Category Archives: Easter

Seeing What’s New–through Pain

20 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by in Easter, grief, presence, seeing

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images-5From Lent through Eastertide I am trying to pay attention to the places that the Risen Christ is visible in ways I have not yet fully seen. One constant in the lives of those I know and love is the presence of suffering, grief and pain. And I am watching to see how surely God is in those places, and I wait to see how.

  • how is God present in the dailiness of the beloved ones who are chronically ill, who can never know from moment to moment if their bodies are going to allow them to step into the plan for the day?
  • how does God come alongside the grieving ones–those who have lost someone without warning? those who have walked in the excruciating pain of doing all that medicine and current protocols can provide, only to recognize that those means are not enough to save the life of the beloved? those who have been faced with the mortality to which all flesh is heir?
  • how is the Holy One a companion who bears our griefs and carries our sorrows through depression, anxiety and despair, whether those weights come from biology, trauma, circumstance or habit?
  • how is the Spirit manifest and available when our sighs are too deep for words?

I am drawn again to the company of Jesus in the post-Resurrection days, this time to the fearful gathered ones in a locked room, then the next week to Thomas, who is full of doubts. I am touched by the fact that Jesus does not wait until they get themselves together, with right belief or with right feeling, but enters into the place where they find themselves and speaks and touches them right where they are. He brings peace, he shows his own woundedness, and they are glad.

I am uncovering that reality as I accompany my own company of beloved ones who suffer and/or wrestle–the Holy One appears in unlikely places for them; they report to me that there are moments of joy, moment of peace, moments of rest, even when the going is bleak and is rough. For one it was new information that brought promise; for another it was the laughter than was infectious that gathered everyone into a sacred moment. Another one was buoyed up by faithful friends who continue randomly to appear in tangible and intangible ways. The refrain of a well loved song or a just remembered line of an old poem can evoke Holy Presence; the new blooms of spring or the endless and constant ocean sing out the praises of the Creating One, and there is peace or respite for a moment.

The invitation in these stories for me is first to be like the disciples–honest about my own fears, my own doubts, my own struggles, and to let go of my need to “do it right,” whether it be grieving, aching or fighting. The transparency of these wounded ones allowed them to be receptive to the Risen Christ when he came to them; some well mannered defenses may have deprived them of that miraculous break-in of Light in their darkness.

But also I learn from Jesus that intimacy with the Holy and others can happen when I am not afraid to show my wounds and scars, even to allow them to be touched. I can hold them in such a way that they can give me and entree of Grace into the places and ways that others need a sign that there is hope and resurrection after great darkness. I am challenged and encouraged by that stance. I need courage and trust to live that way.

It helps me to know that the disciples had to live into the reality of the Resurrection, even through pain, even as i do. And the Holy One does and will appear.

Seeing What’s New– at the Table

12 Sunday Apr 2015

Posted by in breaking bread, Easter, seeing

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diego-rodriguez-de-silva-y-velazquez-kitchen-scene-with-the-supper-in-emmausI love the vignettes that follow the Resurrection story in the gospels as this reality of a New Life began to sink into the consciousness of the beloved ones of Jesus. I especially love the story of the wandering ones making their way to Emmaus, wrestling with their previous expectations and understandings of of what Jesus said was going to happen and how it fit the paradigms of what they thought they already knew. Jesus joins them, but they are so preoccupied with their questions and presuppositions that they never recognize him. Until they broke bread together at the table. And we read that it was in the breaking of the bread together that they saw him.

Diego Velasquez has an acute lens on that moment in his painting called ‘The Serving Girl,” in display at the National Gallery of Ireland. In the upper left corner of the painting, one can see Jesus and the two questioners sitting at the table about to break bread. But the foreground is filled with the image of the Serving Girl who is providing them with the food, and surely will be washing up afterwards. The two seekers have yet to get it, but she already has recognized that this is Jesus–risen from the dead, walking and talking with them, nourishing them with his very Presence. What is there about sitting at table with another that allows to see deeply and truthfully into the identity of another?

