"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. God will dwell with them; they will be the people of God. God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more;mourning and crying will be no more, the the first things have passed away." Revelation 21:1-4

Heaven….what comes to mind when you hear this word? A magical city in the sky with castle -like buildings rising out of white, puffy clouds? A green and colorful meadow with clear streams and a peace that is palpable? The view from a mountain top with a view that goes beyond anything you’ve ever seen before? A grove of trees creating a womb of root and leaf while cool, fresh breezes flow sweetly in the space around?

Anyone who has the true vision of heaven might want to give filmmaker Peter Jackson a call. He is creating a film version of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones and has halted production on the film. Why, you ask? Because he and his art director can not agree on what heaven looks like. I, for one, am glad to move this disagreement outside the church walls and allow these artists in on the age-old argument.

I have to admit to not giving much thought to what heaven ‘looks like’. Instead, believing that heaven is more experience than place, I have spent much time trying to make sure I notice and honor it when it comes near. Throughout the scriptures and in literature, writers-storytellers-artists- have tried to paint with brush or word the beauty of what heaven might look like given their own experience, their own landscape, their own experience of the Holy. In truth, it is all any of us can do. When the Holy One brushes by in the guise of human or flower or animal or bird, we simply try to use inadequate tools to tell the story and pass it on. As those stories are told over time we tend to want to set them in stone, make them the ‘truth’ rather than a reflection of that truth.

And so filmmaker and artist halt their work, based on the story of a murdered young woman who observes from a place beyond the grief that remains after her death, because they can’t agree what heaven looks like. Perhaps one of the points of the book, of the story itself, is how heaven was right there on earth….in the love of parents and family, in the relationship of family and friends, in the beauty all around.  It is something to ponder.

This past Sunday was what we have named in the Christian church, Ascension Sunday. It is the Sunday when we read the story from the book of Acts of Jesus’ being taken up into heaven. In this story the apostles are impatiently grilling Jesus about when the ‘kingdom of God’ will arrive. His words to them:" It is not for you to know. That’s God’s business." He goes on to tell them that the Spirit will lead them in what they need to know and and how they are to live. When he disappears into the clouds, they heard these words:"People of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?"

Why, indeed? May this day, this weekend, find us looking, not toward the sky but into the eyes and hearts of all those we meet,offering ourselves to the Love that moves and breathes and has meaning among us. Call it what you want. I’ll call it heaven.

Have a blessed weekend……………

Perhaps the earliest sign that summer is on its way is the sight of asparagus at the local farmer’s market. This strange looking vegetable, revered by many around the world, will make its way onto our tables over the next few weeks. It will be sweet, tasty, green, white or purple….and it will only be with us in its freshly harvested state for a few short weeks. While it can be found in frozen form or carried to us with a huge carbon footprint on its stalks, asparagus is not only nutritious but teaches us an important practice….the art of savoring what is short-lived.

We are generally not a culture of ‘savor-ers’. We gulp down food while riding in our cars at sixty miles per hour. We eat food that is hardly recognizable as such from boxes we’ve zapped for three minutes in a microwave. Unlike our brothers and sisters in other countries who can turn any meal into a several hour occasion, somehow we’ve pushed food into the ‘calories in/calories out’ realm and have allowed the art of savoring to fall by the wayside.

One of the by-products of the intention toward eating locally produced foods in their season is that it may bring back this lost art. Alphabetically speaking, let us begin with the letter "a" for asparagus.This crazy looking stalk that seems to be wearing a fabulous headdress of green feathers is meant to be savored….for it will not be long with us.

In her book Animal,Vegetable,Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver speaks of asparagus: "From the outlaw harvests of my childhood, I’ve measured my years by asparagus. I sweated to dig it into countless yards I was destined to leave behind, for no better reason than that I believe in vegetables in general, and this one in particular. Gardeners are widely known and mocked for this sort of fanaticism. But other people fast or walk long pilgrimages to honor the spirit of what they believe makes our world whole and lovely. If we gardeners can, in the same spirit, put our heels to the shovel, kneel before a trench holding tender roots, and then wait three years for an edible incarnation of the spring equinox, who’s to make the call between ridiculous and reverent?"

If you venture out to one of the many farmer’s markets opening this weekend and if you are blessed to find there a table holding asparagus, remember this: someone has knelt in the trench, has held these tender roots, has nurtured and fed them for three years and now offers them to you. It seems to me the only reasonable response is to savor….and give thanks.

Since April 23rd I have been standing watch. Standing watch over the cherry bush given by a circle of friends as a memorial gift at the time of my father’s death. Since we planted it the summer after his passing, it has always bloomed on a day near the anniversary of his death, April 23rd. But not this year. This year there were not even visible buds on the bush. The cold and gray of winter held it back from its delicate, perfect pink flowers. And so I have been watching and waiting.

Yesterday afternoon when I came home in the rain, I looked out the window to see that some buds had reached a fullness. With today’s sunshine, I am happy to say the bush has finally begun to flower. It has taken nearly three weeks longer than other years but over the next few days everyone who passes by our house will have the blessing of the sight of this sweet little bush.

