Exultet!

"Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing choirs of angels!
Exult, all creation around God's throne!
Jesus Christ, our King is risen!
Sound the trumpet of salvation!

"Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor,
radiant in the brightness of your King!
Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!
Darkness vanishes for ever!

"Rejoice, O Mother Church! Exult in glory!
The risen Savior shines upon you!
Let this place resound with joy,
echoing the mighty song of all God's people!

"My dearest friends,
standing with me in this holy light,
join me in asking God for mercy,
that he may give his unworthy minister
grace to sing his Easter praises.

"The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them up to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give him thanks and praise.

"It is truly right that with full hearts and minds and voices
we should praise the unseen God, the all-powerful Father,
and his only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

"For Christ has ransomed us with his blood,
and paid for us the price of Adam's sin to our eternal Father!

"This is our passover feast,
When Christ, the true Lamb, is slain,
whose blood consecrates the homes of all believers.

"This is the night,
when first you saved our fathers:
you freed the people of Israel from their slav'ry,
and led them dry-shod through the sea.

"This is the night,
when the pillar of fire destroyed the darkness of sin.

"This is night,
when Christians ev'rywhere,
washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement,
are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.

"This is the night,
when Jesus broke the chains of death
and rose triumphant from the grave.

"What good would life have been to us,
had Christ not come as our Redeemer?

"Father, how wonderful your care for us!
How boundless your merciful love!
To ransom a slave you gave away your Son.

"O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam,
which gained for us so great a Redeemer!

"Most blessed of all nights,
chosen by God to see Christ rising from the dead!

"Of this night scripture says:
'The night will be as clear as day:
it will become my light, my joy.'

"The power of this holy night dispels all evil,
washes guilt away, restores lost innocence,
brings mourners joy;
it casts out hatred, brings us peace,
and humbles earthly pride.

"Night truly blessed,
when heaven is wedded to earth
and we are reconciled to God!

"Therefore, heavenly Father, in the joy of this night,
receive our evening sacrifice of praise,
your Church's solemn offering.

"Accept this Easter candle,
a flame divided but undimmed,
a pillar of fire that glows to the honor of God.

"Let it mingle with the lights of heaven
and continue bravely burning
to dispel the darkness of this night!

"May the Morning Star which never sets
find this flame still burning:
Christ, that Morning Star,
who came back from the dead,
and shed his peaceful light on all mankind,
your Son, who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen."

[For more information about the Exultet in the Easter liturgy, click here.]

The Day After

For us, it's The Day Before.  We'll spend the day on an Easter egg hunt at church, dyeing eggs at home, pulling out pastel-colored clothes and baskets, awaiting spiral hams and chocolate bunnies.  For them, it was the day after.

When the disciples ran, where did they go?  As I imagine it, they all, men and women, eventually made it back to the upper room.  It was a kind of safehouse to begin with, thus the sign of the tethered donkey.  Now it was not Jesus who was on the run, but his followers.  Jesus was dead.

As far as anyone knew -- despite what they had been told they might expect on the third day -- this was their new reality.  Jesus, their friend and leader, was dead.  They were all in grief.  The men were probably wanted as co-conspiritors.  And it was the sabbath.  They were not going to travel.  What did they do?

My mother died in the middle of the night.  We were at the hospital.  Afterward, we gathered at my tiny, rented house, where my grandmother, husband, and small children were sleeping.  In a stupor of disbelief and helplessness, we spent hours sitting on the floor.  We cried and were numb.  We talked and didn't talk.  I don't remember what we said, but I remember very well sitting on the floor until the sun came up, not having a clue as to what else to do that night or any day or night that was to come.  I image that the disciples felt something like that.

I imagine them sitting on the floor, crying and numb, talking and silent.  I imagine the stupor of disbelief and helplessness.  I imagine the fear that there would be a knock at the door and some soldier would want to take them away and crucify them too.  I imagine Mary the mother of Jesus praying.  I imagine some other Mary offering food which nobody wanted to eat.

And where was Peter?

I imagine Peter, in his shame, somewhere else, God knows where.  The others would be worried that he had been arrested too.  Finally he would come back, knock at the door, frighten everyone half-to-death, but then, by his presence, fill them with relief for a moment before the dark truth of their reality seeped back in.

Some of the women would do what women do and get busy with the business of living and dying, in this instance, with planning for the proper burial that was to come.  They would find a way to gather the spices.  They would make it a king's burial, as Jesus deserved.  Such preparations would give them a sense of purpose.  They would be ready to rise before dawn to be at the tomb as early as they could.

Eventually, although it was day, we all went to bed and slept a little.  Then the children, not-yet-three and not-yet-one woke, hungry.  Life moves on regardless of our grief.  The day dawns, the children need feeding, arrangements have to be made.  It seems as though no tomorrow worth living is going to come around again.

At the foot of the cross

We have been there.  We know what is dumped and piled there, at the foot of the cross, seemingly foresaken.  We've heard about it, seen it, lived it.

There is the ruin of our lives.  Every abused child and loveless marriage.  Angry words.  Gnawing fear.  There are the broken promises and the faded dreams.  Lonely, sleepless nights.  Disappointment and disease.  Famine and poverty and war.  Greed and corruption.  School shootings and execution chambers.  Drug overdoses and abortions.  Hopelessness, helplessness, and despair.  Nameless, senseless death.

There are all the places where our live cease to make any sense.  Where meaning is gone and all that remains is emptiness.  There is nowhere to go from the cross but into the heart of the tomb, cold, sealed with a stone.

I know we know the ending, but there is an ending before the true ending, which is itself a new beginning. 

Gather courage and enter with me into the tomb.  Put off the glad rags and the sugar-coating.  See your sister and know that she carries within her a burden of pain.  Look upon your brother and acknowledge his wounds.  Look in the mirror.  See the truth of the hurts you have suffered and the hurts you have inflicted.  In all this, gaze on the cross.

I have had enough of tired religion that wants to skirt this truest truth.  The cross is a scandal and an abomination -- and nothing else would do.  God entered into the darkest darkness of our lives.  The cross is not an afterthought.  Jesus was never "plan B."  This was always the way, from all eternity.

I am finished with religion that wants to encourage me without first encountering my pain.  I have had it with spirituality that does not recognize the truth of a world wracked by sin.  The solution makes absolutely no sense apart from the problem.

I am naked, broken, bleeding, dying and so are you.  We and our world are in desperate need of a savior.

Gethsemane

Of all the events of the passion of Jesus, I think of the agony in the garden as being the most difficult.  Of course there is the physical agony of the scourging, the humiliation of the crown of thorns, the near impossibility of dragging the cross beam through the streets of Jerusalem, and, of course, the horror of the crucifixion.

But what's different to me about Gethsemane is that Jesus still has a choice.  I remember the first time a wiser soul prompted me to think about it -- that Jesus didn't have to remain in the garden waiting for the soldiers and then submit to his arrest.  He could have run, lived to fight another day.  He could have stood in opposition, his disciples an army with swords at the ready.  He had choices.

That's what I think makes Gethsemane so difficult.  I think that is why Jesus sweat blood.  He had to stand in the conviction of his own will, believing that he knew and could assent to the will of the Father in this final hour.

After Jesus' prayer in the garden, once the soldiers arrive with their clubs and swords, the choice becomes irrevocable.  Yes, Jesus could "summon twelve legions of angels" (Matthew 26:53), but we know that he's made his choice, and it is to submit "like a lamb led to the slaughter" (Isaiah 53:7).  He is now at the mercy of the powers of this world, the High Priests and the Pilates and the Herods, because of his Yes in the garden.

What does it take for Jesus to say that final, Yes, to the cup that he is called to drink?  It is night.  He is alone, with not one friend who can watch and pray for even an hour, even this hour.

