Good Friday
Psalm 22:22
A Taize song
I will tell of your name,
I will tell of your name,
to my brothers in Christ,
to my brothers in Christ.
I will tell of your name,
I will tell of your name,
to my sisters in Christ,
to my sisters in Christ.
In the congregation,
in the congregation,
I will praise your name,
I will praise your name.
Good Friday
Isaiah 53:10
“It was the will of the LORD
to crush him with pain.”
How can we worship one
who wills
pain?
How can we praise one
who wills
to crush one of his creatures?
When the One who wills pain
is also the One who willingly bears it.
When the One who wills to crush a creature
willingly becomes the creature who is crushed.
And when the One’s willingly-born crushing pain
opens our way to the One who loves us.
Dream
(during the night of February 28, 1998)
The city sang to me as I sat in the shotgun seat
of a car driven driven by . . . who?
We passed ocean, trees, corn, rolling hills.
Outside the city stood hills growing into mountains, gentle valleys,
glorious trees, tall in brilliant fall orange.
Joy overwhelms me in these places,
steep walls rising from pure pools,
bike trails leading into territory unknown
a sweep of trees in spring colors, gold turning to green
Rich enough to buy it all,
I filled in a quarry and
apologized to mother earth
for mistreatment.
I was there for . . . what purpose . . .?
The dream placed me
waking in a cabin
at the start of a bike race.
On the cabin porch,
I realized I was completely unprepared:
no bike clothes, no food, no bike, no map,
no direction.
California woman healthy and good-looking,
the race director smiled a welcome
and informed me of my upcoming press interview
for my having come such a distance.
It didn’t matter.
I didn’t care.
I just wanted to quietly watch the trees
and weep with contentment.
Kairos and Chronos
The clock, like clockwork,
ticks off one minute after another.
And, annually, on the first of every January,
the calendar sheds another year.
Tick-tocks and calendar pages
may succeed and precede one another.
But time’s measures do not mourn the time just past
or look forward to the time coming next.
Let us similarly live
in each moment of God’s good gift of life.
For God, each moment
is the time of creation, covenant, and fulfillment.
In the moment,
we are First Human.
In the moment,
we are led from slavery and fed milk and honey.
In the moment,
we are called to faith by His resurrection.
How many of these moments
we have been given!
O my soul, rejoice!
Ash Wednesday
Consideration of Augustine’s teaching on original sin based on Psalm 51:5 –
(“Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.”)
Forgive me, Augustine of Hippo,
but I do not believe you.
My parents’
fleshly and happy
(I hope it was happy!)
joining
did not make me a sinner.
I’m quite capable of that,
all by myself.
Christmas
The Birth of Hope (1)
Joanna sank wearily to her knees.
“Enoch,” she asked, “how much farther?”
“Soon, dearest, soon,” was Enoch’s reply.
Under the star-dazzled sky, the way was plain.
Shepherds, they could see every ram and ewe.
Cresting a hill, they beheld the town.
Hurrying forward they searched door by door.
Running now, they shout to one another.
“Is he there?” “No.” “There?” “No.”
Suddenly they stop, at a baby’s cry,
Tiny, newborn, swaddled, insistent.
The Birth of Hope (2)
Hope arrives inconveniently, unexpectedly
in the busy season of giving and getting.
Not wrapped in fine paper and bright ribbon,
not warmed on a fire-lit hearth.
Hope comes swaddled in a skipped heartbeat,
pulled upward by an anxious breath
into the dim light of realization
that we are not alone.