When April 23rd rolled around and I could see that there would be no flowers for this anniversary, I was at first a little angry. Then I felt sadness and disappointment. It had meant something special to have those flowers bloom as homage to my Dad who was a great lover of cherry pie. But as the time wore on I began to see this delay for what it really was……a reminder that things don’t always happen when they are ‘supposed’ to, some plants(like some people) take longer to grow and flourish than others, some seasons last longer than we’d like, while others move on far too quickly.

I thought of the many times I have willed a project or situation to move forward, to progress, to ‘do something!’ only to have to practice patience and the humbling act of tongue-biting. If every parent or teacher could have a nickel for every child they have wanted to succeed more quickly, mature faster, only to learn-or re-learn, that all children do best when growing and moving at their own pace….why think of the fortunes we’d amass!

The cherry bush is blooming in its own sweet time following the wisdom and rhythm of sun, rain and temperature. To have brought forth those lovely blossoms earlier would have meant a certain wilting death. Unlike its human guard, the plant new exactly what to do and the right time to do it. How much I have learned from this precious plant.

Over the next few days I will continue to stand watch realizing that now is the appropriate time to do what humans were meant to do…….be awestruck with the beauty and wonder of it all and to give thanks. The cherry bush will do its job and I will do mine and all will be right with the world.

"Silently a flower blooms, in silence it falls away; Yet here now, at this moment, at this place, the world of the flower, the whole of the world is blooming. This is the talk of the flower, the truth of the blossom; the glory of eternal life is fully shining here."  Zenkei Shibayama

On April 10th my horoscope read: "You can come up with bright ideas on your own, but bouncing off of another luminous mind produces the truly brilliant ones. Get together with the smartest person you know to start the ball rolling."  I so loved these words that I clipped them out of the paper and have carried them with me ever since. That morning I was meeting with one of the smartest people I know and I shared this little directive with him. We agreed we were up for what ever work our meeting required of us.

Today I shared this horoscope with my co-workers at our weekly staff meeting. I told them I had adopted it as my ‘daily’ horoscope, at least for the time being, and I implied that I looked to them as luminous minds I could count on. For me these words are advice to get up with every day. I can most certainly come up with some fairly ‘bright’ ideas. But the truly brilliant ones are those that rise to the top of a boiling pot of a multiplicity of ideas born out of gathering around tables, dreaming, discussing, asking questions, a little argument here or there, a prayer or two…and probably lots of coffee. Those are the places where brilliance is born.

When the apostle Paul described the community of believers as being like a body where every part was important, I think this is the concept he may have had in mind. Each of us, equipped with unique gifts, bring to any situation, any community, the raw potential needed to solve any problem, realize any dream. So many times, we sit by and let others design the show and don’t offer what we have beating in our heart. Or other times, we are so filled with our own ‘bright idea agenda’ that we railroad our way past the luminous beings heating the seat next to us.

I’d be happy to share my horoscope with you. As a Gemini, I can generally say we like to share. So if you are about to embark on a new adventure, a new life plan or you just need to figure out what to have for dinner, I’d suggest phoning a friend for a bright idea. Together your luminous minds might attain brilliance. I’m pretty sure that’s how it works.

"The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enter into the exuberance." 1 Corinthians 12, The Message, Eugene Peterson

"And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; you shall return every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family.You shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a jubilee;it shall be holy to you; When you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not cheat one another. If anyone of your kin falls into difficulty and sells a piece of property, then the next of kin shall come and redeem what the relative has sold. But if there is not sufficient means to recover it, what was sold shall remain with the purchaser until the year of jubilee; in the jubilee it shall be released and the property shall be returned."  Leviticus 25, selected verses

I don’t often go to the book of Leviticus for inspiration. It is a complicated, time sensitive book of law that has been used, by Christians and others, to do some terrible harm toward one another. But the past few weeks I have been fascinated by the concept of ‘jubilee’ that is outlined in the 25th chapter of this ancient book. The ruling to the people of the time took into account that greed, oppression, hording, consumerism, and ownership would quite frankly always get humans into trouble…..God knew this and planned for it.

Jubilee provides for a time, every 50 years, for a release of all debts, setting the slaves free, letting the lands lie
fallow,
and the return of  lands to their original (and rightful)
owners: all the farm lands that farmers had been forced to sell due to
debt. I think of it as a cultural ‘do-over’ or a true act of wiping the slate clean.

Last week I was riding in my car listening to the news. In five minutes of sound bites I heard of yet another person killed in Iraq pushing the American death count higher into the 4000’s;the figures reported for yet more and more foreclosures and loss of homes and pride;continually rising oil prices followed by gas prices with no end in sight and attention seemingly elsewhere; unemployment reports were high; food costs spiking due to oil prices; the ability to get college loans is on the decline; on and on. I felt my shoulders moving closer and closer to my ears as the stress of it all mounted.