What does it take for me to say, Yes, to the cup that I am called to drink?  For you to say, Yes, to the cup that you are called to drink, the crosses that we must carry?  We face the night too, on our knees, in desperation, sweating blood. 

But we are not alone.  There is One who watches and prays with us in our hour.  He suffers with us, bleeds with us, carries the cross with us, dies with us.  With me.

Holiness, Addendum CORRECTED

My husband was horrified that I did not include this link in yesterday's post, so, in the interest of maintaining marital bliss, and because it is a good and fitting song, here it is:

Peter Mayer's Holy Now

(That should be better.  Good grief!)

Crux

crux, from the Latin, cross

Noun:

The decisive or most important point at issue. A particular point of difficulty.

A wise friend who is dear to my heart asked me to clarify something critical:  Do you really see the cross of Jesus' crucifixion as a failure?

I actually think it is difficult from here, 2,000 years of Christian history later, to remember that in Roman Palestine, the cross was an ignominy, a sign of cursedness.  Now it's art, jewelry.  I remember being an adult, maybe even in my early 30's, when I first became aware of how many people were crucified by the Romans.  I had never given it a thought.  There were just those three in my mind, Jesus and the nameless men on his left and his right.  In reality, there were thousands.

If you don't already know -- as I didn't -- crucifixion was a punishment for rebels and slaves.  The convicted carried only the horizontal cross-beam; the upright would have been stationary.  He was stripped naked, denied the modest loin-cloth that depictions of Jesus crucified allow.  The crucified died of asphyxiation.  It took me a while to understand how that could happen, but it has to do with the weight of the body and the need to support that weight in order to allow the lungs to fill with air.  You can find a much more detailed -- and gruesome -- description somewhere on the internet, I'm sure.  It's a horrifying form of torture.  What's more, it's public and humiliating and it's meant to be a lesson to everyone about the power of the powerful.  I have heard that there is no depiction of crucifixion in art until after every generation of first-hand witnesses had died.  No one who had seen a crucifixion could imagine rendering it as an image for reflection or worship.  Crucifixion may be the cruelest means of execution ever to spring from the imagination of fallen Man.

I said in the earlier post about failure that a crucified messiah was necessarily a failed messiah.  The whole point of messiahship was about defeating Israel's enemies.  The proximate enemy was Rome, but in the context of Jewish history you could as easily substitute Babylon or Assyria or -- and especially -- Egypt, and tell the same story of oppression and injustice, the powers of the world in conflict with God's chosen people.  The best of the good-ol'-days was the time, a thousand years before Jesus, when King David ruled and defeated all of Israel's enemies and established the center of his kingdom -- God's kingdom! -- on Mount Zion, Jerusalem.  The expectation of messiah ("anointed"; Greek - christos) was for a re-establishment, finally, of that sort of kingdom, where all the world would know that God was king, ruling through His chosen, Israel and Israel's anointed king.  Crucifixion meant exactly that that was not going to happen.  Rome wins.  Israel loses.  The real messiah could not end up on a Roman cross and be messiah.  But Jesus did.

A lot of people think that, for Jesus of Nazareth, that was the end of the story.  People thought it 2,000 years ago.  Some people think it now.  In this post-Enlightenment world we have adopted this quaint notion that, somehow, ancient people didn't understand how death works.  In fact, even two thousand years ago, people knew that dead meant dead.  And they knew better than we that crucified meant Dead. 

So, Jesus of Nazareth, would-be messiah, crucified on a Roman cross, was a failure if that is the end of the story.

There's so much temptation to talk about Easter, empty tombs and the sunrise of new creation.  But let's not yet.  Let's wait.  Let's spend the next three days with those women at the foot of that Roman cross.  Let's spend a moment of awareness of the abject failure that it all appeared to be. 

"Holy Week"

On Sunday, Palm/Passion Sunday, the priest talked, predictably, innocuously, about Holy Week as (duh) the "holiest" week of the year.  It steamed me.

A few years ago, in a cliched attempt to read the whole Bible in a year, from the beginning, I valiantly persevered all the way through the book of Deuteronomy.  That meant that I read all the Law in the course of about twelve weeks.  If you've never done it, let me warn you -- it's a bloody business.  There is all sorts of detail about how to make a proper sacrifice.  When my 20th/21st century mind hears "sacrifice," I imagine it as a painful, if intangible, letting go.  Not so in the ancient world.

Every ancient culture participated in some sort of animal -- or human -- sacrifice as a way of communing with their gods.  "Religion" and sacrifice were more or less synonymous.  And was it ever bloody.  In the Hebrew scriptures, it is not just the fact that animals were killed.  Their blood was gathered in bowls and splashed around.  So much for the privilege of the priestly class.  Their lot was to do the gathering and the splashing and, one presumes, the getting splashed on.  Think of the smell.

The other thing I noticed in reading the first five books all in a row was what it meant for something to be "holy."  There is, to be sure, plenty said about the sacrificial animal's being unblemished or the first-born.  But, at least to my understanding, the thing that made it holy, the crucial thing, was that it was set apart for God.  By being so designated, as belonging not to me, but to God, it became holy.

Now, that makes sense to me when I think about "Holy Week," I guess.  We can look at this week as the most set apart for God.  We can.  There are a lot of extra church services, particularly if you are a Catholic.  Time set apart for God.  Holy.

But here's what nags me, to the bone:  What about next week?  Or last week?  Do they somehow belong less to God?  Are they less holy?

It's the same thing that irks me with all the things we label "holy" -- church buildings, clergy, saints, icons, certain songs, crosses.  Holy, holy, holy. 

Gerard Manly Hopkis, Jesuit and poet, said, "The world is filled with the grandeur of God."  Amen.  You know what I think is holy?  What I think is reflective of the greatness of God and deserves to be set apart?  Let's start with chocolate ice cream.  And babies.  How about that wilted dafodil in my front yard that the snow is just melting off of.  Beethoven's 9th.  My husband's warm legs against my icy feet in bed (yes, he is a saint).  My son's toothless grin.  Clean towels.  The moment when tomorrow's school lunches are made.  Holy, holy, holy.

I will go into the church building this week and listen to the clergy and recall the saints and gaze on the icons and sing the songs and venerate the cross.  But things are every bit as holy in the home I leave and come back to.

I am surrounded by my failures

It is very quiet here today.  I am home alone, which never used to happen and now happens all the time.  I find ways to fill the emptiness of the time and the space -- housework, errands, the internet, meals, phone calls, e-mail.  Yet sometimes, like today, all of those are dry like dust.  I cannot do it.  I cannot do anything, it seems.

So I sat outside in the sunshine, feeling the feelings that emerge out of the quiet:  loneliness, fear, ennui.  I looked around the yard, and I wanted to see the spring and the melting snow and feel happy.  And I did.  But I also saw the weeds.  The broken toys.  The houseplant, a gift, that I let die.  I thought of wasted days and years and opportunities.  I thought, "I am surrounded by my failures."  And it's true enough.

What I want is to escape, to run away from the brokenness and the waste and the failure.  I want to sleep or eat or cover it up.  I want to deny it.  I want to erase it.  And I can't.  I will wake up.  I will be hungry again.  The wind or the dog or the kids will throw back the cover.  No denial, no eraser, no distance or wish will change the past.  What I have done and what I have failed to do...

It's sad.  There's nothing else to it.  What might have been isn't, and what is is.  And I'm sorry.

So I sat and thought about failure.  And about Jesus.  And about Holy Week.  And about the cross.  When Jesus was arrested and condemned to crucifixion, it was the very public pronouncement of a colossal failure.  A messiah on a Roman cross was the very definition of world-class failure.  Epic.  Unredeemable.  The game was over.  The jig was up.  A real messiah would win, and crucifixion was loss, full bore.

