Tag: Lent

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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I Will Sing: Wakeful and Whispering

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This is the season:
Cradle of quiet,
Trees, waiting,
Naked on the hill,
Branches entwined
Like lovers holding
Hands.

Nothing is hidden.
A lone leaf quivers
On the apple tree.
Snow has yet to fall.
Waiting, the grass
Lies mute.

It could be death but
Isn’t. Yet. Wings
Quicken serrated air
As nuthatch, junco,
Chickadee flit from
Tree to tree, oblivious
To the hawk circling
Overhead, waiting,
Like the grass, for what
Comes next.

And it will come,
To all of us—there’s
No exception—
But if that frightens
You, hold it like
A stone beneath
The tongue until
Fear softens, and
You realize that
Nothing is ever lost
But is, instead,
Transformed as one
Door opens to another,
As even now light
Lifts the shadows,
And, out of sight,
Sap, wakeful, whispers
In the apple tree.
~Sarah Rossiter “Winter”

The soul’s sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. 

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;

And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well…
~T.S. Eliot – lines from “Little Gidding” in the Four Quartets

In the eternal “already, but not yet”
my wintry soul struggles to find its footing.
I can feel stuck in ice,
immobile and numb.
I wait impatiently
for a wakening thaw,
a whisper of the internal movement
caught between frozen and melting.
My soul’s sap smells the coming spring.
I tremble, anticipating a bloom that will not fade.
It may not happen quite yet,
but I know it is coming.

This Lenten season will 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: Held Fast

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I had grasped God’s garments in the void
but my hand slipped on the rich silk of it.

The ‘everlasting arms’ my sister loved to remember
must have upheld my leaden weight from falling, even so,

for though I claw at empty air and feel nothing, no embrace,
I have not plummeted.
~Denise Levertov “Suspended” from Evening Train

Reaching out in hopeless grasp to save myself,
sinking down, prepared to fall,
yet twisting and turning in a chill wind,
in helpless wait for what is to come.

Now I dangle suspended
rather than plummet,
held fast through sheer grace
by a slender thread of faith.

This is my Rescuer revealed,
here is my Salvation
holding me fast from above
when I was sure I was lost forever.

Rescue me from the mire,
    do not let me sink
Psalm 69:14


…even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
Psalm 139:10

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

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What Wondrous Love: A Handful of Dust

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I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
~T.S. Eliot in “Burial of the Dead” from “The Wasteland”

On this Valentine’s and Ash Wednesday,
I begin the dusty journey
into the ash heap
of my soul, confronting
my limitations,
my temptations,
my inability to think of myself second,
my acknowledgement that salvation
comes from no effort of my own.

This shadowland I live in is not all there is nor will ever be.

I am so tangible — dust arising and settling back when the soil reclaims me. I do not want to think of myself as a mere handful of dust. I feel alive and solid, casting a shadow before or behind me, depending on the time of day and time of life. Although today I have substance, my shadow remains an ephemeral reflection of who I am.

The dust I am is a humbling, fearful thing – until God lifted me up in the palm of His hand and blew life into me.

I am His; a reflection of Him.
I breathe and pulse and weep and bleed.

This is His wondrous love on this Valentine’s Day and every day: we each are more than a handful of dust or an incorporeal shadow.

So much more.

By the sweat of your face You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.
Genesis 3:19

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7bQl3IubU0
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Fixing Eyes on the Unseen – Everything Sad is Going to Come Untrue

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He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.  Revelation 21: 4-5

“Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead! Is everything sad going to come untrue?”
~J.R.R. Tolkien as Samwise Gamgee wakes to find his friends all around him in The Lord of the Rings

“The answer is yes. And the answer of the Bible is yes. If the resurrection is true, then the answer is yes. Everything sad is going to come untrue.”
~Pastor Tim Keller’s response in a sermon given in an ecumenical prayer service memorial in Lower Manhattan on the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11.

photo by Joel De Waard

In our minds, we want to rewind and replay the sad events of this week in a way that would prevent them from happening in the first place.

We want those in a broken relationship to come back together, hug and forgive. The devastating diagnosis would be proven an error and, in reality, only a transient illness. When a terrible tragedy happens, we want the dead and injured to rise up again. The destructive earthquake becomes a mere tremor, the flooding tsunami is only one foot, not over thirty feet tall, the hijackers are prevented from ever boarding a plane, the shooter changes her mind at the last minute and lays down her arms, the terrorist disables his suicide bombs and walks away from his training and misguided mission.

We want so badly for it all to be untrue. The bitter reality of horrendous suffering and sadness daily all over the earth is too much for us to absorb. We plead for relief and beg for a better day.

