The importance of listening

Artist: Camille Pissarro
Image from Wikimedia Commons

This has long been one of my favorite Bonhoeffer quotations:

Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking where they should be listening. But he who can no longer listen to his brother will soon be no longer listening to God, either; he will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God, too. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and in the end there will be nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical condescension arrayed in pious words ... never really speaking to others.

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The life of God flows...

Artist: Derek McCrea

As the sap flows through the branches of the vine and vitalizes the whole organism so that it burst into the beauty and glory of foliage and blossom and finally into fruit, so through the lives of men and women, inwardly receptive, the life of God flows, carrying vitality, awakening love, creating passion for goodness, kindling the fervor of consecration and producing that living body, that organism of the Spirit, that 'blessed community' which continues through the centuries the revelation of God as love and tenderness and eternal goodness…

-- Rufus Jones

I really recommend that you click through and read the article on Rufus Jones. Very interesting indeed. I had not realized that he set the stage, really, for Thomas Merton's works to be so influential.

Memorial Day, 2009

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.

The soul

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

I saved this a long time ago and just found it again. And it gladdens my heart this morning:

What is a soul? It's like electricity - we don't really know what it is, but it's a force that can light a room.

-- Ray Charles

UPDATE: I just found this by Ray Charles and I think it's wonderful:

There's nothing written in the Bible, Old or New testament, that says, If you believe in Me, you ain't going to have no troubles.

We'd all do well to remember that!

Connection problems

Dear readers,

I've lost internet connection at home so posting will be sporadic until that is up and running again.

Thanks for your understanding!

Peace,
Ellie
~~~

"Come dance with Me"

Artist: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Oh, I love this poem so much! I was this child. (I am this child.)

Every
Child
Has known God,
Not the God of names,
not the God of don’ts,
Not the God who ever does anything weird,

But the God who only knows four words
And keeps repeating them, saying:
“Come dance with Me.”

Come
Dance.

--Hafiz

The Ascension of Our Lord

Ascension

Artist: Thomas de Coloswar

From an article by a Presbyterian pastor:

In his most striking commentary on the Ascension Calvin says: "Since (Christ) entered heaven in our flesh, as if in our name, it follows, as the apostle says, that in a sense we already sit with God in the heavenly places in him (Christ). At the Ascension, our humanity, our "flesh," has been "taken" (Acts 1:11) by God's Beloved One into the very heart of God. This is profound good news for us as Christians and for our whole world. It means that we are more deeply valued, loved and held by God than we may have known before.
...
This ascension of Jesus Christ is good news for us as Christians, and through us, for our world. It means that God loves, values, holds, and will transform our fragile and broken humanity in Christ. It means that, at the Ascension, Jesus took all of human life, which he cared for so deeply, and brought it "into the heavenly places," into the very heart of God. This includes the suffering refugee, the abused child or spouse, the victim of war or terror, the lonely one in the nursing home, the one who struggles with depression or a lost sense of worth and value, those who are sick, all who are in difficult transitions in life.

-- John S. McClure

This, truly, is divine encouragement.

The questions and the song

"The Turtle Dove"

Artist: Sophie Anderson

Image from Wikimedia Commons

The disciples were full of questions about God. Said the master, "God is the Unknown and the Unknowable. Every statement about him, every answer to your questions, is a distortion of the truth."

The disciples were bewildered. "Then why do you speak about him at all?"

"Why does the bird sing?" said the master. "Not because it has a statement, but because it has a song."

-- Anthony de Mello

Commitment and joy

"Joy of Life" quilt pattern

It's an interesting principle expressed here that actually making a commitment to joy is necessary:

I have committed myself to joy. I have come to realize that those who make space for joy, those who prefer nothing to joy, those who desire the utter reality, will most assuredly have it. We must not be afraid to announce it to refugees, slum dwellers, saddened prisoners, angry prophets. Now and then we must even announce it to ourselves. In this prison of now, in this cynical and sophisticated age, someone must believe in joy.

- Richard Rohr, OFM

As you all know, I have admired Fr. Richard for many years now and was wonderfully privileged to have attended one of his seminars over the 2009 New Year celebration.

More on friendship

"Love and Friendship"

Traditional Pennsylvania Dutch barn sign

Yesterday's gospel reading is staying with me today --- mainly because some friends I care about have been in a very unpleasant conflict with each other. Here are two thoughts that I think are very wise indeed:

A friend is someone who, upon seeing another friend in immense pain,
Would rather be the one experiencing the pain,
Than to have to watch their friend suffer.

-- Amanda Gier

Here's the other one:

Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead.

-- Chinese Proverb

Easter 6

Image from Wikimedia Commons

"I do not call you servants any longer... but I have called you friends..."

-- from this morning's gospel reading

This is one of my favorite quotations on friendship:

When a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it.

-- Edgar Watson Howe

And here's the other:

A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.

I don't know who said that but it's very true. And real friends are very rare.

The ethic of reciprocity

Good Samaritan 19th century stained glass

It's known as "The Golden Rule".

Today I found a marvelous page entitled "18 Practical Tips for Living the Golden Rule" and thought I'd pass it on. Here are three of them that I particularly like:

Practice empathy. Make it a habit to try to place yourself in the shoes of another person. Any person. Loved ones, co-workers, people you meet on the street. Really try to understand, to the extent that you can, what it is like to be them, what they are going through, and why they do what they do.

~~

Stop criticism. We all have a tendency to criticize others, whether it’s people we know or people we see on television. However, ask yourself if you would like to be criticized in that person’s situation. The answer is almost always “no”. So hold back your criticism, and instead learn to interact with others in a positive way.