I thought about the women who watched and sat at the foot of the cross, in the shadow of failure.  What did they think about?  Did they blame Jesus or just pity him?  Did they think about their own  failure?  This was the messiah they followed.  They had other choices.  This one ended up on a cross, bleeding, naked, dying.  They must have wanted to run away.  But there was nowhere to go, no sleeping or denying or hiding this failure away.  It was on display on a hilltop in view of everyone.

That's a little, tiny bit of how it's going to feel when I click "publish."  Like I have put my bleeding, naked, failure on display.  You don't know all the details.  No one can know every time I've let my kids down, yelled at them, chosen some selfish pursuit instead of loving them.  Instead of loving my husband.  Instead of taking care of my house.  Instead of pulling those weeds.  But I feel like you know.  Today, I feel like you might as well know.  I am a person of sorrows, acquainted with grief.

You are too, of course.  No matter the face you put on.  No matter how well-weeded your yard and well-tended your kids or your job.  You live in the shadow of the cross too.

That's why I will post this.  It's why I will drag myself to the foot of the cross and look at the bleeding, naked, dying messiah.  I'm up there and you're up there too.  Which is why he's up there.

Wait with me.  Watch and pray.

The Best Laid Plans

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans."
- Anonymous Wisdom-at-Large

I had a new plan.  Naturally, I implemented it on January 1.  I am not above the cliche.  Among other things, I was going to write, on this blog, every day of 2012.

Life has a tendency to interfere with my well-laid plans.  The phone rings.  A child asks for help with homework.  A husband wants to talk.  Someone wants a meal.  Or clean clothes.  And those are the predictable interruptions.

What is being interrupted?  My plans.  My plans.

"For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope."  - Jeremiah 29:11

My plans are not always the plans that the Lord has for me.  I think my plans are for my welfare.  I don't think they will bring harm to me or to others.  Most of the time.  I want a future and hope.  But I don't really know how to plan for the future with hope.

Problem is, I like to think I know.  Don't I know by now?

I all too often plan for a future not with hope but with fear.  I prepare because I'm afraid.  My plans are made to avoid what I'm afraid of:  Risks.  New things.  Unpredictable things.  Things I can't control.

Problem is, what I can control is very, very small.  Maybe so very small that it doesn't even exist.

So when I plan, I'm forced to make my world smaller and smaller, hoping that I can find that tiny piece (Can you see it?) that I can manage by my own power, by the force of my will.

Problem is, I start thinking that maybe, if I can control that tiny piece, I can learn to control more.  And more.

And then I can play god.

It never takes God long to scuttle my plans.  He reminds me, interruption by interruption, who's who, God and me.

Civil Discourse

I have strong opinions, yet I hate to get embroiled in controversy.  If I speak, I risk making you a target.  I risk becoming a target.  When I center your views in my crosshairs, I create a very real threat to our living in love.

But then there are the demands of truth.  Love cannot be lived apart from the lens of truth. 

That is what the other guy says too.

Just the day before yesterday my intention was to come down firmly on the side of the Jesus whose outstretched arms on the cross embrace all of creation in loving mercy.

Today, the first thing I saw as I entered the vestibule of the church was a sign inviting me to "protect tradional marriage" by voting "no on civil unions."  Pre-printed for me was a dual copy notice on which I could fill in the blanks with my name and address.  We'll fill in the names of your state senator and representative for you.  Here's a pen.

No thank you.

To be honest, this gets my hackles up in so many ways.  But it is not about my hackles.  Not one single hackle.

It's about Jesus.  It always has to be about Jesus.  That's what it means that he is Lord.  He's the boss.

Here's what he says:

"And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.'" - Matthew 28:18-20a

And what does he command?

“'This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.¹³    No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.'" - John 15:12-13

How shall I love?  As I have loved you.  Broken.  Humbled.  Poured out.  Dying.

I am a member of the body of Christ. As he is, so must I be.

Here's what I need to ask myself:  What does it look like for me to be broken for the sake of the broken world?  Humbled for the sake of the humiliated?  To be poured out on behalf of the wounded?  To die so that my friend might live?

What I know is that, when I saw that sign, those postcards, I had to ask myself who it was who was broken, humiliated, wounded, dying.  How do I stand with him, with her?

I cannot, will not, must not sign your postcard.

Tim Tebow OR Whose God?

AP Photo/Julie Jacobson

One prominent professional athlete.  One Christian who confesses his faith on a wide public screen.  Dueling apologists for and against.  To wit:

"I solemnly urge you:²proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching." - 2 Timothy 2:1c-2

And...

"And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others." - Matthew 6:5

Questions, both sincere and cynical, abound:

"If the Broncos win, does that mean God is on Tim Tebow's side?"

"If the Broncos lose, is God testing or punishing Tim Tebow?"

Et cetera.

Need it be said that this has nothing whatsoever to do with Mr. Tebow?  With whether he falls on his knees on the field.  With whether he gives to charity.  With whether his team loses or wins.

It is cliche to suggest that Americans' primary religion is professional sports, football being the most successful denomination of late.  I have nothing to say about whether people are in church or tailgating on Sunday morning.

Likewise, I have nothing to say about whether an NFL quarterback prays before, during, or after the game to his god or gods.  Or God.

It's all missing the point.

Here's the truth:  God loves Tim Tebow.  Not because he falls on his knees in worship.  Not because he made some confession of faith.  Not because he's baptized.  Not because he wins football games. 

Since we're talking football, allow me to put it this way:  God loves Jerry Sandusky.  Remember him?  He's the Penn State football coach who allegedly committed endless, heinous sexual crimes against children.

There are Christians who love Tim Tebow's God, because they love Tim Tebow.  Not that they shouldn't.

So how do we feel about the God who loves Jerry Sandusky?

Sometimes we're not so sure about Him.  We want Him to love who we love.  But we'd also prefer that He hate who we hate.  Child molesters.  Middle Eastern dictators.  Reality show stars.  Homosexuals.  Rush Limbaugh.  Or Michael Moore.  Muslims.  Or Jews.  The opposing team.

Whoever that god is, He is not the Father of Jesus.  In speaking for his God (John 5:30), Jesus says: 

"But I say to you, 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,⁴⁵   so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.'" - Matthew 5:44-45

He makes the sun to rise and sends the rain on the Broncos and the Patriots.  On Tim Tebow and Jerry Sandusky.  On Rush Limbaugh and Michael Moore.  On the Palestinians and the Israelis.  On you.  On me.  On our enemies.

What are we to make of that?  It's easier to pick a team.  Makes for better football watching.

But Jesus on the cross touches heaven and earth, reaches out his arms to embrace east and west.  He doesn't take sides.

Good Fences

"He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.'"  - Robert Frost's "The Mending Wall"


I find boundaries difficult.  Here there are no cows.  What am I walling in or walling out?

I want to be close to people.  I long to connect.  I used to think that the only way to do that was not to build a wall.

Maybe you wanted a wall between us, cows or no.  I could not imagine what your reason could possibly be. 

As far as I was concerned, there was no good reason.  So I was like to give offence.  I'd get too close.  In your space.

If you had a wall, I'd try to tear it down, stone by stone, board by board, so I could get in.  Even if you didn't want me in.  Something there is that doesn't love a wall,/That wants it down.  I wanted it down, no matter the cost.

And cost it did.  Never mind your feelings.  Never mind mine.  What's the difference?

Isaiah chapter five begins:

"Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.²He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.³And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.⁴What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?⁵And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. ⁶I will make it a waste..." (vv 1-6a)

"I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down."  The Lord surrounded his beloved vineyard with a wall.  To protect it.  Without the wall, the vineyard was defenseless.  It became a waste.