Our minds may play mental tricks like this, but God does not play tricks. He knows and feels what we do. He too wants to see it rewound and replayed differently. He has known grief and sadness, He has wept, He has suffered, He too has died in terrible humiliating and painful circumstances. 

And because of this, because of a God who came to dwell with us, was broken, died and then rose again whole and holy, we are assured, in His time, everything sad is going to come untrue.

Our tears will be dried, our grief turned to joy, our pain nonexistent, not even a memory.  It will be a new day, a better day–as it is written, trustworthy and true.

May it come.

Quickly.

photo by Nate Gibson

This year’s Lenten theme:
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4: 18

Fixing Eyes on the Unseen – In Sorrow, Scraped and Torn

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“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf,
“and so do all who live to see such times.
But that is not for them to decide.
All we have to decide
is what to do with the time that is given us.”

The world is indeed full of peril,
and in it there are many dark places;
but still there is much that is fair,
and though in all lands
love is now mingled with grief,
it grows perhaps the greater.
― J.R.R. Tolkien, from The Fellowship of the Ring

God is not only the God of the sufferers but the God who suffers. … It is said of God that no one can behold his face and live. I always thought this meant that no one could see his splendor and live. A friend said perhaps it meant that no one could see his sorrow and live. Or perhaps his sorrow is splendor. …

Instead of explaining our suffering God shares it.

How is faith to endure, O God, when you allow all this scraping and tearing on us? You have allowed rivers of blood to flow, mountains of suffering to pile up, sobs to become humanity’s song–all without lifting a finger that we could see. You have allowed bonds of love beyond number to be painfully snapped. If you have not abandoned us, explain yourself.

We strain to hear. But instead of hearing an answer we catch sight of God himself scraped and torn. Through our tears we see the tears of God.
~Nicholas Wolterstorff  in Lament for a Son

“My God, My God,” goes the Psalm 22, “hear me, why have you forsaken me?”  This is the anguish all we of Godforsaken heart know well. But hear the revelation to which Christ directs us, further in the same psalm:

For He has not despised nor scorned the beggar’s supplication,
Nor has He turned away His face from me;
And when I cried out to Him, He heard me.

He hears us, and he knows, because he has suffered as one Godforsaken. Which means that you and I, even in our darkest hours, are not forsaken. Though we may hear nothing, feel nothing, believe nothing, we are not forsaken, and so we need not despair. And that is everything. That is Good Friday and it is hope, it is life in this darkened age, and it is the life of the world to come.
~Tony Woodlief from “We are Not Forsaken”

Scratch the surface of a human being and the demons of hate and revenge … and sheer destructiveness break forth.

    Again and again we read the stories of violence in our daily papers, of the mass murders and ethnic wars still occurring in numerous parts of our world. But how often do we say to ourselves: “What seizes people like that, even young people, to make them forget family and friends, and suddenly kill other human beings?” We don’t always ask the question in that manner. Sometimes we are likely to think, almost smugly: “How different those horrible creatures are from the rest of us. How fortunate I am that I could never kill or hurt other people like they did.”

    I do not like to stop and, in the silence, look within, but when I do I hear a pounding on the floor of my soul. When I open the trap door into the deep darkness I see the monsters emerge for me to deal with. How painful it is to bear all this, but it is there to bear in all of us. Freud called it the death wish, Jung the demonic darkness. If I do not deal with it, it deals with me. The cross reminds me of all this.

    This inhumanity of human to human is tamed most of the time by law and order in most of our communities, but there are not laws strong enough to make men and women simply cease their cruelty and bitterness. This destructiveness within us can seldom be transformed until we squarely face it in ourselves. This confrontation often leads us into the pit. The empty cross is planted there to remind us that suffering is real but not the end, that victory still is possible…
~Morton Kelsey from “The Cross and the Cellar”

I’m depending on others’ words right now. The maelstrom of emotions following this week’s latest school shooting silences everything but my tears.

Have mercy, Holy God, on your people.

This year’s Lenten theme:
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4: 18

Fixing Eyes on the Unseen – A Peculiar Treasure

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Imagine yourself in a big city in a crowd of people.  
What it would be like to see all the people in the crowd like Jesus does —
an anonymous crowd with
old ones and young ones,
fat ones and thin ones,
attractive ones and ugly ones—
think what it would be like to love them.  

If our faith is true, if there is a God,
and if God loves, he loves each one of those.  
Try to see them as loved.  
And then try to see them, these faces, as loved by you.  
What would it be like to love these people, to love these faces —
the lovable faces, the kind faces, gentle compassionate faces?  
That’s not so hard.  
But there are lots of other faces —
disagreeable faces, frightening faces, frightened faces, cruel faces, closed faces. …
they are all peculiar treasures.  