~~~
Don’t control others. It’s also rare that people want to be controlled. Trust me. So don’t do it. This is a difficult thing, especially if we are conditioned to control people. But when you get the urge to control, put yourself in that person’s shoes. You would want freedom and autonomy and trust, wouldn’t you? Give that to others then.

The other tips are good as well.

Light in the Darkness

"The Apostle Paul in Prison"

Artist: Rembrandt

I have had huge respect for Joan Chittister for many years now. Here's something I just found that is very applicable to my experience these days and to that of several of my friends:

Never fear periods of darkness in life. They are the atrium to new phases of life, the threshold to new experience, the invitation to move on from where you are to where there is more for you to learn.

— Joan Chittister in Light in the Darkness

I'm going to make an effort to remind myself of that word "invitation" on a regular basis.

The natural world at worship

Artist: Carsten Eggers

(Image from Wikimedia Commons)

Sometimes I think we are way too anthropocentric - about a lot:

The pale flowers of the dogwood outside this window are saints. The little yellow flowers that nobody notices on the edge of that road are saints looking up into the face of God. This leaf has it own texture and its own pattern of veins and its own holy shape, and the bass and trout hiding in the deep pools of the river are canonized by their beauty and their strength. The lakes hidden among the hills are saints, and the sea too is a saint who praises God without interruption in her majestic dance.

The great, gashed, half-naked mountain is another of God’s saints. There is no other like him. He is alone in his own character; nothing else in the world ever did or ever will imitate God in quite the same way. That is his sanctity.

-- Thomas Merton

(I wonder what Thomas Merton would think of what we have been doing to the earth since his death in 1968.)

Reality and unreality

John Main

Years ago, when I was living in Ireland, I listened to a tape of a talk by Fr. John Main on meditation. I had read about him briefly before but the talk itself let me know that this was a true master:

The longer you meditate, the longer you persevere through the difficulties and the false starts, then the clearer it becomes to you that you have to continue if you are going to lead your life in a meaningful and profound way…

What is the difference between reality and unreality? I think one way we can understand it is to see unreality as the product of desire. One thing we learn in meditation is to abandon desire, and we learn it because we know that our invitation is to live wholly in the present moment. Reality demands stillness and silence. And that is the commitment that we make in meditating. As everyone can find from their own experience, we learn in the stillness and silence to accept ourselves as we are. This sound very strange to modern ears, above all to modern Christians who have been brought up to practice so much anxious striving: "Shouldn't I be ambitious? What if I'm a bad person, shouldn't I desire to be better?"

The real tragedy of our time is that we are so filled with desire, for happiness, for success, for wealth, for power, whatever it may be, that we are always imagining ourselves as we might be. So rarely do we come to know ourselves as we are and to accept our present position. But the traditional wisdom tells us: know that you are and that you are as you are…This is the stability that we all need, not the striving and movement of desire but the stability and the stillness of spiritual rootedness.