That's what happens to me -- and to you -- when we don't have walls.  One of us gets trampled.  My feelings or yours.  Your needs or mine.  My body or yours.

Lost and Found

A friend told me a story yesterday about a bracelet she'd lost.  Its value was sentimental, it's loss heartbreaking.  She looked everywhere and even prayed, as we do in a pinch.  When all else fails, maybe St. Anthony will come to the rescue.  All to no avail.

Then she lost an earring.  Nothing special, but another disappointment all the same.  Disappointment on top of disappointment.  She carefully searched, but in vain.  Then she took the remaining earring and placed it in a zippered pouch that she had at hand.  What else could she do?

  

Later that night, she came upon the lost earring in an unexpected place, and went immediately to reunite it with its mate.  She reached into the zippered pouch to retrieve it.

I don't have to tell you the end of the story.  You already know how it ends.  You know that when she reached in she found not just the earring, but the treasured bracelet.

She had to lose the earring to find the bracelet.  So simple, so obvious, once it's found.

But not when it's lost.

Jesus talks about lost things:  Sheep.  Coins.  Sons.  We expect them to get found by the end of the story.  But first they had to get lost.  No fatted calf without scraping the bottom of the pig trough.

Why is that?  I don't want to be lost. But that's my flesh talking.  The upside-down Kindgdom of God is where things have to be lost in order to be found.  Forty years of aimless desert wandering is the path to the promised land.

Loss of heaven.  Rejection.  Betrayal.  Denial.  Abasement.  Condemnation.  Crucifixion.  Death.

Zipped into the tomb.

And when the hand of God reaches into the sealed tomb, he raises up not just the dry bones of the one man, but the lost treasure of eternal life.

I don't have to tell you the end of the story.  You already know how it ends. 

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas

"Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.¹²" - Matthew 2:11b

Invariably my children, at a certain age, have asked, "Why do we give presents for Christmas?"  One answer is this text, which enshrines the gifts given by the "magi" to the baby Jesus. 

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is the annual reading of Barbara Robinson's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.  In the story, the juvenille deliquent Herdman siblings who have taken over the church Christmas play (just read it -- trust me), decide that their charity Christmas ham makes a better gift than the traditional bottles of bath salts.

My daughter -- 15 years old and no slouch when it comes to understanding Biblical theology -- said she'd have made the baby Jesus a blanket.

We could talk about the deep symbolism of gold for kings, frankincense for priests, and myrrh for burying the dead, but that's not really what my kids -- or the Herdmans -- care about.  They know there is a baby and a mommy. 

We follow the star to the stable (if you want to get technical, in Matthew, where the magi turn up, there is no stable), and we expect to see a newborn baby and a young mother, and our hearts fill, and we want to give them something.  Not something symbolic.  Something that feels real.  Practical.

Maybe it's the world in which I mostly live, the world of women and children, that inspires canned hams and crocheted throws.  But that is the world of Mary and the infant Jesus, isn't it?  Whatever we might believe to be historically true of the birth of this child, he once was a baby just like the babies we know.  He needed a blanket.  His mother needed a warm meal.

Isn't the point of the infancy narratives in part that the birth of a seemingly ordinary baby is the kick-off of God's decisive move to reconcile creation?  Think of the babies you have known -- tiny, squalling, sleeping, nursing, wetting, pooping, helpless little creatures.  Lovable, but also trying, needy, oh-so needy.  Nothing much kingly or priestly.  Hold the gold and the frankincense.

But every last one is born to die.  It's a terrible thought.  We have to protect that baby.  Wrap him!  Cradle him!  His mother too!  Bring blankets.  And hams.

I don't want myrrh.  Not for my children or your children.

God doesn't want it either.  Not for my children or your children.  Not for you or for me. 

God the Son eats the bread of suffering, so we can eat the bread of life.  He hangs naked, exposed on the cross, so we can be wrapped in the white robes of salvation. 

He receives the gold and frankincense and myrrh, even when he might prefer a cozy blanket and a ham.

Sleep

I'm sick and that is all I want to do.  So, enjoy this:


The Virtual Choir singing Eric Whitacre's Sleep
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WhWDCw3Mng

Flying Lessons

 

"...but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. "- Isaiah 40:31

I heard someone teach on this text once in a way that surprised me.  I had heard the three metaphors as the same.  Flying, running, walking, the Lord' sustains me.

But they're different.  If I'm running, I'm not flying.  If I'm walking, I'm not even running.

I often believe that I've got to fly.  If I could fly, I'd really be doing something.  I'd accomplish things.  I'd be somebody.

If only I knew how to get off the ground.

Maybe I can at least run.  Keep up.  Seems like everyone else is at least running.  I really ought to run.

Exhausting.

I can walk.  Anybody can walk, right?  One foot in front of the other.  At least I'd get somewhere. 

But I tend to get lost.

"...but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength..."

I want to be strong.  I am strong.  It's my gift, part of my mission.  I'm strong.  When I wait on the Lord.

Waiting is not my strongest suit.  I'm a product of my culture and time and, let's be honest, my impatient ego.  Instead of waiting on the Lord, can't the Lord step it up?  Send a note.  Better yet, an e-mail.  Better still, a text.  Now.

My impatience to know saps my strength.  Leaves me on the ground, exhaused, lost. 

I'm learning to walk.  Someday I will run.  And fly.

Nostalgia

I was with a friend today, and I got to see the house where she grew up.  Not just the house where she grew up, but the house more or less as she had grown up in it.  Almost nothing was changed -- furniture, appliances, paint on the walls, toys in the basement.  It was like stepping back in time.

I've wondered what that would be like, to be able to step back to a place where I was as a girl.  What if I could have recreated for me the exact geography of my memories?  The place.  The things.  The people.

My friend's parents were there.  People can't be re-upholstered like furniture.  They can't be preserved like photos or antiques.  They age.  My friends parents are aged.

Even if my place and things could be regathered, my grandparents, my mother, would still be dead.  My father has grown older.  So have I.  The little girl I was is gone. 

My memories are flawed.

The way I remember -- the way I want it to have been -- is not the way that it was.  I want to look back on the past through my child eyes, like looking through a magic mirror.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul says,

"When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.¹²     For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known." (chapter 13, verses 11 and 12)

The price of living with what I want to have been rather than what was and is is that I cannot know fully.

I avert my eyes, because I am afraid I won't like what I will see:  My failures.  My weakness.  The ways I hurt the people I love.  The ways the people I have loved hurt me.

But when I see face to face, my eyes looking into His, I can know fully.  As I have been fully known, then and now.

Loneliness, Part II

"What if I'm lonely?" Daniel, age 5 (March 2009)

He didn't ask today.  He knows he won't be lonely!  There'll be 20 other kids in his class, all 8 year olds like him.  There'll be a teacher too, and who-knows-how-many other little bodies in the lunchroom, on the playground.

It's not for me to ask.  I'm the mommy.  My job is to do what I can, when I can, to give him the world he needs to grow into the fullness of the self he is and is becoming.  And today that means school.

But I very much want to ask it of someone:  "What if I'm lonely?"

It's progress, actually.  Asking, that is.  There was a time when I would not ask.  Under any circumstances.  Because I didn't want to hear the answer.

"What if I'm lonely?"  I'm not a five year old whose mommy can fill the emptiness.  I'm not an eight year old who can move along to the next kid on the playground.

If I'm lonely, it's going to hurt.  My heart just might feel like it's going to break. 

Sure, I could call a friend.  Watch T.V.  Go for a drive.  But I'm not going to.

If I'm lonely, I'm going to feel the hurt.

Honestly, I don't want another answer right now.  I want the world to say, Hurt if you hurt. 

