“They are assembled, astonished and disturbed
round him, who like a sage resolved his fate,
and now leaves those to whom he most belonged,
leaving and passing by them like a stranger.
The loneliness of old comes over him
which helped mature him for his deepest acts;
now will he once again walk through the olive grove,
and those who love him still will flee before his sight.

To this last supper he has summoned them,
and (like a shot that scatters birds from trees)
their hands draw back from reaching for the loaves
upon his word: they fly across to him;
they flutter, frightened, round the supper table
searching for an escape. But he is present
everywhere like an all-pervading twilight-hour.”
~Rainer Maria Rilke

A few weeks ago I was killing some time in Barnes & Noble in the Mall of America. I was rambling through the poetry section and opened a book by the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke and saw this poem about the Last Supper. It was new to me and I found it challenging for the ways in which he spoke not only for a time for for all time. It seems he wrote it after seeing Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. I am always fascinated when one art meets another. Poet and painter forming a relationship of arts. The ways in which Rilke used words to give even greater depth to the already rich and profound images of Da Vinci grabs my heart.

Reading this poem again on this Good Friday, I am reminded of a play I saw a few weeks ago. It was called ‘Kingdom Undone’ and was a new telling of the passion of Jesus. The actor who played Jesus was remarkable, not creating a one dimensional, saccharine character as so often is the case, but a compelling and multi-layered personality full of compassion, humor and frustration. Frustration that led him to say several times throughout the play: “You just don’t get it.” He said it to his disciples Peter and James, to his mother Mary, to Mary Magdalene, to Herod and to Judas. All these characters kept trying to put Jesus in a box that was too small for his message, a box that included them but did not have room for the ‘other’.

As I have been preparing for this evening’s service and the Easter celebration which is to come, I have been reflecting on how we still don’t get it. For all the ways in which we try to follow in the Way of Jesus, we fall woefully short. The saddest thing to me is that we often do this in the name of religion, a religion we claim to be about this one whose living shows us the face of God. We don’t get it when we continue to exclude people because of belief or different beliefs. We don’t get it when we see ourselves as holding the exclusive way of being people of God. We don’t get it when we turn our backs on the needy, the hungry, the homeless, the lost and the outcast. We don’t get it when we allow the laws of our churches to be more important in how we are church together than allowing the unconditional love and example of Jesus to guide way.

So here is my prayer for this Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday: May we know in our very bones the gift of what it means to be children of the Christian household. May we once again look to the ways of Jesus to guide our way. May we understand the costs this might mean and embrace them. May we walk boldly into a new day, a new way, a new time.

May we practice resurrection.

“A blessing on this food
and all who have prepared it.
A blessing on this house
and all who eat within it.
A blessing on the work
of buying and selling
of carrying and storing
of farming and of harvesting.
A blessing on the land and all who live upon it.
A blessing on the rain and sun,
the care of the Creator.
A blessing on this food.
Amen”
~ Brian Woodcock

It is Thursday of Holy Week. Some call it Maundy Thursday, others call it Holy Thursday. It is the day when we remember Jesus gathering with his friends, his disciples and sharing a meal and washing their feet. In the church we often lift these acts up as examples of how we are all to be servants of one another and in the world. It is a benchmark of being a follower of the Way of Jesus.

It is a fact that Jesus was always hanging around where food was involved. There is the feeding of the 5000. His eating with Mary and Martha at their home. All those fishing trips with the disciples. I am assuming that their fishing was about the food and not abut the sport! The Gospel of John even used food images as a way Jesus spoke about himself: I am the bread of life.Even after his death, his disciples experienced him around a campfire as they baked fish and broke bread.

Over the past several years some very important facts about eating have become clear to me. All food contains and is an act of sacrifice. A sacrifice that is made for the good of another. Have you ever thought much about this? I have become acutely aware of the mindless eating I often do. Not just eating without thinking or even tasting but without honoring all the people and elements of Creation that have offered themselves for my nurture. The seeds themselves that become plant, vegetable or fruit. The soil which houses the seed. The water taken from another source to make the seeds grow. The sun offering its light. The animals, if meat is eaten, that literally gave their lives for the protein on my plate. All acts of sacrifice.