--John Main OSB, THE WAY OF UNKNOWING

Happy Mother's Day

Artist: Mary Cassatt

It seems to me that Mother's Day is a good time to review what Lady Julian said about the motherhood of God, the motherhood of Christ:

And thus in our creation God Almighty is our natural father, and God all-wisdom is our natural mother, with the love and goodness of the Holy Spirit. These are all one God, one Lord.
...
For the Almighty Truth of the Trinity is our Father, for he made us and preserves us in himself; the deep wisdom of the Trinity is our mother, in whom we are enclosed; the lofty goodness of the Trinity is our Lord, and in him we are enclosed and he in us.
...
The Second Person of the Trinity is our mother in nature, in our substantial making. In him we are grounded and rooted, and he is our mother by mercy in our sensuality, by taking flesh.
...
To motherhood as properties belong natural love, wisdom and knowledge - and this is God.

I've only given you a sample here. Julian makes many more references to the Divine as our Mother.

Of course, there are many more references to the Motherhood of God than Julian's - both in Scripture and throughout the history of the Church. But that's a topic for another day.

Love from God

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Love which stems from created things is like a small lamp whose light is sustained by being fed with olive oil.

Again, it is like a river fed by rainfall; once the supply that feeds it fails, the surge of its flow abates.

But love whose cause is God is like a spring welling up from the depths; its flow never abates, for God alone is that spring of love whose supply never fails.

-- St. Isaac the Syriac

I've spent a lot of time over the years listening to the heartache of people who are obsessed with that "love which stems from created things". There is, of course, nothing wrong with such love. It's just that when it is the only source of our happiness, we are setting ourselves up for much misery.

Paradox and Via Negativa

Some years ago I heard a talk by Fr. Richard Rohr on tape in which he quoted the following:

In order to arrive at pleasure in everything, you must seek pleasure in nothing.
In order to arrive at possessing everything, you must seek to possess nothing.
In order to arrive at being everything, you must seek to be nothing.
In order to arrive at knowing everything, you must seek to know nothing.
In order to arrive at that in which you find no pleasure, you must go by a way in which there is no pleasure.
In order to arrive at that which you do not know, you must go by a way you do not know.
In order to arrive at that which you do not possess, you must go by a way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not, you must go by a way in which you are not.

-- St. John of the Cross

Rohr used a different translation. I wish I could find the one he used as it was a bit simpler. But this will do; oh, yes, this will do.

It is very strengthening and consoling to me right now and I hope will be for others who read it.

(The open circle or enso as pictured above represents enlightenment, emptiness, reality, the all, the void, the absolute.)

Church in Kraków

Artist: Marcin Zaleski

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Henry Finlay (May 1, '95 - May 5, '09)

Henry Finlay

My wonderful, wonderful cat, Henry, died "the good death" peacefully in my arms around 12:30 PM today.

His kidneys had failed and he had stopped eating and drinking. It was time.

Henry was magnificent in every way - genuinely beautiful, possessed of great dignity, and more affectionate than any other cat who has ever shared my life. He specialized in nose kisses and ear nuzzles! He was the "old man" of the family and never lost his "top kitty" status --- even after he got sick.

I am, of course, grief stricken - especially losing him so soon after my beloved Izzy.

But I am grateful and always will be. Grateful to have had the opportunity to give him a forever home when he needed one and even more grateful for all the emotional and spiritual support he has given me for thirteen years now.