To God, the psalmist says:

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." -Psalm 23:4 (KJV)

I no longer believe that I can avoid the valley of the shadow of death.  It's a little death, seeing my youngest child in school, sitting in this empty house.  There will be other little deaths.  And bigger deaths.  And I am ready to walk through the valley of their shadow.

Timing Is Everything

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:²a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;³a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;⁴a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;⁵a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;⁶a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away;⁷a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;⁸a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.⁹" - Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

I'll be honest -- I hate it when people say things to me about being in the moment.  I know they're right, of course.  Life can only be lived where I am -- or you are -- right now.  Which only means that when they say it and it makes me mad, I have an inkling that there are too many moments I would prefer to avoid. 

Maybe the moment is one in which it is time to laugh, but I'd rather cry.  Maybe it's time to throw stones away, and I'd rather gather them.  Tear when it's time to sew.  Hate when it's time to love. 

I am in the moment, because, where else can I be?  But I'm out of sync.  I'm like a time traveller, or one of those science fiction heros stuck in another dimension.  The world seems to be moving too fast.  Or maybe I'm too slow.  Anyway, there's a mismatch.  And I would prefer that the world would accommodate me.  In an either/or world, the world serves me up either, and I find myself preferring or.

Then this brings me up short:

"But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day."  - 2 Peter 3:8

A lot can happen in a thousand years:  Planting and harvesting.  Breaking down and building up.  Mourning and dancing. 

It can happen in one day. 

Maybe it can happen in one moment.  Maybe in this moment. 

Can the time to be born hold within it it too the time to die?  Does the time for killing encompass the time for healing? 

Within the silence, is there someone speaking?

Resolution

Not that kind.  Not the kind you're thinking of.  Not the kind that we list and vow and test and break at this time of year. 

When something is resolved, it's finished, done.  Happy new year or no, I'm far from resolved.

No, I mean this kind:

"[T]he process or capability of making distinguishable the individual parts of an object, closely adjacent optical images, or sources of light." (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/resolution)

Like your camera or your computer screen when the picture is clear.  I want a clearer image. Less blurred.  Better resolution.

I have trouble with boundaries. Somewhere along the way I failed to learn how to distinguish individual, closely adjacent sources of light.  Too much overlap.  You or me?  I'm not altogether sure.

Even on the inside the closely adjacent sources of light get muddled.  You or me?  Wisdom or ego?  Spirit or flesh?

Back to Romans 8:

"To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace." (verse 6)

So it matters.  Death isn't life and peace.  If I can't distinguish, maybe my mind is set on the wrong thing -- "wrong" because it's killing me and keeping me from life and peace, which are my inheritance.  And yours too.  That's the picture I want to be able to see.

Sometimes my life goes by in a blur of activity, people, things.  I'm upgrading to a higher resolution.  I want to see more clearly.  I want to be more clearly seen.

Big Bang

"When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth then was welter and waste and darkness over the deep and God's breath hovering over the waters, God said, 'Let there be light.'  And there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness." - Genesis 1:1-3 (Robert Alter, trans.)

Science tells us that once upon a time the entire universe was one.  Then something happened, a massive explosion of the one, which then became the many.  My small mind cannot begin to conceive of the vastness of the many.  Planets, stars, dark matter, oak trees, earthworms, mushrooms, and me -- all that is, once, says the science, was one.

Unremarkable, then, that the first creation story in Genesis, the very first story in the the whole of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures describes the same phenomenon.

In the beginning (as we're more accustomed to hearing), there was nothing but, in Robert Alter's expression "welter and waste."  He says in his note that the Hebrew for the first word tohu "by itself means 'emptiness' or 'futility.'"  The second word in the Hebrew (wabohu, if you're interested), appears to have been "coined to rhyme with the first and to reinforce it."  Emptiness and futility:  Nothing, and, anyway, what's the point?  From this pointless nothingness comes everything.

God's breath (in Hebrew, ruah, also wind or spirit -- or Spirit) breathes upon nothing and makes it something -- first light, then a "vault in the midst of the waters" to "divide water from water," then dry land, grass, seed-bearing plants, sun, moon, stars, fish, birds, beasts, humans.  In the story, God divides and divides and divides -- light from darkness; sky from seas; day from night; trees from grass; fish from birds; beasts from humans.

That is the story of creation, from science and scripture both, the story of division, separation.  What was one, now is many.  And God called it good.

In his message for New Year's Day for 2012, Fr. Richard Rohr (if you don't know who he is, make sure to find out; check out the link in the sidebar) says, "Differentiation seems to precede union and communion, for some strange reason."  Indeed, the "emptiness and futility" with which we started puts me immediately in mind of this bit of Romans 8:

"...for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." - Romans 8:20-21 (NRSV)

Although God calls the big bang of creation, all that division, "good," it does not bring an end to the futility.  God delivers us from the futility of that original nothingness to the futility of a subjected creation.  What's the difference?

Before there was separation, division, creation, there was no "us," only God.

Romans 8 ends with these words (vv 38-39):

"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

No thing can perpetuate the separation of us, me, from the love of God in Christ.  All this dividing has had, as its ultimate object, the union of creation in all its uniqueness and diversity, with the love of God, revealed and brought to fruition in Christ.

To new beginnings -- welcome, 2012.

The Cost of Lonliness

"The internet postings begin in 2005, and they're clearly written by a lonely young man. One post in 2005 read: I'm in a situation where I do not have a friend. I have no one to speak to. I don't know what to do. Abdulmutallab was young, didn't speak Arabic very well and was looking for religious guidance on the internet." - From a 12/30/09 story on NPR about Christmas Day bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, "In Bomb Plot Probe, Spotlight Falls on Yemeni Cleric"

There has been much ink and bandwith spent in the past three weeks on evalutating the causes of the near-tragedy in the skies over Detroit on the evening of Christmas Day. In my mind, this nugget of information should be front and center. It's not about full body scanners in airports. It's not about "connecting the dots," within the lines of communication in the intelligence community. It's about a lonely young man. A young man with a baby face in a strange place without a friend.

Instead of wondering whether better intelligence would have prevented this man from taking fire and a bomb onto an airplane, I have a better question: What if Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had had a friend? I don't mean a co-conspirator. I mean someone who had cared about him, been ready to sit with him and laugh with him and to listen to his deep pain and questions and share his joy.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He is a person with a name and a father who cared enough about his son to tell someone that something was very wrong with the young man. He was once an innocent baby. On some day or night, before he went on the internet and discovered a nefarious distorter of Islam who taught him to be a terrorist, he was a lonely, confused kid.

Where were we?

It's become a joke when someone commits a heinous crime that his neighbors invariably say, "He was quiet, kept to himself." Who is this "he"? Who is the lonely boy or man (or girl or woman, though far less often)? Is it my neighbor?

"Who is my neighbor?" asked the legal scholar of Jesus. Jesus replies with the story of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritans were hated by the Jews, because they were a half-Jewish people who had intermarried with Gentiles and had different ideas about the Law. It was shocking to think of a Samaritan coming to the aid of a Jew.

But what if one of us, if I, had reached out my Samaritan hand in an offer of friendship to my neighbor, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab? I cannot even pronounce his name. His skin is dark and mine is light. He is a young Nigerian man and I am a middle-aged American woman. Who is the Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in my neighborhood? In yours?

Weather

"We are calling with an important message..." That was the computer voice on the other end of my phone at 5:30 this morning. Bleary-eyed, I grabbed the phone, thankfully sensing, even before I answered, that it wasn't going to be one of those night-time phone calls, the kind we dread. No. It was the public school district kindly informing us -- although we do not avail ourselves of their services -- that schools are closed today.

