Tag: lenten

Lenten Grace — A Table in the Wilderness

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…faith finds food in famine, and a table in the wilderness.
In the greatest danger, faith says, “I have a great God.”
When outward strength is broken, faith rests on the promises.
In the midst of sorrow, faith draws the sting out of every trouble,
and takes out the bitterness from every affliction.
~Richard Cecil

The table set for us in the wilderness may not be what we hope for nor expect. Only faith can sustain us when the cup is bitter and the meal disheartening. We may choose starvation and thirst rather than eat and drink of trouble and sacrifice.

Even Jesus asked that the cup be taken from Him. Yet He drank from it and handed it over to us.

Even as Jesus walked to Golgotha, breaking under the burden and about to be shattered, He is prepared to hand His body over to us.

He has eaten at this same table so we are no longer alone in the bitter wilderness.

And so we, sharing our hunger, our thirst, our fear, our sorrow and our pain, can say, “We have a great God.”

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Lenten Grace — Even in the Wilderness

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness , is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness- especially in the wilderness – you shall love him.   
~Frederick Buechner

The wilderness can be a distant peak far removed from anything or anyone.  The wilderness can also be found in an isolated corner of the human heart kept far away from anything and anyone.   From my window on a clear day, I am fortunate to see the first if the cloud cover moves away.  From my perch on a round stool at work,  I am sometimes given access to the other many times every day.

There are times in one’s life when loving God as commanded seems impossible.  We are too broken, too frightened, too wary to trust God with our love and devotion.  Recognizing a diagnosis of wilderness of the heart is straight forward:  despair, discouragement, disappointment, lack of gratitude, lack of hope.  The treatment is to tame the wilderness with a covenantal obedience that reaches so deep there is no corner left untouched.   We must do as we are asked, even when it seems impossible, when it hurts, and when it means we may become even more profoundly isolated.

To be asked to love God is the invitation we were created for.   To be loved by Him is our rescue from the wilderness of the most distant peak, as well as from the most bitter and broken heart that beats within.

Lenten Grace — Merciful Dew

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

He hath abolished the old drought
And rivers run where all was dry,
The field is sopp’d with merciful dew
He hath put a new song in my mouth.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins

When I have no voice left, He gives me a song I can still sing.
When I run dry, He replenishes.
When I wither, His merciful dew
restores and readies me for a new day.

I am stopped astonished,
sopped and mopping up,
spilling over in His grace.

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

Lenten Grace — Streams in the Desert

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photo by Kathy Yates
photo by Kathy Yates

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
    and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6 Then will the lame leap like a deer,
    and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
    and streams in the desert.
7 The burning sand will become a pool,
    the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
    grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
Isaiah 35: 5-7

And so we will not remain mere dust in the ground.

The dry wilderness bubbles with streams and gushes with falls.
The barren grows fruit.
The impossible becomes possible.

We are paradox.

Once dead, we live again.

photo by Kathy Yates
photo by Kathy Yates

Lenten Grace — Peace Among the Rocks

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photo by Kathy Yates
photo by Kathy Yates

Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks…

…And let my cry come unto Thee.
~T.S. Eliot from the conclusion of “Ash Wednesday”

Too many daily distractions prevent me from being still and seeking peace in my earthly life.  I constantly want to build up, to tear down, to keep moving, I care too much, I care too little — anything to avoid being like an inanimate rock.  There is always the awareness that everlasting stillness will come soon enough, much too soon, in the grave, in the forever of my becoming dust.

Yet even among the rocks they fail to stay rooted in place;  they are washed away with the waves, moved at the mercy of the tide, landing somewhere new and unfamiliar only to be stilled, then shifted once again.

Let my peace be among the rocks, to be picked up and moved where He wills, to settle where I am placed until the time comes to move again.   Let my peace be in the knowledge He has control, not I.

And so I cry out.
Even among the rocks
Even among the rocks

photo by Kathy Yates
photo by Kathy Yates

Lenten Grace — Quintessence of Dust

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

What a piece of work is a man!
…And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”
~ William Shakespeare in Hamlet’s monologue 

This dust left of man:
earth, air, water and fire
prove inadequate
to quell its significance.

