must make

toward a wealth not dependent on possessions
toward a wisdom not based on books
toward a strength not bolstered by might
toward a God not confined to heaven

but scandalously earthed, poor, unrecognized…

Help me find myself
as I walk in others’ shoes.
~Kate Compston “A Poem for Epiphany”

Deep midwinter, the dark center of the year,
Wake, O earth, awake,
Out of the hills a star appears,
Here lies the way for pilgrim kings,
Three magi on an ancient path,
Black hours begin their journeyings.

Their star has risen in our hearts,
Empty thrones, abandoning fears,
Out on the hills their journey starts,
In dazzling darkness God appears.
~Judith Bingham “Epiphany”

Unclench your fists

Hold out your hands.

Take mine.

Let us hold each other.

Thus is his Glory Manifest.
~Madeleine L’Engle “Epiphany”

…the scent of frankincense
and myrrh
arrives on the wind,
and I long
to breathe deeply,
to divine its trail.
But I know their uses
and cannot bring myself
to breathe deeply enough
to know
whether what comes
is the fragrant welcoming
of birth
or simply covers the stench of death.
These hands
coming toward me,
is it swaddling they carry
or shroud?
~Jan Richardson from Night Visions –searching the shadows of Advent and Christmas

Our troubles and concerns go on after Christmastide;
our frailty becomes daily reality.
We can be distracted by holidays for a few weeks,
but our time here slips away even more quickly.

The Christmas story is not just about
light and birth and joy to the world.
It is about how swaddling clothes became a shroud
that wrapped Him tight.

There is not one without the other.

God journeyed to be with us;
planted on and in the earth,
born so He could die in our place
leaving the shroud behind, neatly folded.

Christmas:  unwrapping that frees us forever.
Epiphany: journeying to find the Seed has taken root in our hearts

January 6, the traditional day of celebrating “Epiphany” as the manifestation of God on earth in the form of His incarnate Son, calls us to deeper scrutiny of our earthly journey —
away from our anger, our shame and our resultant homelessness,
to the restoration of our souls, resting in the sacrifice of Christ Himself.
He is the Seed growing within us.

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Grace Unmerited

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Find a quiet rain.  Then a green spruce tree.  You will notice that nearly every needle has been decorated with a tiny raindrop ornament.  Look closely inside the drop and there you are. In color. Upside down. Raindrops have been collecting snapshots since objects and people were placed, to their surprise, here and there on earth.

…even if we are only on display for a moment in a water drop as it clings to a pine needle, it is expected that we be on our best behavior, hair combed, jacket buttoned, no vulgar language.  Smiling is not necessary, but a pleasant attitude is helpful, and would be, I think, appreciated.
~Tom Hennen from “Outdoor Photos”

… We are, as we have always been, dangerous creatures, the enemies of our own happiness. But the only help we have ever found for this, the only melioration, is in mutual reverence.

God’s grace comes to us unmerited, the theologians say. But the grace we could extend to one another we consider it best to withhold in very many cases, presumptively, or in the absence of what we consider true or sufficient merit (we being more particular than God), or because few gracious acts, if they really deserve the name, would stand up to a cost-benefit analysis. 

This is not the consequence of a new atheism, or a systemic materialism that afflicts our age more than others. It is good old human meanness, which finds its terms and pretexts in every age. The best argument against human grandeur is the meagerness of our response to it, paradoxically enough.

And yet, the beautiful persists, and so do eloquence and depth of thought, and they belong to all of us because they are the most pregnant evidence we can have of what is possible in us.
~ Marilynne Robinson from “What Are We Doing Here?”

Grace rains down on us, often as a gentle shower, but sometimes in a torrential downpour.

I prefer quiet drizzle, clinging as droplets which reflect me as an earth-bound image of God.

Often, when I look at my upside-down image in a hanging drop, I feel downright unimpressive, even grouchy about getting wet. There I am, captured in a transparent selfie, about to fall to the ground and disappear forever.

Yet there are times when my image actually looks and feels presentable – maybe even a little beautiful – inside that drop of grace water.

God creates us pregnant with possibility. It is up to me to water the world with the love He bestows as unmerited grace. He can be so gentle and quiet, but I must be prepared for the deluge that sweeps me off my feet.

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