We have a pig in our neighborhood. I am not talking about any of our human neighbors but a literal pig. Actually, this pig lives several blocks from our house near our son’s former middle school. But I think of it as living in our neighborhood since its home is on a street I travel quite often. From a distance,when I first saw this creature, I was certain it was just an overly heavy, gray dog. But upon further examination, I saw that it was indeed a pig. This discovery came sometime last year when the weather was nice. I would often walk by and see it lounging in the sun, just outside the back porch door, much like a dog would.

I have to admit to thinking about, even worrying about this pig over the winter months. I did not ever see it outside in the several feet of snow that surrounded its house. I never saw a path where it might have walked outside. Instead, the snow piled high around this house as it did all the others around the city. But I knew, someplace inside that house, a pig lived. I wondered how comfortable a pig could be confined to a house for so many months. Frankly, I never thought about the people inside, also confined to four walls, four walls that also housed a pig. My imagination ran wild with scenes of what it might be like to coexist with a pig as the snow continued to fall and fall.

But, joy beyond joy, today as I made my usual way past this pig-holding house, my wonderings came to an end. There, lying in the brilliant sunshine like the swine royalty it is, was the gray pig basking in the freedom of a spring morning. I pulled my car over into the bike lane and simply smiled at this sleeping wonder. Like many of us he had emerged into the new season a bit rounder around the middle. He looked happy and content to be outside once again.

Now I am not a person who takes much to animals inside the house. We have a cat and have had dogs, even a mouse once, and a few fish with short lives. But I cannot imagine what it is like to live with a pig. I am not making any judgments about it. I am simply intrigued. What is it like to be making your morning coffee and have a pig saunter by on its way for a drink of water, a bite of breakfast? Does the pig curl up at the feet of its master or mistress while they watch television? Does it hurry to greet them when they come home from work? So many questions.

I don’t know that I will ever have any of my questions answered but I do feel a sense of relief to see the pig free at last. Seeing the pig I was reminded of Wilbur the pig in E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web: “Why did you do all this for me?” he asked. “I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.”
“You have been my friend,” replied Charlotte. “That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die… By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heavens knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.”

My prayer for this neighborhood pig sprung from its winter prison is that,like Wilbur did for Charlotte the spider, it has brought joy to its home companions. Like most of us, it is once again breathing deeply of the warm air that is full of the promise of new life. Over the next few days, even more snow will melt, and the sun will continue to coax the crocus, daffodils and tulips from their winter beds.

Keep your eyes open. Pigs could be coming out to sun themselves!

Have a warm and wonderful weekend…….

“God said,”I am made whole by your life. Each soul,each soul completes me.”
~Hafiz (1320-1389)

Thumbing through a monthly devotional magazine I receive, I saw this quote gracing the page. It was the only decoration for the page, a centerfold actually. No other words or adornments. Only these 15 words, a kind of 14th century Tweet. Hafiz, the Muslim poet known for his earthy, beautiful poetry of his experience of God, sent this out into the world for us to ponder, to try to make sense of in our own experience of the Holy One. It also seems to me a kind of challenge.

What might our lives me like if we believed we somehow completed God? What might our choices of daily living be if we believed that our actions made God more visible, more complete, in the world? How might we fashion our national lives if we knew our decisions, our legislation was a way of completing God, making God more whole?

Of course this very statement represents a theological understanding of God that will challenge many. This God of Hafiz’s experiences is not static, not bound by time or a particular telling in any sacred text. This is a God who is always growing and changing, becoming more with the birth of each day, each soul. This image may be difficult for some to embrace. Those whose faith is founded in a God who spoke once and for all will have trouble with Hafiz’s concept.

As I read his words I thought of the artists I know who express their living through painting, composing music, sculpting, dancing, all the many art forms. If pressed I believe many would say their creative work adds an element to their wholeness, completes them in some way. Why should the Creator of All not be also completed by the ongoing creation of the world and all it contains? Each creature, each plant, each tree, each sunrise and sunset somehow paint God’s Presence more completely to those who are looking, to those who have eyes to see.

Today we will walk out our door and into our lives. These lives will hold joy and sorrow, pain and ecstasy, challenge and triumph, the mundane and the mediocre. But, along with Hafiz, I believe we will be about the work of completing God. May each of us walk with purpose and humility knowing we are a part of something so much larger than the appointments we have made, the tasks we must complete, the chores we must accomplish.

We are helping bring to wholeness the face of the Holy in the world. May we be blessed with every breath.

“Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world.”
~Virgil A. Kraft

This is that rare time in Minnesota when the sun can be shining and the warmth of spring is creeping into the greater part of each day while piles of still crusty, now black snow lies in piles on boulevards and street corners. I am looking out my office window right now at two such piles, still over five feet high and ugly beyond belief, that are not giving up the ghost to the emergence of the new season. They are holding on for dear life.