Only the transcendent hope
of eternal life restored
can breathe glory
into the plainest of ash.

We therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ;
who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto his glorious body…
Committal service from The Common Book of Prayer

Lenten Grace — Forestalling Burial

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..earth sifts over things. If you stay still, earth buries you, ready or not. The debris on the tops of your feet or shoes thickens, windblown dirt piles around it, and pretty soon your feet are underground..

Micrometeorite dust can bury you, too, if you wait: a ton falls on earth every hour.

Quick: Why aren’t you dusting? On every continent, we sweep floors and wipe tabletops not only to shine the place, but to forestall burial.
~Annie Dillard from For the Time Being

I conveniently thought dust came from flakes of old dead skin innocuously loosening and lazily floating away from their body of origin to accumulate on the piano, or book shelves, or hide innocently in surreptitious dust-bunny clumps under the bed.   Each house is it’s own self-sustaining dust-factory thanks to its exfoliating occupants.   I hadn’t given too much thought to all that alien dust outside our doors, much of it originating from something quite extraterrestial.

A mega-ton meteor comes roaring out of the sky, breaking sound barriers and everything around, including people, and busts into millions of microscopic particles on impact.   Now that is real DUST, overwhelming dust, a beyond-our-comprehension debris burying us from above with shock and awe brightness.

We dust compulsively in our daily lives, trying to forestall our ultimate burial, hoping to avoid the harsh reality of being covered up only to become dust ourselves someday —  all dust and nothing but dust.

Truly, in one fell swoop, we will all be changed, in a blink of any eye.   A little meteor exploding from the heavens is nothing compared to the cataclysm of the Son of Man hung, dying, buried, to be returned to dust like us all,  and yet rising to walk again.   Instead he dusts us up, shines us clean, and readies us to live when he comes again.

No more dead skin to forestall.  We will be so much more than mere dust.

Everything exists, everything is true and the earth is just a bit of dust beneath our feet.
~ W. B. Yeats

Better was it to go unknown and leave behind you an arch, then to burn like a meteor and leave no dust.
~ Virginia Woolf

Lenten Grace — Fearful Dust

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photo from the top of Mt. Baker by Josh Scholten
photo from the top of Mt. Baker by Josh Scholten

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”

We do not want to think of ourselves as the dust we were and the dust we will become.  There is too much of us living right now; we cast shadows before and behind us depending on the time of day and time of life.  We are substance with our shadows only ephemeral reflections of our presence on earth.

Yet the dust we were and the dust we become is a fearful thing.
Nothing but dust…
until the Creator lifts us up in the palm of His hand, and blows on us.  Now we breathe and pulse and weep and bleed.

We become something different than mere shadow.

We become His, awed,  to the last grain of fearful dust with which we are made.  We become so much more.  So much more.

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

Lenten Grace — Great Gaps

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photo by Kathy Yates
photo by Kathy Yates

Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words.
They should remain open.
Our only comfort is the God of the resurrection,
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who also was and is his God.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer from “Circular Letters in the Church Struggle”

No greater gap was torn
than when Christ was separated from the Father,
forsaken,
choosing suffering for his brothers and sisters
by paying with his life a ransom we could never satisfy,
so dead broke are we
and captive to our sin.

Only the Word can fill
what remains open and gaping,
until we accept the comfort of his grace
freely given.

Grace great enough
to fill every hole
bridge every gap
bring hope to the hopeless
and restore us wholly to our Father
who was and is our God.

 

 

Eastertide–Dayspring to Dimness

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“Let Him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east.”
― Gerard Manley Hopkins

Too often, the bright light of Easter morning dims over time as I return to my daily routine. In mere days, the humdrum replaces the extraordinary, tragedy overcomes festivity, darkness overwhelms dawn. The world encourages this, and I don’t muster enough resistance. I climb right back into the tomb of my sin, move the huge stone back in place, and lie there waiting for rot to settle in.

I am not alone. I have plenty of company with me behind the stone. There is no excuse for us to be there still.

The stone is pushed aside, the burden shouldered, the debt completely paid.

How can we allow the light to dim?

He is risen. We are eastered.

I need to live that truth, not wait for rot.