Several phone calls, e-mails, and inches of snow later, all our typical Wednesday activities were cancelled. Wednesday is a busy day, typically. Today, all activity has ground to a halt.

Snow days are different when you home school. The show, so to speak, can go on. And yet, even for us, today feels different.

After serveral days of this, I guess we all start to feel cooped up, but for one day, it is a strange and special sort of freedom. Suddenly the world bends. It bows low to the force of nature, of God. All of our busyness and the important appointments and meetings and all of the things that we cannot possibly miss, just stop. No one argues. No one worries too much. Because we're all in it together.

The snow, suddenly, is a great equalizer. We heave a collective sigh, inwardly smile as we slip into our slippers, heat some milk and mix in the cocoa.

As I lay in my warm bed, only half-cursing the automated-phone-call voice, I thought about the milk truck driver, the newspaper delivery man, the mail carrier, the garbage collector, and, of course, the snow plow drivers, all of those dedicated public servants who will persevere through the storm. But for most of us, we get to pause and admire the handiwork of God, who, sometimes, forces us to stop.

Ah, ha!

"The word community comes from the word common. Community isn't really created -- it's discovered. We discover what we've had in common all along." - Rob Bell in a note in Sex. God.

I had an "ah, ha!" moment today. Why is it that they're all, those ah, ha! moments, ultimately, "of course!" moments? I don't think I've ever in my life had a real insight that didn't, in retrospect, feel so painfully obvious I was almost embarrassed to say it out loud. This instance is no different.

It happened when I read this: "I'm part of a community, a movement of people who have been living, exploring, discussing, sharing, and experiencing new understandings of the Christian faith" (Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, p. 14).

Remember in the Peanuts comics, when Lucy was counseling Charlie Brown (Psychiatric Help - 5 cents - The Doctor is IN). She'd suddenly hit on something, and Charlie Brown would shout, "That's it!" and Lucy would go rolling over backward at the force of the exclamation. That was me today, bowled over backward. Only to get up and think, "Duh."

When I read that line, I felt deeply jealous. That's what I want. That's what I want. That's what I want.

Then I thought again about the lines about community and commonality. When I first read them earlier today, I though, "Huh. I never thought of that before. I need to think about that some more." Then the ah, ha! happened, and I did think about it some more.

There are people, in my life right now, with whom I have this in common -- the desire to live, explore, discuss, share, and experience new understandings of the Christian faith. If I knew who they were, we'd have community, and maybe, just maybe, I'd understand how God is calling me to be the church. If only I knew who they were...who you are...

Questions

'He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Sama'ria and to the end of the earth."'
- Acts 1:7-8 (RSV)

I want an answer, now. Today. Yesterday, actually.

I feel pressured to know the answer. I'm the game show contestant. You can hear that Jeopardy! tune, can't you? Write down your answer! Time is running out. The championship, big cash prizes, and the respect of Alex Trebek are on the line.

Only on Jeopardy! they want you to write down a question. The answer is a question.

What if I had to write down my question before the song was over? What if that were all -- the question.

I was driving in the car one day, on my way to church, as it happens. I was struggling and praying. (This was a number of years ago, but it reminds me that struggling on my way to church is nothing new.) Something strange happened. I heard a voice in my ear. I knew it wasn't out loud. My kids were in the car, and I knew they couldn't hear it. But I heard it. I heard it. The voice said, "You, ask the questions." You, as in me. Ask the questions. Not "figure out the answers." Ask the questions.

When I am struggling for an answer, I know that the problem is not that the answer won't come. The problem is in the question. It's the wrong question. The answer will never come until I ask a different question and a different question until an answer comes. So I should keep looking for questions. Not for answers.

Religion, Part Two

"I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen." - Martin Luther

It was late. Both kids were soundly sleeping in the next room. I was sitting on the bed, book in hand, bawling. Between sobs I told my puzzled husband, "I think I'm going to be a Protestant!"

I was reading -- muddling through, really -- a book of Christian history that was far over my head. It was written by a Lutheran theologian, it so happens. I got to the part about the Reformation. To my great dismay, I was rooting helplessly for the reformers.

After much soul searching, I decided that the only thing my conscience would allow me to do was to begin worshipping in a Lutheran church. I wonder if anyone not raised Catholic could understand my great sorrow and reluctance. The world had been divided for me long since into Catholics and non-Catholics, and now I was non-.

My reluctance never abated, but I acted in obedience to what I believed then -- and believe now -- to be a call from God. For seven years I lived as a too-Catholic Protestant. Today, I am a too-Protestant Catholic.

Religion is how I have always understood and defined my faith. Rote prayer and spontaneous. Lectionary and Bible. Tradition and scripture. Authority and freedom. Alpha and omega.

Today, I have to face this solemn and painful truth: Neither the Catholic nor the Protestant iterations of religion has encompassed my lived experience. The rhythms of the mass resonate to my core. The scriptures do too -- when I study them and come to my own understanding of them as history and story and truth. Sacrament embodies the reality of the Risen Christ. But I am saved by grace through faith.

Nine years ago I became willing to abandon my Catholicism as a way to respond radically to God's call. I received in return nothing less than Christ, who can never now be taken from me. Am I willing today to abandon the desire to fit into a single religious mold, Catholic or Protestant, and discover what I may receive from God in return?

Religion, Part One

'A man arrives at the gates of Heaven. St. Peter asks, "Religion?" The man replies, "Methodist." St. Peter looks down his list and says,"Go to Room 24, but be very quiet as you pass Room 8." As the man walks past Room 8, he hears raucous celebration, but he heeds St. Peter's admonition and tiptoes past. A woman then arrives at the Pearly Gates. "Religion?" "Jewish." '"Go to Room 18, but be very quiet as you pass Room 8." She complies. Another woman. "Religion?" "Baptist." "Go to Room 11 but be very quiet as you pass Room 8." The woman pauses and asks, "I can understand there being different rooms for different religions, but why must I be quiet when I pass Room 8?" St. Peter pulls her aside and whispers, "Well, the Catholics are in Room 8, and they think they're the only ones here."'

I grew up Catholic -- not the traditional rosary and incense and saints kind, but the post Vatican II, felt-banners, guitar mass, nuns in street clothes kind. Traditional or not, as far as I knew, the world was divided into Catholics and non-Catholics, and I was a Catholic.

I never dreamed of being anything but a Catholic -- unless I could somehow be Jewish. Perhaps I didn't quite have the Jesus part down. What I did understand is that being Catholic, even the felt-banner kind, means being steeped in ritual, and so does being Jewish. That was the heart of my experience of religion, of God. Sunday morning mass was all there was.

That, and bed time prayers. They were rote: The Lord's Prayer, a Hail Mary, and "God bless Mommy and Daddy and my sisters, and make me a good girl. Amen." Long into young adulthood I could not go to sleep without this little routine. It had become like a lucky rabbit's foot or a four-leaf clover. I was afraid not to do it, as if the ritual itself had some power to ward off demons.

But it wasn't enough. The demons encroached. Finally, in young motherhood, I was in a deep spiritual crisis. I wasn't a "good girl." Oh, I tried to do all the right things, but life was proving too much for me. Bed time prayers weren't enough. Ritual was not enough.

For a long time I had sat through sermons, listened to the gospel stories thinking, How could Sunday morning and bed time prayers be all there is? This Jesus was saying something far more radical. What was I supposed to be doing about it? Now I was desperate for an answer. If God could not be found by just showing up on Sunday morning and at bed time, how would I find him?

In desperation, I did what I had scarcely ever in my life done: I asked for help. I reached out first from some younger but more spiritually secure members of my family, and then from whatever books I could get my hands on.