Rest in peace my sweet boy. You are purring for the angels now.

~~~

Beyond finite comprehension

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Something I just found:

What I believe is so magnificent, so glorious, that it is beyond finite comprehension. To believe that the universe was created by a purposeful, benign Creator is one thing. To believe that this Creator took on human vesture, accepted death and mortality, was tempted, betrayed, broken, and all for love of us, defies reason. It is so wild that it terrifies some Christians who try to dogmatize their fear by lashing out at other Christians, because tidy Christianity with all answers given is easier than one which reaches out to the wild wonder of God's love, a love we don't even have to earn.

-- Madeleine L'Engle

That's what's happening to the church now, isn't it? A lot of us are choosing to "dogmatize our fear" and a lot of people are getting hurt in the process. And the church is getting hurt too.

And we also need this

for Good Shepherd Sunday:

Sorry to give you Lenten trappings on the video during Easter but this really was the nicest version I could find. What a small choir and what a lovely sound!

Now, I also want to recommend that you go hear the San Marino High School Chamber Choir perform this at St. Stephen's Basilica in Budapest. Sadly, the recording of the sound is not very good on this YouTube video. However, if you listen carefully, you can tell that this is an amazingly well trained choir with a deeply mature sound. I like the peformance very much.

Good Shepherd Sunday

Image found here (source unavailable)

I simply cannot do better on this day than to quote the marvelous sermon our dear MadPriest posted over on his blog the other day:

The sheep of the field do not destroy their own environment even when they know that such destruction will make life, if there still is any life, a living hell for their children. The sheep of the field do not go around killing each other over fossil fuels and ideologies. The sheep of the field do not go to every length to stop the spread of foot and mouth disease in cows whilst doing very little to contain the spread of a deadly illness that can infect them, because to do so would interrupt world trade and the making of money.

We are the most foolhardy, selfish and self-harming animal that has ever walked on this planet. Any shepherd of ours should look on us, in our self-inflicted misery, and decide, very quickly, that we are just not worth the laying down of any life for. Our salvation, you would think, is just not worth it.

Yet our shepherd, Jesus Christ, did lay down his life for our salvation, and he did it willingly. We did not earn such a sacrifice, we did not merit such a sacrifice, but Jesus still made the sacrifice. And in doing so he gave worth to the worthless, he gave worth to each one of us, although we did not deserve it.

-- The Rev. Jonathan Haggar

I also want to call everyone's attention to this tidbit from todays Epistle (1 John 3:16-24): "How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action." May we all let it speak to us - however it will.

Assurance

I did not know Mr. Rogers had said that!

Did you know he was a Presbyterian minister?

Also, he was a vegetarian.

Here are a few other things he said:

You know, I think everybody longs to be loved, and longs to know that he or she is lovable. And, consequently, the greatest thing that we can do is to help somebody know that they're loved and capable of loving.
...
I believe that appreciation is a holy thing, that when we look for what's best in the person we happen to be with at the moment, we're doing what God does; so in appreciating our neighbor, we're participating in something truly sacred.
...
What do you think it is that drives people to want far more than they could ever use or need? I frankly think it's insecurity. How do we let the world know that the trappings of this life are not the things that are ultimately important for being accepted?
...
At the center of the universe is a loving heart that continues to beat and that wants the best for every person. Anything we can do to help foster the intellect and spirit and emotional growth of our fellow human beings, that is our job.

How very heartening, energizing and reassuring are all of these quotations!

You can get the pendant pictured above right here.

I've needed to spend time with Bach today

Fullness

Artist: Paul Cézanne
Image from Wikimedia Commons

The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything.
God is the ground, the substance,
the teaching, the teacher, the purpose, and the reward for
which every soul labors.

-- Julian of Norwich

Christ-light

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

This seems particularly beautiful to me just lately:

I will hold the Christ-light for you

in the shadow of your fear;

I will hold my hand out to you,

speak the peace you long to hear.

-- Richard Gillard

The light of your soul

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

I discovered John O'Donohue during one of my many trips back to Ireland where I once had the delightful privilege of living. It saddens me that I never got to hear him in person before his untimely death. But I have some of his tapes. They are all such an extraordinary celebration of life!