And that is just the beginning. There are the farmers and the field workers, many of whom don’t make a living wage. No matter how careful I am in buying food that was produced in fair conditions, someone was probably treated unjustly. It is a mark of the systems we have created. There are the truckers and the engineers and the pilots all lifting, carrying, loading and unloading. There are the stockers and the cashiers, the baggers and those that haul away the boxes and cartons in which the food arrived. All these people, whose lives I know nothing about, have contributed to nearly every meal I have eaten. And that doesn’t even include meals eaten in restaurants! Think of all those other hands, and lives, that present nutrition and beauty on a plate.

All so I may live. Perhaps this is the real gift of Holy Thursday and the eating of this meal we call the Last Supper. In it we are, if we choose, reminded of all the sacrifices that are offered so we may live. In the bread….which must be broken before it can be eaten….we are connected with all those other lives and the presence of the One who offers it. In the cup….which must be poured before it can be drunk….we are asked to join in the joy of this life by those whose hands made the drinking possible.

Bread. Cup. Sacrifice. Life.

“I have to believe that you still exist somewhere,
that you still watch me sometimes,
that you still love me somehow.

I have to believe that I need to stay here for some time,
that all this teaches me something,
so that I can meet you again somewhere.”
~Ann Thorp

Eternal Light: A requiem. Howard Goodall

On this Wednesday of Holy Week, I find myself doing something I have never done before during these days. I am preparing for a funeral which will be held on Saturday. The service is for one of the true saints of our community who lived more than ninety years on this Earth. At first, I have to admit that I was a bit unnerved at the timing of this service. And then my heart opened to the great joy and celebration of this family who will have the gift of knowing their loved one’s memory will be forever connected with the celebration of Easter.

In many traditions on the Saturday before Easter Sunday, communities hold an Easter vigil. During this time the large sweep of human history, from the perspective of the Christian household, is told. Beginning with the stories of creation, the scriptures are read and often acted out. Creation….The Exodus…..the warnings of the prophets….Jesus birth, life, death. The vigil often ends there with the hope that people arrive on Sunday morning to get the full impact of the celebration of resurrection. It is a way of connecting our individual and community life spans with the much larger drama in which we are always a part.

As I have been preparing for this funeral, I realized that this is also one of the practices in which we hope to engage as we celebrate the life of one who has passed from this life. We look back through the history of their life, whether made up of many years or few, and connect it to the larger story of humanity. As people of faith, we also seek to make the already visible connections to the telling of our tradition.

On Sunday evening our Sanctuary Choir ushered our community into Holy Week with a concert of music associated with the passion of Christ. One piece was Bach, a familiar sound to those who have encountered sacred music. The other was a new piece by Howard Goodall entitled “Eternal Light: A Requiem” which used poetry of our time set to haunting music. The poem above captured my imagination and my heart. “I have to believe you exist somewhere, that you watch me, love me. I have to believe that it all has meaning, that I am useful and my life has makes a difference. I have to believe that at some time, in some place I will see you again.”

These words, for me, so encompass our deepest hope not only for those who have passed on into eternity but also for our own daily living. They are words I imagine the disciples saying as they tried to come to terms with Jesus’ death. They are words I imagine the family and friends of our beloved one whose life we will celebrate Saturday might say.

When all is said and done, I believe, we all want to affirm those connections that unite us with the Eternal Light. In our living, in our dying, in our resurrections.

“Not because
we have made peace this day.
Not because
we have treated one another as our self.
Not because
we have walked the earth with reverence today.
But because there is mercy
because there is grace
because your Spirit has not been taken from us
we come
still thirsting for peace
still longing to love
still hungering for wholeness.”
~John Philip Newell

As a teenager I remember wondering why we call the week before Easter Holy Week. In my mind at that time ‘holy’ meant something perfect, something beyond every day life, something beautiful and other worldly. It seemed odd to me that we would use that word to describe the events of the last week of Jesus’ life.

Now when I think of holy, I see it much differently. To be ‘holy’ to me now, means for something to be more whole, more its fullest expression of what it was created to be. This has particular meaning to me this Lent with our church’s theme of ‘Breaking’. Over these almost 40 days, I have been privileged to be present to people telling their stories of brokenness. In the telling I have also heard the many ways they have been transformed, mended, healed, been made whole. It has been a rich and profound time for our community.