There were the many spiritual volumes sitting on our shelves from our Catholic college days. There was the 12 inches worth of shelving at the local public library devoted to religion. I didn't even know what I was looking for as I searched. For God, yes, but what did that mean? So I just read and read and read.

I don't know what happened next or when it happened. If I were a Christian of a certain stripe, I would say I was saved. Converted? I don't really know. I can't say the day or the time. But I didn't know Jesus, except in a vague, historical character/mythological figure sort of way. And then I did.

And then he asked me to do something I never, ever expected.

Chapter and Verse

"The Lord GOD has given me a well-trained tongue that I might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them." ~Isaiah 50:4a (NAB)

I didn't grow up with the Bible. I had a children's Bible, which I received as a gift. I remember looking at the pictures, but never reading it.

My grandmother's family Bible was a missal. I loved it, because it was the closest thing I knew to a holy book. I still have it. The ribbons are in tatters, but I can still read my birth record and my sisters' on the inside front cover. I wrote in my own children's.

When I was a young teen, I asked for a Bible for Christmas. I am a book-lover, and it seemed like a book I ought to have. On our annual Christmas shopping trip, my grandmother obliged me with a tiny, red-bound copy of the King James Version.

When I opened my Christmas present, I moved the red ribbon to where the tiny type read "Genesis." Begin at the beginning. An unoriginal novice, I got about half-way through Exodus before quitting in boredom and despair. How were you supposed to read this thing anyway?

Needless to say, I did not grow up memorizing chapter and verse. But I used to lector at mass. For many years running I read on Palm Sunday. Isaiah 50:4-7 and Philippians 2:6-11 were the first scriptures I learned by heart.

And "by heart" is precisely what it was. Not memorized. The words became part of my heart, became flesh.

Today I can quote many verses. "I can do all things through him who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13) "I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly" (John 10:10). "Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me" (Revelation 3:20). "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2).

But none can compare to Isaiah 50:4-7 and Philippians 2:6-11. As I hear them and recite the words along with the lectors, I think about the time when they were all I had, what I have since received, what is yet to come.

"Morning after morning he opens my ear that I may hear; And I have not rebelled, have not turned back." ~Isaiah 50-4b-5

Housekeeping

"When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth then was welter and waste and darkness over the deep and God's breath hovering over the waters, God said, 'Let there be light.'" ~ Genesis 1:1-2 from the Robert Alter translation, Genesis

I don't read Hebrew, although I wish I could. Maybe someday. In the meantime, I pretend by reading Robert Alter's biblical translations. He endeavors to retain the poetic feel of the original.

Here's his note on "welter and waste": "The Hebrew tohu wabohu occurs only here and in two later biblical texts that are clearly alluding to this one.... Tohu by itself means emptiness or futility..."

Housework sometimes feels like that -- welter and waste, emptiness and futility. Then one day, I was folding the clothes. How many loads of laundry have I folded? Hundreds, certainly. But on this day, something new occurred to me. I looked at the pile of rumpled shirts and socks and sheets and underwear, and I thought of chaos.

Then I thought about other household tasks waiting to be completed. I thought about dirty bathrooms. Uncooked food. Littered floors. Full trashcans. Unmade beds. Chaos.

And then I thought about God. The whole cosmos was once nothing but chaos, welter and waste. The fundamental task of creation was bringing order out of chaos. The Word was spoken and there was light. The waters were divided by a vault and gathered together. There was dry land and grass and trees and fruit and evening and morning. Fish and birds and beasts and cattle and creeping crawling things. There were man and woman, you and me. There were -- and are -- variety and multitudes, but within and among and all through there is a strange and mysterious and indubitable order.

When I sweep and scrub and especially when I fold, I bring order out of chaos. It is hallowed work, God's work.

Faith

"Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" ~Isaiah 53:1

'He said, “Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.” Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.” He said, “No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” He said to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” ’ ~Luke 16:27-31 (NRSV)

If you hang around Christians long enough, you're bound to hear it. A friend went to a funeral recently and heard it there. The gist is, Christians will be happy in heaven while everybody else will burn in hell, so make sure you're on God's good side, the Christian side. Or else.

When I was in high school I had two friends whose families were of this ilk. One's mother believed, without doubt, that her own mother was headed for hell. The other, Bible firmly in hand, once left a Buddhist classmate in tears.

What argument can we make if "they will [not] be convinced even if someone rises from the dead"? Must we who believe somehow convince, cajole, bully, berate, or threaten those who do not, cannot, will not?

Paul says to the recalcitrant Corinthians: "For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2). Not Jesus Christ raised bodily from the dead. Not fire and brimstone, hellfire and damnation. Crucifixion. Suffering. Brokenness.

When God's image was finally, finally borne in the world, it was upon a Roman cross. Humanity, at last, revealing God's glory.

Here, only here, have we ever, will we ever, see the arm of the Lord revealed.

In Memoriam

I never believed that anything could defeat her. She grew up an only child. Her mother and father had to work. A lot. She had stories about days, nights, weekends, holidays, spent alone or with neighbors. It was a lonely place to be. I wonder how she managed. But she certainly learned to take care of business.

Maybe the nuns helped during eight years of Catholic school. Make that seven; she skipped first grade. The Baltimore Catechism, daily mass, perfect penmanship – she developed a keen sense of personal discipline that would carry her through life’s later troubles

Like getting pregnant at twenty. Imagine! She, the straight-A student, had to drop out of college to get married. But that didn’t stop her. Neither did the divorce less than ten years later, or the prospect of raising three young daughters alone. She took care of everything somehow. The years alone ended. She remarried and had a son. But through it all she never lost sight of what she needed to realize her goal for herself.

She finally finished her degree 25 years after she started college; we graduated in the same year. A year after that she was teaching elementary school.

She juggled teaching alongside service to the church, marriage, mothering, grandmothering, and caring for her own mother for ten years, managing to spend every spare summer minute on the beach in Tahoe, reading like crazy and laughing with good friends. I thought she could take care of anything.

But even she couldn’t take care of the leukemia. It took care of her, in six short weeks.

She was so many things to so many people, -- teacher, wife, daughter, friend, grandma – but I was the first one to call her “mom.”

Marilyn Grace Handley
January 10,1947 - April 1, 2000

Loneliness

"What if I'm lonely?" Daniel, age 5

He loves going, but he doesn't want to go. It's an ordinary Sunday morning, and, after weeks in a row of joyfully heading off to Sunday school, my baby is suddenly afraid.

"What if I have a stomach ache?" They've been frequent, but the doctor assures us that everything is fine. It's just a stage.

At first, it seemed like it would just go away, like most stages do, but then he asked this unexpected question: "What if I'm lonely?" He was imagining it, lonliness in a room full of others, teachers, friends.

I know that feeling. It's a cliche: Lonely in a crowded room. Then I knew it wasn't a stage that would soon pass.

At nearly five plus thirty-seven years, it hasn't passed for me. I remain aware that even in the most intimate of company, I can still feel alone. There exists this deep place inside where no one can really go with me. My baby still trusts that I, at least, can meet him in his deep place. For now, that's enough for him. Someday it won't be.

Daniel does not understand the absence, the longing he is beginning to recognize. I think I might. Barely. Another cliche: The God-shaped hole inside.

I used to try to fill it with other things -- food, fantasy, noise. Sometimes I still want to try, even though I know it never really helps.

"Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?" (Isaiah 55:2, NRSV). Good question. Like Daniel's question: "What if I'm lonely?" What shall I do then?

"Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other" (Isaiah 45:22).

Carrying Cash

"Give to every one who begs from you..." - Luke 6:30

I hardly ever carry cash. My mother was appalled at the idea of paying for groceries with a credit card, so it was a long time before I could. But I pay the bill off every month, so why resist? Now I pay for everything with a credit card. It's so convenient. Most of the time.