May the light of your soul guide you.
May the light of your soul bless the work
You do with the secret love and warmth of your heart.
May you see in what you do the beauty of your own soul.
May the sacredness of your work bring healing, light and renewal to those
Who work with you and to those who see and receive your work.
May your work never weary you.
May it release within you wellsprings of refreshment, inspiration and excitement.
May you be present in what you do.
May you never become lost in the bland absences.
May the day never burden you.
May dawn find you awake and alert, approaching your new day with dreams,
Possibilities and promises.
May evening find you gracious and fulfilled.
May you go into the night blessed, sheltered and protected.
May your soul calm, console and renew you.

-- John O'Donohue

I love the line, "May you be present in what you do." Clearly the words of a contemplative, a meditator.

God as defense advocate

The Lord's Prayer in Hebrew

Image from Wikimedia Commons

The psalm appointed for this morning's principal service is Psalm 4 which begins like this:

Answer me when I call, O God, defender of my cause; *
you set me free when I am hard-pressed;
have mercy on me and hear my prayer.

It is a good prayer for me right now because I am certainly "hard pressed" and in need of a "defender of my cause". I imagine that's true for many right now - perhaps even some who may happen to read this post.

Reaching the Kingdom

Artist: Joachim Patinir

Image from Wikimedia Commons

The image of crossing a river at death in order to reach the life to come is common to many, many belief systems. Here we see how it is understood by a great Christian master of the pschology of prayer:

And I saw the river
over which every soul must pass
to reach the kingdom of heaven
and the name of that river was suffering:
and I saw a boat which carries souls across the river
and the name of that boat was love.

-- Saint John of the Cross

If your understanding is that heaven is not only available to us after death but that we enter it in the here and now, then we cross that river many, many times during our lives. Let us be willing to see how beautiful that is.

"Anchored in the love of God, open to grace"

Thomas Traherne

Today I found myself spending time with some of the English mystical poets - Donne, Herbert, Traherne - and I found these lines at the end of a longer poem:

I am His image, and His friend,
His son, bride, glory, temple, end.

I'm so struck by the poet's delighted, unselfconsciously gender-mutable celebration of how he, himself, is viewed by God. The poem is Love by Thomas Traherne and you can read all of it right here. Also, please take a look at the Church Times article entitled "I delight in all, and all in me" for more about Traherne and the stained glass window shown above.

St. George's Day

Image from Wikimedia Commons

It's St. George's Day and also Shakespeare's birthday. And so it seems fitting to offer you these lines from Shakespeare's Henry V, Act 3, Scene 1, l. 31:

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit; and, upon this charge
Cry God for Harry, England and St George!'

And here's something about the legend of St. George that you might like to know:

The familiar version of the story is found in the Legend Aurea of James of Voraigne. The story is as follows:

"For some time a terrible dragon had ravaged all the country round the city of Selena in Libya, making its lair in a swamp. Its breath caused pestilence whenever it approached the town. So the people gave the dragon two sheep every day to satisfy its hunger, but when the sheep were all gone, a human victim was necessary. Lots were drawn to determine the victim and they fell upon the king's daughter. She was led, dressed as a bride, to the edge of the swamp. There St George chanced by and asked the maiden what she was doing alone in such a place. She told him of the dragon and urged him to leave, but he would not. When the monster appeared he made the Sign of the Cross and pierced it with his lance. He asked the maiden for her girdle and binding it round the dragon's neck led it. meek as a lamb, to the maid, who took it to the city. St George told the people to have no fear, but to be baptized, and bidding them to honour the clergy and pity the poor, rode on about God's business."

The first thing to notice about this version of the legend is that St George is not reputed to have slain the dragon. He overcame it and brought it to heel so that in future it served the city it had tormented. There is a clear allegorical meaning. The city is a man, the king is his reason, which ought to rule over the passions, the princess is his soul and the dragon is the instincts and desires of the flesh. If the instincts are not governed by reason they threaten the soul. At first they may be placated with small things, but growing stronger by these concessions they eventually threaten the immortal soul itself. St George on the white horse symbolizes the Grace of God, which if it is accepted enables the soul to master the flesh, the desires and faculties of which are then brought meek and controlled into their proper service of the whole man.

The story is therefore an allegory of man's life and destiny, his fall and his salvation.

All stuff to think about!

Happy Earth Day!