As a culture, I believe, we do not often have the opportunity to be truthful about the ways in which we are broken, the ways in which we have contributed to the brokenness of others, the ways in which the systems and institutions we have created contribute to brokenness in the world. It is our practice to slide along the surface, diverting our eyes and our hearts from what is unpleasant or painful. Even though in some place within us we know this is unhealthy, we convince ourselves that it is easier to live our days, and in turn our lives, in this pattern. In the process we are often surprised when some word or encounter then comes out sideways, a word spoken in resentment or a comment meant to injure.

But my experience of this Lent is that more and more stories have been told in truth in our community. Once people begin to speak openly about the places in which they are broken, a slow net of safety begins to be built. Vulnerability begins to find a home. Truth telling loses its threat. Our brothers and sisters in recovery known this wisdom.

Which brings me to Holy Week. As we begin once again to tell the stories of Jesus gathering with his friends for a last supper, of his arrest and execution, of his affirmations and admonitions to all those around him, it is impossible not to see how brokenness and vulnerability and truth telling are all a part of being holy. In each act, he was becoming more whole, more of who he was created to be. Our celebration on Easter then becomes the shining alleluia. An alleluia to which we are not only called to sing but to become.

In our Lenten devotional one writer titled their reflection ‘Broken for Good’. Perhaps that is what makes it appropriate to call this week holy. The One who breathed us all into being did so, I believe, for good. Not for perfection or some other worldly living but for this world with all its flaws, in this body with its aches and pains and failings. Each of us, even Jesus, was broken for good. In it all God’s presence shines through making us whole and holy.

For the healing of the world.

“Then they brought the donkey to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it.”
~Mark 11:7

Yesterday we once again waved our palms in worship and shouted ‘Hosanna’! as those of us in the Christian household begin our observation of the week we call holy. It is always a joyous morning. Children and adults alike seem excited to be given a palm branch and to be able to do something often out of character in worship….wildly wave their arms and shout. As we do this we remember Jesus who, along with his friends, joined in a parade that took him into Jerusalem to what became a not so joyous experience.

During our prayer time one of those in our circle shared how this Sunday is one of his favorites. He loved hearing this story, he said. Knowing this person as I do, this surprised me. He is often one to question and challenge many scriptures so when he said this I felt myself smile and my heart warm. This part of our telling of Jesus’ life somehow captures his imagination. He then went on to say that on his way to church he saw a sign outside another church that simply said: “Bet on the guy on the donkey.”

Bet on the guy on the donkey. As I thought about that message I thought of last week’s frenzy over the mega million dollar lottery. It was astounding to me how people stood in long lines to buy a ticket even though most understood the incredible odds against their winning this enormous sum of money. This excitement was the lead news story on most channels. People were interviewed about what they would do with the money if they won. Another station did an in depth report on those who had won large sums in the past. I noted that, at least the segment that I saw, only focused on those who had done really good things, those whose lives had been improved by this windfall. That evening while out to dinner with friends, we shared what we might do if such a large amount of money suddenly found its way into our bank accounts. All this dreaming when, as far as I know, none of us had even purchased a ticket!

It was probably not coincidence that this church sign used a gambling term in its Palm Sunday message. Bet on the guy on the donkey. There is more excitement over suddenly becoming a millionaire than there is about choosing to give your life over to peace and justice and kindness and welcoming all manner of people into your winner’s circle. For life changing experiences, we often find it easier to look outside ourselves for some dramatic, once-in-a-lifetime act of sheer luck(whatever that means) to put us on the path to a good life. This seems much easier that the day by day work of trying to follow in the Way of one who shared food with unlikely, unpopular people and healed people through a look, a touch, a prayer.

And so with the waving of palms and shouts of hosanna, those of us who chose or were born into the Christian household, find ourselves in Holy Week. It is a week that welcomes us into the fullness of what it means to remember the stories that have shaped our faith tradition and challenged us to walk in its ways. It is a week that exposes our brokenness and vulnerabilities as we once again hear those of our brother Jesus who walked the path before us. It is a week that asks us to consider our odds and to bet on the guy on the donkey.