Beggars don't take credit cards. Or debit cards. Or checks.

She was driving a mini-van with no license plates. Her daughter -- I guess -- was asleep in the front seat. Maybe she was eight or nine.

The mini-van just pulled up beside us in a parking lot, right in the middle of the middle class world in which we live. I thought she needed directions. She needed money.

She said the child was sick, and they needed medicine. They needed food. I only had a five dollar bill.

I gave her the five dollars, but I felt sad. I was on my way from talking with a contractor about making some improvements to our home. I'm about to write a check to that man for thousands of dollars. But I only had five to give the woman whose child needs medicine and food.

I intend to start carrying cash.

Balance

"Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle." -Helen Keller

My daughter said, "Every time you try to put chili in the crock pot..." The first time I sliced my finger open. The next time I opened the refrigerator and, for the second time in as many months, one of my glass milk bottles had shattered. There was a quart of milk dribbling all down my fridge and onto the floor. I thought about screaming, but instead I wiped a bit, walked out of the kitchen, read some e-mails, came back to the kitchen, covered the chopped onions so they wouldn't dry out and proceeded to empty and clean the refrigerator. I was fuming, but calm, and I tried to think about what happens inside of me at moments like this. I present to you some inner dialogue:

There are these three voices inside me. Voice one is my "Inner Bitch" (IB). She's a rebel. She swears (so please forgive her). She's gritty and edgy. She wears black and does funky things to her hair. She's powerful, but not terribly compassionate. She blames everyone and everything for her problems. She is put-upon. I like some things about her. She's funny and strong.

Voice two is my "Inner Priss" (IP). She is a scold. She knows very well what is right and what is wrong. She is quick to judge IB (and everybody else). She stuffs her feelings. She is everything on the outside that IB isn't -- socially appropriate, polite. Nothing is ever anyone else's fault. She thinks she's compassionate and loving, but really she is a repressed phony. I don't like her as well as I like IB, but she's around a lot more. Maybe I'm just sick of her. What I do like about her is that she keeps the IB in check. She allows my outward behavior to be appropriate, even when my inside feelings are not. She protects other people -- and me -- from the havoc that IB would like to wreck, which is good.

Finally, voice three is the mature adult me (ME). She is trying desperately to acknowledge IB and honor her voice while not letting her take over. She encourages IP to be more honest.

When we opened the refrigerator and saw all that milk, IB was on fire. She was so mad! Here we were, trying to get dinner ready in advance -- SO RESPONSIBLE! Now, instead of everything being ready we had to spend the whole blessed morning cleaning the refrigerator. And we just washed the floor too. And we're out a half-gallon of milk. Do you know how expensive milk is? Why does this keep happening? Maybe we need to stop getting glass bottles. Someone needs to fix that stupid refrigerator. Shouldn't someone be able to figure something out so this doesn't happen again? This is a real pain, you know?

But then there's IP twittering in the background. She's got the voice of every person on earth who is having a good day when we're not. She says that we should just calm down. What a lovely opportunity to learn something. Isn't it wonderful that the refrigerator will be clean?! Just go with the flow, let go and let God. IB wants to kick her ass.

Then, there is ME. You know what she did? She shut our mouth, because anything that was going to come out of it would be NOT HELPFUL. She picked up a rag and a roll of paper towels and little by little cleaned the refrigerator.

It takes the greatest act of tolerance for ME to accept the dueling IB and IP. But when I do, we don't fall off the bicycle.

Humility

"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." - Matthew 5:5

Or the clothes.

Several months ago, my husband's grandmother died. She was in her late 80's and was driving herself to the store and church until the week she went into the hospital. My mother-in-law gave me bags and bags of Grandma's clothes to go through and keep or donate. My prideful thought was, "I don't want to wear old lady clothes." I was ready just to put all those bags on my porch for the donation pick-up tomorrow, sight unseen.

But then I thought, Would it kill me to at least look and see what's there?

Well. Most of it looks practically new, because she was a meticulous housekeeper, right down to the laundry. Most of it is much nicer -- and more fashionable -- than anything hanging in my closet. Most of it is the right size. And there is tons. And it's free.

Now, a new wardrobe may not be the earth. But, as an inheritance, it's a sight better than laziness and stubborn pride.

What if I hadn't looked in those bags? Of course, I'd never have known what I was missing. What other bags have I put out or given away without a thought, because I was too proud to think there could be anything in there that was good enough for me?

Suffering

"Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain." ~Isaiah 53:10

There's no denying that the world is rife with it -- war, cancer, abuse, accidents, natural disasters, famine, heartbreak. The list goes on all day and into the dark, dark night.

Death is the shadow beneath it all, the darkest darkness. Our destiny. My destiny.

A former Christian, current agnostic, was featured on a radio interview program the other day. You might have heard of him. He's written a popular book about Jesus. He says what finally drove him from Christianity was his inability to reconcile suffering with the idea of a good God. He's not the first one to say so. But I don't get it.

Now, that's not to say that people can't come up with reasons to question the veracity of the Christian story. But suffering? Christianity offers the only reconciliation of suffering and a loving God the world has ever known.

"The last enemy to be destroyed is death," proclaims Paul to the Corinthians. Death, our final enemy. All of our suffering is ultimately unto death; death is the real and only weapon wielded by the powers and principalities. But its destiny is destruction. Death's destiny is death.

"For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death."

Abstinence

"Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." - Joshua 24:15 (NRSV)

I'm an addict. I don't mean that in some vague, metaphorical sense. Which behavior or substance is irrelevant. In my experience, an addict is an addict.

And addiction, in my experience, is a new-fangled way of saying, "idol-worship."

In the ancient world, there was a real competition going on. Which god was the most powerful? Most people didn't want to take chances, so they worshipped as many gods as they could. Most gods were fine with this. The more the merrier.

God said, No. Not in Israel. The foundational prayer in Judaism is the Sh'ma: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates" (Deuteronomy 6:4-9, NRSV).

I've been intensively working the 12 Steps these past several weeks. I'm on the verge of Step 11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.

One piece of sure knowledge that God has revealed to me is that abstinence from addiction is his will for me. "For us," says Step 11. All of us? Us addicts. Us idol-worshippers.

The "Big Book," Alcoholics Anonymous says, "Half-measure availed us nothing." It's God or idols. Take your pick.

Jigsaw

I'm fond of jigsaw puzzles, but once I start, it's hard for me to quit until I'm finished. I don't have time for that kind of thing nowadays, but I have discovered a differnt kind of jigsaw work that God is completing in me. He's started, and it doesn't look like he's going to quit until the thing is finished.

I thought I "got" my life. I really did. I've always thought of myself as introspective, enlightened, self-aware. "The unexamined life is not worth living." And all that.

Lately I've been in for a dose or two, or ten, of truth, and it's brought some unexpected realizations. My life is not what I thought it was. I've got all these pieces, see? I had put them all together and they made a picture that I recognized as "me." But I've been noticing lately that some of them don't really fit where I've put them. The colors don't really match. The little bumps don't exactly fit into the little openings.

As I've stepped back, God has stepped in. He didn't just remove a couple of errant pieces either. He's disassembled the whole darned thing. Maybe he left the frame, you know, those edge and corner pieces that you do first, because they're easy to figure out. The rest, the whole middle, undone.

These pieces -- I recognize them individually, remember how I fit them together before -- are scattered about in front of me. God is taking them up, one by one, and putting them back together. The picture looks surprisingly different. That wasn't a snake at all! It's part of the sturdy trunk of the tree. This isn't a garbage heap! It's a garden.

The life I thought I knew? All the same pieces are there, but the image looks different now. It's still looks like me, more like me than ever, really. And the image looks more like God too.