1 The earth is the LORD's and all that is in it, *
the world and all who dwell therein.

2 For it is he who founded it upon the seas *
and made it firm upon the rivers of the deep.

-- From Psalm 24

How anybody can read that psalm and then conclude that we humans have the right to exploit and trash the earth for our own monetary profit is beyond me.

Please, folks. The resources are out there. Read up, educate yourselves, get some inner clarity that a little sacrifice for the greater good is beneficial for all of us! Then take action in whatever way that is possible for you.

Pilate's question

Christ Before Pilate (S. Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna)

Years ago I read a book called The Laughter of God: At Ease With Prayer by Miriam Pollard. I don't have a copy any more so I can't vouch for the exact accuracy of this quotation, but at one point the author says something like this: "It is not necessary to bludgeon a person with every truth you know." People often use truth (in its literal sense) to wound others. Here's a description of how that works:

“Malicious truth gloats like a conqueror. Loving truth mourns that it must confront and show a brother his error. Malicious truth struts at its power. Loving truth weeps to find that the correction it inspires may for a while cause great pain. Malicious truth cries ‘Checkmate, you are beaten!’ Loving truth whispers, ‘I correct you with the same pain you feel. But when the pain is over, we shall rejoice that honesty and love have been served.’”

-- Calvin Miller

Perhaps we need to ask Pilate's quesiton, "what is truth". Not in a cynical sense but in an open, spacious, inquiring way.

The way to transformation

Artist: Pierre II Veyrier

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Many thanks for Fr. Clyde Glandon who included this quotation in his weekly lectio email:

It is perfectly true that we die with him in baptism and rise from the dead: but this is only the beginning of a series of deaths and resurrections. We are not “converted” only once in our life but many times, and this endless series of large and small “conversions,” inner revolutions, leads finally to our transformation in Christ.

--Thomas Merton from Life and Holiness

Low Sunday

Well, today is Low Sunday. Also known in the Eastern Churches as "Thomas Sunday" and among Roman Catholics as "Divine Mercy Sunday" because of so-called "Doubting Thomas" who insisted he must see and feel the wounds of the Risen Christ before he will believe in the Resurrection.

Here is an interesting take on that story:

In fact, Thomas’s answer, "My Lord and my God!" is the high point of John’s Gospel. When Thomas gets it, he gets it. No one else has offered such devotion or named Jesus as God. Thomas holds out for an experience of Jesus on his own terms until he finds his terms made foolish by the reality of seeing Jesus. Only then does he make his statement of faith.

Thomas has to make this personal connection with Jesus for himself. Mary can’t experience the resurrected Jesus for the disciples, and the disciples can’t experience Jesus for Thomas. It is faith, not doubt, that holds out for one’s own experience of Jesus.

- Amy B. Hunter

A very tragic but all-too-common judgment that is afoot in the Church today goes like this, "If your experience of Jesus is not the same as my experience of Jesus then you're not really a Christian.'' Low Sunday should cure us of that attitude once and for all!

Bonus image:

Artist: Hanna Cheriyan Varghese

The contemplative option

Artist: Erzsébet Korb

I really, really love this single sentence:

Contemplation is a choice about what we will have on our minds.

~ Loretta Ross

You can see a little bit of the context right here.

Luminous, wonderful

Artist: Hildegard of Bingen

Holy Spirit,
giving life to all life,
moving all creatures,
root of all things,
washing them clean,
wiping out their mistakes,
healing their wounds,
you are our true life,
luminous, wonderful,
awakening the heart
from its ancient sleep.

~~ Hildegard of Bingen (trans. by Stephen Mitchell)

The REAL perfection

Our Lady of Divine Providence

Image from Wikimedia Commons

It was probably around 1987 or so that I came across a little book entitled Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean Pierre de Caussade. I don't know if my spritual director had recommended it or whether it came to my attention some other way. I just know that my paperback copy lived in my handbag for at least two years and became quite battered and dog-eared during that time. I still have that copy and all my underlinings remind me of what I was experiencing in those days and still experience (albeit with different material) today.

Here is a quotation. May it gladden your heart and console your spirit:

You are seeking God and he is everywhere. Everything proclaims him to you. He is by your side, over you, around and in you. Here is his dwelling and yet you still seek him. Ah! You are searching for God, the idea of God in his essential being. You seek perfection and it lies in everything that happens to you—your suffering, your actions, your impulses are the mysteries under which God reveals himself to you.

Monday in Easter Week

Resurrection of the Dead

(Stained glass, region of Paris, ca. 1200)

Image from Wikimedia Commons

From Psalm 16 - one of the psalms appointed for today:

My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; *
my body also shall rest in hope.

Somehow this really seemed to go with the image I've reproduced above!

Easter Day

A class of fourth graders lumbered up the aisle with a stuffed teddy bear twice the size of the gift-bearers. The bear then reclined serenely against the altar, facing the congregation. After the liturgy an irate parishioner phoned, appalled at the liturgy and especially the smiling teddy bear, and kept repeating, "It was a total surprise" that "simply did not fit in." After a few forays on my part into the themes of God's love for all creation and gratitude over the enthusiasm of children, the teddy bear remained insurmountable. Finally, with some resignation, I said, "You are absolutely right, it was a total surprise and simply did not fit in; but neither does resurrection from the dead."

- The Rev. John R. Donahue

Holy Saturday

The Harrowing of Hell

Artist: Fra Angelico

Do you think Christ is just lying in the tomb today waiting for tomorrow morning? Oh, no! He has descended to the dead in order to preach to those in prison and liberate captives!

It is customary to represent Christ in paintings on walls, as He descends, appears before hell, clad in a priestly robe and with a banner in His hand, with which He beats the devil and puts him to flight, takes hell by storm, and rescues those that are His. Thus it was also acted the night before Easter as a play for children . . . . He descends with the banner, shattering and destroying the gates of hell; and we should put aside thoughts that are too deep and incomprehensible for us.

-- Martin Luther (1533)

You can read a fascinating paper on this called "The Harrowing of Hell: Filling in the Blanks" by The Rev. Peter Burfeind right here. It is from a Lutheran point of view.

Good Friday

Detail from "Deposition"

Artist: Rogier van der Weyden

For whatever reason, God chose to make man as he is - limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death - he had the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine. Whatever game he is playing with his creatures, he has kept his own rules and played fair.

-- Dorothy Sayers

Maundy Thursday

The Last Supper - Chartres Cathedral

I had the astonishing good fortune to stumble upon a Maundy Thursday sermon by Martin Smith today. Here's an excerpt but I really encouage you to click through and read the whole thing:

The Eucharist is the action of a man who has only one last hour to finally get across to his baffled companions what his life meant. They hadn’t gotten it. They hadn’t understood. He faced certain death and he had only an hour left, and nothing but his bare hands and the food on the supper table. What can you do with a loaf of bread and cup of wine when that is all there is to get through the defenses of these stolid and uncomprehending men? Men who right to the end had been arguing about who should get the chief positions in the new regime, one on Jesus’ right and the other on his left?

He took the bread and wine and told them to take them to be his very self. And Jesus had no ‘self-defense,’ only self-giving. Self-giving was the only self he had. So if they took the broken bread to be his broken self, and the poured-out wine as his life-blood willingly shed, then they were receiving himself, the only self he had. In accepting his self-giving, they would receive himself.

...and we cannot receive him at all without becoming vulnerable ourselves. What could be more risky than to allow Christ to be himself, within us?

For everyone who is feeling vulnerable right now - in the sense of truly feeling unsafe - let this holy vulnerability be a source of consolation for you.

Wednesday in Holy Week

Artist: Obra de Aguijarro

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I am so moved by the Eucharistic readings for today for they all speak pointedly and profoundly to my current difficulties.

Do click through and read them all if you have a little time. They are quite short and will only take you a few minutes.

There is one line from the Epistle reading that penetrates even more that the others:

Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.

- From Hebrews 12

And here's something else that gives me consolation today:

Solitude does not necessarily mean living apart from others; rather, it means never living apart from one’s self.

-- Parker Palmer from A Hidden Wholeness

Monday in Holy Week

Window by Meyer's Studios, Munich

Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. - John 12:3

Some words come to mind for me here:

extravagance
courage
devotion
yearning
boldness
gratitude
determination
autonomy
radical hospitality
risk
subversive
sacrifice
nurturing

I'll probably think about others throughout the day.

Palm Sunday

Artist: Fra Angelico

The earliest creed is much more about fidelity than it is about doctrinal formulas. The lordship of Christ is about his authority in the life of the Christian rather than that person's beliefs about the particularities of Christ's nature:

The confession ‘Jesus is Lord” is at once the earliest Christian creed and an acknowledgment of Jesus’ divinity and sovereignty. Paul used that designation only three times in his letters and each time with worshipful sincerity and awe. The other two are found in Romans 10:9 and 1 Corinthians 12:3. This was said to be the essential confession each convert repeated at baptism. All the Philippians had made this same confession. All later creeds of the Christian church derived from it. There was - and is - nothing more that needs to be said as a statement of faith.

For Paul, and for the Philippians too, this would have been the utmost in civil disobedience and high treason. In those times the only person for whom this could be said was Caesar himself. “Caesar is Lord” was the oath taken by every Roman citizen. For all time, this confession “Jesus is Lord” commits the one who says it sincerely to a life in which Jesus reigns supreme and so lives day by day to fulfill the will and purpose of God.

-- John Shearman

That wonderful word: "And"

William Stringfellow Keeper of the Word

There was a time in Christian history during which one test for orthodoxy was the willingness to embrace paradox. And so I give you the quotation below. It can be very, very consoling if you let it be:

It is worse than you think it is and you are freer than you think you are. The powers are raging beyond your control and they are already overcome in Christ. The division is an uncrossable spiritual chasm and it’s been crossed.

-- William Stringfellow

"Thou fool!"

Image from Flickr Creative Commons

The following story has an unknown author so I give it to you in its entirety:

Hot sun. Salty air. Rhythmic waves.

A little boy is on his knees scooping and packing the sand with plastic shovels into a bright blue bucket. Then he upends the bucket on the surface and lifts it. And, to the delight of the little architect, a castle tower is created.

All afternoon he will work. Spooning out the moat. Packing the walls. Bottle tops will be sentries. Popsicle sticks will be bridges. A sandcastle will be built.

Big city. Busy streets. Rumbling traffic.

A man is in his office. At his desk he shuffles papers into stacks and delegates assignments. He cradles the phone on his shoulder and punches the keyboard with his fingers. Numbers are juggled and contracts are signed and much to the delight of the man, a profit is made.

All his life he will work. Formulating the plans. Forecasting the future. Annuities will be sentries. Capital gains will be bridges. An empire will be built.

Two builders of two castles. They have much in common. They shape granules into grandeurs. They see nothing and make something. They are diligent and determined. And for both the tide will rise and the end will come.

Yet that is where the similarities cease. For the boy sees the end while the man ignores it. Watch the boy as the dusk approaches.

As the waves near, the wise child jumps to his feet and begins to clap. There is no sorrow. No fear. No regret. He knew this would happen. He is not surprised. And when the great breaker crashes into his castle and his masterpiece is sucked into the sea, he smiles. He smiles, picks up his tools, takes his father's hand, and goes home.

The grownup, however, is not so wise. As the wave of years collapses on his castle he is terrified. He hovers over the sandy monument to protect it. He blocks the waves from the walls he has made. Salt-water soaked and shivering he snarls at the incoming tide.

"It's my castle," he defies.

The ocean need not respond. Both know to whom the sand belongs...

I don't know much about sandcastles. But children do. Watch them and learn. Go ahead and build, but build with a child's heart. When the sun sets and the tides take - applaud. Salute the process of life and go home.

I so remember as an undergraduate in philosphy class hearing the professor expound on the New Testament parable of "bigger and better barns". The builder takes satisfiaction in his work and the harvest he has gathered. Then he says, "Soul, take thine ease."

And I also so remember the professor's truly thundering voice when he quoted God's reply: "Thou fool! This night thy soul shall be required of thee."

I guess it was a lecture on existentialism or something. Hmmm. Maybe epicurianism. Not sure. But, I'm telling you, you could have heard a pin drop in that lecture hall.

And, as you can tell, it made a permanent impact on me!

I would suggest that it behooves us to respect and appreciate the princple of impermanence.

Wonderful encouragement

Blue Heaven Mandala

Somehow, this seems to go with the Chávez quote I posted yesterday:

Refuse to fall down.
If you cannot refuse to fall down,
refuse to stay down.
If you cannot refuse to stay down,
lift your heart toward heaven,
and like a hungry beggar,
ask that it be filled,
and it will be filled.
You may be pushed down.
You may be kept from rising.
But no one can keep you
from lifting your heart
toward heaven.

-- Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Something about the baptismal covenant

Sojourners sent this quotation out today. What Chávez is saying here is so, so focused, so radiant with clarity, that it inspires me greatly. I think I will post it on all three blogs because it speaks to the theme and purpose of each one:

The first principle of nonviolent action is that of noncooperation with everything humiliating.

- César Chávez

Remember that the baptismal covenant requires us to respect the dignity of every human being. It does not say "every human being except oneself." Think about it.