On Monday evening I gathered with three others in a basement room of our church. Our  task was to take broken pieces of pottery, glass and tile and create something more of it: a mosaic. We have collected these pieces over the days of Lent and held them in worship, infusing them with our prayers. The base of this collection of pieces was a cross with equal-distant arms, four feet by four feet. It is a sturdy, well designed form of strong wood built by one of our treasured members who is a master builder. He had given us a good form to work with and now our job was to figure out how the many pieces laying on the table before us might fit together into something that was more than the sum of its parts.

At first we grouped the pieces by color and design, separating out those pieces that had decorations….flowers, scenes from nature, faces, words. We looked at the bare cross. Where to begin? We started by putting a few pieces in the center trying to create a focal point of starburst-like form. We stood back and looked. No. That wasn’t it.

Then one person began to notice that several of the pieces of broken pottery had butterflies on them. Then we noticed that there were several other pieces with other insects. In another pile were two actual pieces of broken wings that had come off a figurine someone had added to the collection of broken pieces to eventually be used in this mosaic. Then we had it.

Wings! Wings would be the focus. Someone else began to place the wings so they flitted and flew up the cross from one corner to the opposite one creating a flight pattern for all these with wings. Surrounding these flying forms with white shards of pottery made the winged ones jump out from the center of this now evolving piece of art. From there we began to match colors and see the entire piece begin to take form. Questions were asked: “What do you think?” “What if we place this here?” “Does this feel right for this spot?” Answers were shared and the gluing began.

Before the night was over, something that had not existed before had been created. From the broken pieces of people’s kitchens, garages, and basements, something new had come into being. These pieces which had been formed from earth, fired into form and been used in a variety of ways now existed in a new way. Bowls that had held soup, cups that had held coffee, plates that once delivered cake and tiles that had been meant for walls or floors could now be found in this sturdy cross. Broken pieces of glass found on the beach or in a parking lot, some worn with water and wear, now filled an important spot in a color scheme.

This mosaic is yet to have its finishing touches. Grouting will now be added to surround the broken pieces and secure them in this new resting place. I am told there will be surprise in how this addition changes the look of what we have created, shading some pieces and providing the perfect ‘pop’ for others.  I love the unknown of it. Like so many creative acts, the creation itself holds its own surprise, its own life.

A favorite hymn of many is ‘Hymn of Promise’ by Natalie Sleeth. The words speak of the hidden promises nestled in Creation and indeed in all of life.
“In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed an apple tree;
in cocoons, a hidden promise, butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be,
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.” 

I was reminded of this hymn as we put together these broken pieces meant for utilitarian tasks rather than art. In our collective creative spirit, we took these shards and made something of them that we could only envision in our imagination. As others gaze upon this mosaic on Easter, they will see things through their own imagination that we had not put there. Hidden within broken pieces, wood and sand, is something more. It is true of all creative acts. Like gardens…and people.

My prayer is that the butterflies that guided us will give wing to the imaginations of all who stop to look at the tiny pieces that have found a new home. And in that looking, their own spirits will take flight.

“To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”
~Ecclesiastes 3:1

Last week as I drove west of the Cities, I was surprised to see the majority of the lakes now held open water. The ones that didn’t were now open in the middle with shards of ice floating near the shore in some of the more shaded parts of the lake. I imagined the ice pieces moving against one another as the wind moved across the water making a ‘clinking’ sound I have heard on Lake Superior in the deep of winter. It is a sound I remember hearing nowhere else. The magical sound of glass eternally breaking.

Observing this open water phenomenon, a phrase floated through my brain: open water, out of season. And so it was. The water I saw lapping in the warm wind had thawed much sooner in the year than normal. I wondered at its own experience of this out of season thawing. Was this a good thing or one that would change the nature of what was happening beneath the ice, the growth of water plants or fish for instance? Since I know little of such things, I settled on being content with my wondering. Remembering the adage that the Native people speak of knowing when to tap the maples for syruping when the frozen water turns black, I wondered at the relationship between the season of the trees and this early thaw. In just this one observation there is so much to contemplate.