In addition to these horrible piles there is also the leftover stuff that somehow got swept up in the wind, the snow plow and the fury of winter.This ‘stuff’ includes discarded bottles of all kinds, wrappers from every manner of junk food, little bits of a fender or headlight lost in a collision of icy conditions. These are the normal things. There are also other odd things like the tiny tennis shoe lost perhaps in a mad dash for the car as snow took its owner, or its owner’s parent, by surprise.

Yesterday I saw a blue latex glove, several pens and cigarette lighters, a tiny, puffy black mitten, a pair of sturdy boxer shorts.  After a while it gets embarrassing to look down at people’s lost things that are now emerging from the mounds that have kept us company these many months. Perhaps the most depressing are the Christmas decorations that now stand askew. No white, shimmery back drop provides a context for the manger scenes, the Santas and the sad little reindeer. A few days ago I even saw a plastic ghost holding a jack ‘o lantern head. It had finally made a post-snow reappearing act either very late or very early for next Halloween.

Aside from the sheer messiness of this not-quite-spring experience, I have to admit to being intrigued by this leftover stuff from the season and its holidays gone by. It reminds me of all the ‘stuff’ of my own life that I sweep under the rug, under the piles until something melts and they reappear, whether I like it or not. I think of the grudges, the frustrations and the outright anger I manage to hide beneath a smile or words that have been chosen to not give away my true feelings. I am reminded of the garbage I carry from past wounds, from destructive behaviors or deep hurts that can stay hidden until just the right situation is created to bring all those old pains to the light of day. Any of this sound familiar to you?

Maybe this is, at least in part, what Lent is about. We have the opportunity during these 40 days of reflection and spiritual searching to, slowly, allow the melting of the ice we can build around our true selves. As we face our wilderness companions, things that may not bring us life, practices that keep us from being a reflection of God in the world, we often recognize the junk that is hidden beneath the cold, hard surface with which we have been surrounded. As we walk further into the light, with the lengthening of days and the promise of the new life of Easter, we can anticipate what a spring clean up might look like: Prayers are said. Shoulders relax. Truth is spoken. Forgiveness is offered. Kindness becomes a gift. Hope is found. Justice becomes a priority. Love becomes more than a word.

Our days are becoming warmer and warmer. Rain is promised for later in the week. The clean up is beginning.

Today can only be described as gray. The skies are gray. The roads and pavements are gray. The now seemingly ageless snow is gray. Driving around this morning as I did my usual pattern of Friday errands, I looked around and thought: This is what the color gray looks like. This is the definition of gray.

I walked into the house after this thought and walked directly to the bookshelves that holds the dictionary. While it may be easier to look up definitions online these days, I still love the weight and the feel of Webster’s New World College Dictionary. Online dictionaries parcel out the words one by one, giving you only the definition of the word you have entered. The fullness of the heavy Webster’s allows you to make no mistake about all you do not know. For instance, looking for ‘gray’ allows you to also see ‘gravy train’ which precedes it and ‘gray-back’,’gray-beard’, and ‘gray eminence’ which follows. Opening the dictionary can lead to long, endless hours of exploration and humility.

Gray: a color that is a mixture of black and white, dark, dullish, dreary, dismal. Gray:Old and respected. Gray:designating a vague, intermediate area, as between morality and immorality. Who would have thought the definition of gray could be so wide, so far flung?

As I reflected on the gray of this particular day it might at first seem to be best defined by the first meaning….dullish, dark and dreary, someplace between black and white. Certainly the atmosphere is hanging low and the skies show no sign of a brighter more colorful light. But the gray of this day also points toward the age of the winter that has gripped us here in the Midwest. A winter that arrived early and is staying late. It has been a winter that has caused us to respect the push and pull and power of the seasons.

However, this gray day might also be described by the last definition…..’designating a vague intermediate area.’ Those of us who find our home in the Christian Household are mid-point in the season of Lent. This season, defined by wanderings in the wilderness and an anticipation of resurrection, might be described as gray. Lent represents a mixture of black and white, of making our way, of longing for the rebirth we know is possible but not yet visible.

Someone said to me yesterday that they believe people need Easter more than ever this year. It is not only the dull, steadiness of the weather but perhaps also the heaviness of the world’s turmoils that led to that statement. I will agree. We are longing for a movement from this blend of the vast extremes of the color palette. No more mixtures, just pure, brilliant color. No vagueness but a sure and certain promise of rebirth.

These gray days provide an opportunity for reflection and anticipation of all that is yet to be. In Revelation, John writes:”See, I am making all things new.” I am holding on to that promise with both hands.

Have a blessed weekend….