Lined with light the twigs are stubby arrows. A gilded trunk writhes Upward from the roots, from the pit of the black tentacles.
In the book of spring a bare-limbed torso is the first illustration.
Light teaches the tree to beget leaves, to embroider itself all over with green reality, until summer becomes its steady portrait and birds bring their lifetime to the boughs.
Then even the corpse light copies from below may shimmer, dreaming it feels the cheeks of blossom. ~May Swenson “April Light”
For over two years, we have been surrounded by a shimmering corpse light hovering close, masked and wary when we needed each other most.
Even so, the world is not defeated by death.
An unprecedented illumination emerged from the tomb on a bright Sabbath morning to guarantee that we struggling people, we who became no more than bare twigs and stubs, we who feel at times hardly alive, are now begetting green, ready to burst into blossom, our glowing cheeks pink with life, a picture of our future fruitfulness.
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…to break through earth and stone of the faithless world back to the cold sepulchre, tearstained stifling shroud; to break from them back into breath and heartbeat, and walk the world again, closed into days and weeks again, wounds of His anguish open, and Spirit streaming through every cell of flesh so that if mortal sight could bear to perceive it, it would be seen His mortal flesh was lit from within, now, and aching for home. He must return, first, In Divine patience, and know hunger again, and give to humble friends the joy of giving Him food – fish and a honeycomb. ~Denise Levertov “Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell” from A Door in the Hive
The Holy Saturday of our life must be the preparation for Easter, the persistent hope for the final glory of God. The virtue of our daily life is the hope which does what is possible and expects God to do the impossible. To express it somewhat paradoxically, but nevertheless seriously: the worst has actually already happened; we exist, and even death cannot deprive us of this. Now is the Holy Saturday of our ordinary life, but there will also be Easter, our true and eternal life. ~Karl Rahner “Holy Saturday” in The Great Church Year
This in-between day after all had gone so wrong: the rejection, the denials, the trumped-up charges, the beatings, the burden, the jeering, the mocking, the thorns, the nails, the thirst, the suffocation, the despair of being forsaken.
This already but not yet day before all will go so right: the forgiveness and compassion, the grace and sacrifice, the debt paid in full, mortal flesh lit from within, an immovable stone rolled away, our names on His lips, our hearts burning to hear His words.
What does it take to move such a stone? When it is an effort to till the untillable, creating a place where simple seed can drop, be covered and sprout and thrive, thanks to muscle and sweat and blisters and tears.
What does it take to move the stone? When it is a day when no one will speak out of fear, the silent will be moved to cry out the truth, heard and known and never forgotten.
What does it take to move the stone? When it is a day when all had given up, gone behind locked doors in grief. When two came to tend the dead, there would be no dead to tend.
Only a gaping hole left Only an empty tomb Only a weeping weary silence broken by Love calling our name and we turn to greet Him as if hearing it for the first time.
We cannot imagine what is to come at dawn tomorrow as the stone lifted and rolled, giving way so our separation is bridged, darkness overwhelmed by light, dead flesh lit and warmed and animated, the crushed and broken rising to dance, and inexplicably, from the waiting stillness He stirs and we, finding death emptied, greet Him with trembling… We are forever moved and we cry out, singing, like an immovable stone that cannot remain silent.
This year’s Lenten theme for Barnstorming is a daily selection from songs and hymns about Christ’s profound sacrifice on our behalf.
If we remain silent about Him, the stones themselves will shout out and start to sing (Luke 19:40).
In His name, may we sing…
They have been saying all our plans are empty. They have been saying “Where is their God now?” Roll away the stone see the Glory of God. Roll away the stone.
They have been saying no one will remember. They have been saying Power rules the world. Roll away the stone see the Glory of God. Roll away the stone.
They have been saying no one hears the singing. They have been saying all our strength is gone. Roll away the stone see the Glory of God. Roll away the stone.
They have been saying “All of us are dying.” They have been saying “All of us are dead.” Roll away the stone see the Glory of God. Roll away the stone. ~Tom Conry
I see his blood upon the rose And in the stars the glory of his eyes, His body gleams amid eternal snows, His tears fall from the skies.