In Exodus, God said to Israel,
“You shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people.”  
God meant it for all of us.
~Frederick Buechner from The Remarkable Ordinary: How to Stop, Look, and Listen to Life

t doesn’t take long for me to be overwhelmed by humanity when we have visited some of the world’s largest cities. Airports are a shock of weaving lines of weary people and crying children, commuter trains are packed with individuals standing like sardines for an hour or more twice a day, the stations are a sea of bobbing heads flowing out onto the streets where the crosswalks become a mass hive of activity whenever the light changes.

Yet I’ve been struck by the effort some locals make to help visitors who look lost, or who simply look different. There is outreach at times that is spontaneous, genuine and completely unexpected. Those are easy faces to love and we do. What is much much harder to is love those hundreds of thousands who rush past us on their way to work, to shop, to return home.  How can I even begin to have the capacity?

Who greeted Jesus after he entered Jerusalem in the final week of His life? These were not all friendly faces. He loved them all any way, every single one of them were peculiar treasures to him, forgiven and redeemed by His walk to, and death on, the cross.

I realize much of the time I too feel rushed, not bothering to reach out and be helpful when needed. Even so, He loves me still, flaws and all, as His redeeming grace is meant for one such as me – a peculiar treasure.  

Because of His love, I become the real thing and not just a distorted reflection of what I think I should be.

This year’s Lenten theme:
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4: 18

Fixing Eyes on the Unseen – A Ministry of Presence

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More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them.

It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems.

My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress.

But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them.
~Henri Nouwen from The Practice of the Presence of God

For too many years, I was wrapped up in the trappings of the “useful” life – meetings, committees, schedules, strategic priorities – and I forgot there is so much living usefully that I neglected to do.

There needs to be more potlucks, more “oh, by the way” conversations, more connections “just because,” more showing up when extra hands are needed.

If only I could invite you all over for breakfast. We’d have a wonderful chin wag…

Actually, now that I think of it —
you ARE invited for breakfast – Sunday, April 9, 2023 at 7 AM.
Dress warmly. Wear boots. Come hungry and thirsty for the Word and ready for hugs.
Easter Sunrise on our hill.

photo by Joel De Waard

This year’s Lenten theme:
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4: 18

Fixing Eyes on the Unseen – Don’t Worry, You’ll Make It

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To the shepherd herding his flock
through the gorge below, it must appear as if I walk
on the sky. I feel that too: so little between me

and The Fall. But this is how faith works its craft.
One foot set in front of the other, while the wind
rattles the cage of the living and the rocks down there

cheer every wobble, your threads keep
this braided business almost intact saying: Don’t worry.
I’ve been here a long time. You’ll make it across.
~Matthew Olzmann “Letter to a Bridge Made of Rope”

photo from https://www.causewaycoast.holiday/locations/carrick-a-rede

I have never walked a rope bridge though I’ve seen one from a distance in Northern Ireland. It swayed far above a rocky gorge, hanging almost miraculously in the air as walkers trekked blithely across.

Not for me, I said.

I feel disoriented and dizzy when the surface beneath my feet sways and moves with the wind and due to my own movement. I make my own wobbling worse with my fear. The rocks below seem menacing; I don’t trust my own ability to navigate over and through them.

Oh, me of little faith. So little between me and The Fall.

Simply crossing a narrow wooden bridge built over a fallen large old-growth tree trunk takes all my courage. I try to focus on my feet taking each step, testing the solid wood beneath me rather than looking down at the rushing water and sharp rocks below.

In the course of life, I have to take steps that feel uncertain and unsupported. I freeze in place, afraid to move forward, reluctant to leave the security of where I am to do what it takes to get safely to the other side.

Yet I need to trust what holds firm for others will hold firm for me.

Christ is the bridge for those like me who fear, who don’t trust their own feet, who can’t stop seeing the taunting and daunting rocks below. He has braided Himself around me to keep me safe, no matter what and no matter where. He’s been here a long time and will always be.

I can step out in that confidence.

This year’s Lenten theme:
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4: 18

Loving shepherd of Thy sheep,
Keep Thy lamb, in safety keep;
Nothing can Thy power withstand,
None can pluck me from Thy hand.

I will praise Thee everyday,
Gladly Thy all will obey;
Like Thy ones blessed above,
Happy in Thy presence love.

Loving shepherd, ever near,
Teach Thy lamb Thy voice to hear;
Suffer not my steps to stray,
From the straight and narrow way.

Where Thou leadest I would go,
Walking in Thy steps below;
Till before my Father’s throne,
I shall know as I am known.