The following morning I was gazing out the window at the lake where I was on retreat. Open water took up much of the lakes’ expanse but just near the shore was a beach shaded by shore and trees. In this stretch of water that same slick of ice chunks clinked against the sandy beach. As the morning sky was brightening, the sun was able to pierce through clouds creating a pink that lit the sky and reflected on the water. I kept my gaze on the small patch of ice crystals still visible. And while I was watching, the ice was somehow swallowed up by the open water and disappeared from sight. It had been a blessing of the morning for me to watch the ice go out of the lake. Literally.

Since that time I have reflected on this experience of open water, out of season. It has become metaphor for other of life’s experiences. There are several people I know who have found themselves in open water at a time when they thought the ground, the ice, underneath them was solid. For some it has been a surprise which was welcomed and they have flowed in the change with the comfort of a seasoned swimmer. For others, there is the sense of an unwelcomed feeling of having the rug pulled from beneath their feet. Slipping into the freezing, life-threatening water, they are struggling mightily.

As humans, we like to believe that we not only understand the seasons of the year but also those of our lives. And yet sometimes the seasons have a rhythm of their own, one that brings challenge or blessing or merely surprise. Perhaps we might learn something from the wisdom of the water as it flows and freezes,laps and thaws and teems with possibility. Seasons sometimes have changes that are unexpected but when we lean into those twists and turns, we might discover yet another way of walking the sacred path that is our life. Rather than fighting against what may be changing, too slowly or too quickly, perhaps the wisdom is to rest in the ebb and flow of what is.

It’s just a thought given to me by the open water, out of season.

“Sing to God anew song.
Sing to God, all the earth.”
~Psalm 96:1

On Wednesday morning, I sat down to have a little time of reflection before I started what was going to be a full day. I was armed with the Lenten devotional I have been using and a new prayer book by John Philip Newell. Because it was such a beautiful, unseasonably warm morning, I opened the doors that lead out to the backyard deck. The smell of spring filled the room. Earthy, wet, scents of possibility.

The psalm meant to be prayed that morning was Psalm 96. The words above moved on my lips and in my head. But the sounds outside the open door were the ones that filled my soul. Instead of just reading these ancient words of the Bible’s songwriters, the birds  flying around our backyard were actually doing what the psalm implores. Singing at the tops of their little lungs!

Now I am not a birder by any stretch of the imagination so I cannot identify bird songs on cue. But I can recognize the sound of a cardinal, a chickadee and a robin. I heard them all on Wednesday morning plus some other songs I did not know. I sat as their melodic morning soundtrack welcomed the day. Just the day before I had been walking through the woods and heard a bird whose sound was piercing and unfamiliar.  I looked up to see an eagle soaring over the open marshy lake until it landed firmly in its large nest at the top of a tall but bare tree. I watched as it wiggled its lower body before finding a comfortable position with only its pure white head peaking out from the piles of pointy sticks.

These ones without words often put we more learned ones to shame with their ability to praise their Maker. I went to the scriptures to see the fullness of this psalm. “Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it.Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before God.” Reading these words I was reminded of the drive earlier in the week through the farmlands west of the Twin Cities. The soil had emerged from under what snow and frozen matter we have had and was ripe with richness.The fields glistened.  The lakes, held captive in an icy state for months, now lapped with life as geese and swans bobbed along on the waves. Dark, brown earth gave way to brilliant green patches of grass coaxed into their color by the rains of the days before. Their greenness shocked my eyes accustomed to the dullness of winter. If I squinted my eyes just right, I could see the yellow-green buds on the trees opening their presence to the sun. They were ready to sing for joy.

All these seemed to be full of praise expressed without words. They were singing the song of Creation with their very being. When placed in the context of Psalm 96, this kind of adoration is humbling to this human. I was silenced by their shining forth in a way that  I can never attain. The song of those birds waking to the gift of another new day made my sad attempts at greeting the same day pale in comparison.

In the end I had to comfort myself with the notion that just as these acts of the Creator were full of praise in the ways they know to do and be, so I must use the gifts given to me. Thoughts and words. Eyes and ears. Nose and hands. Imagination and prayer.

May the One who breathed us all into being accept these humble acts of presence offered by one without wings or roots or wave or leaf. May they be held as gently as are those of my fragile, fellow travelers.