That’s when I thought of ‘jubilee’, this principle the scriptures tell us was given to the Hebrew people as a gift to ensure they would continue to care for one another and the Earth in the ways in which God intended. Wouldn’t this be a good time for jubilee? Wouldn’t it be a perfect moment to stop the insanity and have a do-over? I truly believe that we have the creativity, the intelligence, the wisdom, to provide the change and possibility needed, the pull us back from the brink if only we’d take the time, the honesty and the intention to do so.

But Jubilee is not primarily head-work, it is heart-work. Jubilee is the recognition that we are all in this together and our interdependence is woven into the fabric of the Universe. When one part suffers, we all suffer. When one part rejoices, we all rejoice.The book of Leviticus is grounded in the premise that the Holy has ‘pitched a tent’ in our midst. Its laws and directives call us to live accordingly.

Today might just be the day to begin declaring a Jubilee. Perhaps if each of us forgave a debt, offered another a simple freedom, loved the land and cared for it with our heart, we might have a ‘trickle up’ effect that might have far reaching implications.

It couldn’t hurt.

"Whoever has ears, let them hear."  Luke 8:8

I am a visual person. I take in the majority of information, process it, make sense of it, react to it, through t my sense of sight. My eyes have been searching the landscape for weeks, as have many others, for the visible sights of spring. Certainly the calendar declares it is spring and every day or two we will have a hint of warmth that tempts us to believe. Green has emerged from our garden but seems to have reached a plateau that could be called ‘not quite yet.’ I’ve been looking and looking(and with the chance of snow in the forecast for tomorrow) I am yet to be convinced.

But today I was driving past an area in our neighborhood where there are some small ponds. My windows were cracked ever so slightly and that’s when I heard them: peepers! The small frogs that signal spring is here. Their rhythmic chirping was beautiful music conjuring up wonderful memories of backyard play as we children were accompanied by their soundtrack. The sound of their singing said,"School will soon be over. Freedom is on the way!"

That’s when I realized that spring really is here….though the visual signs may seem slow to manifest themselves…the sounds of spring are all around. For weeks we have been hearing the call of the geese making their way through the sky way over our house. Honking their way home, they are. And then in the early mornings, the other birds….chickadees, cardinals, others…..are calling to one another, flitting and flirting with their come hither songs. And as I sit here I can hear, not the sound of forceful winds bringing snowflakes and ice, but the pitter-patter of rain outside the window carrying its green-making power in each tiny drop.

So instead of watching the pot of spring which doesn’t seem to want to boil, I am going to close my eyes and listen. Listen for all the ways in which spring is not only making its appearance but is already here. I will practice patience and develop this lesser used sense to hear the buds opening, the grass growing and the leaves popping out.

"It is the beginning of May and over near the statue of Moses, raising his staff to something none of us can see, hundreds of tulips have broken through the dark earth becoming every color they held inside and quietly they ignore each other in this chorus of oneness, bobbing gently, as children race up to their splashes of yellow and red, expecting the colors to sing, and maybe they do in a song only children can hear………" Mark Nepo, from ‘Opening Without Words’

I hope you hear some spring sounds this weekend……enjoy!

"Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy."  Joseph Campbell

Thursday is my ‘on call’ day. It is the day I visit hospitals, nursing homes, call to check up on those who have had surgery or have been ill. I share a  rotation with my colleagues, each of us taking a different day of the week.It is a fine arrangement and allows us each the opportunity to check in with our community. As you might imagine some days are filled with sorrow and others with joy. This past week for instance I was privileged to see two beautiful twin boys, new to the world, still soft and fragile, a complete double package of wonder. Other days I have seen people in pain, fear, distress, grief and deep sadness.

Today as I drove to a hospital I found myself stuck in traffic and sitting very close to other cars. The bumper sticker on the green minivan was right at my eye view. "We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy."  These wise words of Joseph Campbell were in very small print. This was definitely one of those bumper adornments that was either meant for those inside or to be read while the car was not moving. To do so at any faster speed would have been dangerous! The rectangular sticker did not include the words that introduce this statement….Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.  That part doesn’t seem like the stuff of bumper stickers to me.

What would it mean to participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world? It is, in some ways, a curious directive.There seems to be the understanding that sorrow is inevitable which is certainly true. It is a by-product of a life of connection, of relationship. If we are truly engaged in our lives and the lives of others, in significant relationships, invested in the world, we will have sorrow. People disappoint, lives end, change  infringes on what we have planned, what we have known, bad things happen to good people and to a marvelous world.

But to participate joyfully in the sorrow implies that we continue to hold on to that connection, recognizing its power to transform even in the darkness of a bleak situation. Joy is not happiness, that emotion that can be battered about by so many outside forces. Joy, something that lives deep within, can be a way of living which is, I think, Campbell’s point. Given what we know about how life works and doesn’t work, isn’t the most productive choice to live joyfully? It may not always be easy but I believe in the end it will be the most rewarding.

The refrain of a favorite song goes: "No storm can shake my inward calm while to that rock I ‘m clinging, If Love is lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?" Though the sorrows of the world may press in, may we each set an intention of joy…….and lift our voice in song. It’s bound to make a difference.