I see his face in every flower; The thunder and the singing of the birds Are but his voice-and carven by his power Rocks are his written words.
All pathways by his feet are worn, His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea, His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn, His cross is every tree. ~Joseph Plunkett “I See His Blood Upon the Rose”
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Happy the man, whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air, In his own ground. Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, Whose flocks supply him with attire, Whose trees in summer yield him shade, In winter fire.
Blest, who can unconcernedly find Hours, days, and years slide soft away, In health of body, peace of mind, Quiet by day,
Sound sleep by night; study and ease, Together mixed; sweet recreation; And innocence, which most does please, With meditation.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; Thus unlamented let me die; Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.
~Alexander Pope, “Ode to Solitude” from Pope: Poems
450 year old gravestone in Glencairn Parish Cemetery in Scotland which reads: Here Lyeth The Corps Of John Mcubin in Meruhirn (Marwhin) Who Departed This Life The Year 1663 Age 100other side of the same stone
But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. ~George Eliot’s final sentence in Middlemarch
We have no idea who came before us, unseen, unknown, unheralded, unvisited, yet they, by living and dying, made our lives better today.
They lie, forgotten, now dust in the ground.
Yet they lived fully and lovingly, stewards of the earth and its creatures, parents to the next generation and the next and the next, placed here as images of their Creator.
May we, someday, having also lived faithfully in the fullness of time, leave behind a legacy of good and unhistoric acts that leave this world a better place for those who walk behind us in our footsteps.
It’s the least we can do, to honor those whose footprints we now follow.
A new book from Barnstorming available for order here
I owned a slope full of stones. Like buried pianos they lay in the ground…
What bond have I made with the earth, having worn myself against it? It is a fatal singing I have carried with me out of that day. The stones have given me music that figures for me their holes in the earth and their long lying in them dark. They have taught me the weariness that loves the ground, and I must prepare a fitting silence. ~Wendell Berry from “The Stones”
What does it take to move a stone?
When it is an effort to till the untillable,
creating a place where simple seed can drop,
be covered and sprout and thrive,
it takes muscle and sweat and blisters and tears.
What does it take to move a stone?
When it is a day when no one speaks out of fear,
the silent will be moved to cry out the truth,
heard and known and never forgotten.
What does it take to move a stone?
When all had given up,
gone behind locked doors in grief,
and two came to tend the dead,
but there was no dead to tend.
Only a gaping hole left
Only an empty tomb
Only a weeping weary silence
broken by Love calling us
and we turn aside to greet Him
as if hearing our name for the first time.
a stone pinecone, environmental art by Andy Goldsworthy, rural Scotland
Lined with light the twigs are stubby arrows. A gilded trunk writhes Upward from the roots, from the pit of the black tentacles.
In the book of spring a bare-limbed torso is the first illustration.
Light teaches the tree to beget leaves, to embroider itself all over with green reality, until summer becomes its steady portrait and birds bring their lifetime to the boughs.
Then even the corpse light copies from below may shimmer, dreaming it feels the cheeks of blossom. ~May Swenson “April Light”
Only a week ago we waited
on corpse light~
a mysterious illumination that came alive
on a bright Sabbath morning,
taking bare stubs of people.
begetting them green,
bursting them into blossom,
their cheeks pink with life,
in promise of faithful fruitfulness.
I said to my mind, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; yet there is faith
But the faith and the hope and the love are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be light, and the stillness the dancing.
~T. S. Eliot, from “East Coker” The Four Quartets
This in-between day
after all had gone so wrong
before all will go so right,
puts us between the rock
and the hard place:
all hope, love and faith is squeezed from us.
Today we are flattened,
dried like chaff,
ground to pulp,
our destiny with death sealed.
We lie still
like sprinkled spices
trying to delay
inevitable decay,
wrapped up tight
stone cold
and futile.
The rock is rolled into place
so we lie underneath,
crushed and broken.
We are inside,
our bodies like His.
We are outside,
cut off and left behind.
We cannot know about tomorrow,
we do not fathom what is soon to come:
the stone lifted and rolled away,
the separation bridged,
the darkness giving way to light,
the crushed and broken rising to dance,
and the waiting stillness stirring, inexplicably,
to celebrate new life.
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