As I have shared meals with other in this first week of Eastertide, some festive celebrations, some intimate tete-a-tetes, some casual coffees, I recognize that knowing and loving another is a full body experience at its best. It is multi-sensory–ambiance matters, from setting to decorations. Tastes sharpen our palates when we share bread–and cheese or jam or pate. “There is communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk,” says the late food writer M.F.K. Fisher. I love the moments when one at the feast says to another, “Here; have a bite of this!,” or “May I just taste your dessert?” Aromas of good cooking that we share allow us a sense of a deep comfort we might call “home,” whether or not our own home had such a great culinary menu.

However, it is the Serving Girl who brings the one thing necessary to the soul-knowing that gives life. She is paying attention. Although no one seems to pay attention to her, as one whose skin color pegs her as an outsider, as one whose status in the household gives her no privilege, as one whose only viewpoint is that from afar–she knows, she trusts, she believes and she smiles in the New Life that she witnesses. All things are new now! Christ is Risen!

I am paying greater attention to those with whom I share a table this Eastertide–making sure that my cell phone is put away, listening for the words spoken and unspoken, taking note of where we meet, of where beauty attends us, of how well we can hear each other. When someone comes to my house, even just for tea, I want each table tryst to be a holy moment, so that I can see with fresh eyes the new creation sitting with me and before me.

And my prayer is that my heart will be that continually open one to the old friend, the new friend, the grieving one, the rejoicing one, the baffled one and the the baffling one. “Come in and stay with me, Lord Jesus.”

Seeing What’s New!–Eastertide

06 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by in Easter, listening, seeing

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chihulyTampaIt is Easter Monday, and as intensely as I participated in the 40 days of Lent and the journey of Holy Week, I am relieved and delighted to be here in Eastertide. It is not as if there are great celebrations of faith in front of me, but I feel as if if I am entering in a spacious place with room enough to observe in quiet the ways that the resurrection keeps happening in the world, in the Church and in me.

I am grateful for waking up to a silent morning, with only the accompaniment of birds. No school buses or trucks or planes seem to be racing around in my neighborhood yet. I muse on my favorite Easter scene in John 20, when Mary come to the place where Jesus has been lovingly buried, to ponder, to wonder, to imagine what what might come next. There are tears and remembering, but then suddenly there are angels–always carrying a sacred message–who extend compassion to her by asking where her tears come from. I often wonder where my tears come from–why am I weeping? Certainly the world presents enough cause for tears on a daily basis, and my heart weeps more often than my eyes do–for innocent families left bereft because of the cruelty or torment from others; for the ravages of wars on targeted populations because of their faith or race or gender; for the earth gone dry here in my home state because of rampant greed. However, it is those moments when by surprise my eyes are suddenly filled with tears that I ponder in this morning quiet–the music that throws me back to a time when I was more wide-eyed and eager, an observation of a grandchild who is overcoming great obstacles, or a realization that I am in the last third of my life with opportunities come and gone. What am I being given a chance to see through my tears in this Eastertide?

Mary gets to see Jesus. She doesn’t recognize him at first; he seems ordinary, utilitarian, unrelated to the drama in which she has been living this last week. However, when he speaks her name into that silent beauty of morning, she recognizes that One whom her heart loves. Yet the relationship has undergone a transformation; their love for each other will take a new shape. Jesus tells her he is returning to God, she will now be about the business of recognizing the face of Jesus in everyone she meets and loving that particular one because she and he bear the image of God in their particular person. With Easter we don’t view people from a human point of view any more; we see them as new creatures, in the words of Thomas Merton, “shining like the sun.”

So I muse on those I expect to see this first week of Easter–those with whom I sit in spiritual direction–will I recognize the sun shining in them? my neighbors with whom I share the welfare of the block and the city? my family who bring laughter and tears into my life? my friends in faith who worry and churn about the state of the Church and living in a pluralistic world? How will I be willing to look at those in our country and our world who seem bent on muddying the waters, striking fear and anxiety in the populace, spewing inanities and vilification all around? Will I be willing to see the face of God in them?

I am grateful this early morning for the space to sit quietly with this question, and to pray this prayer, Open my eyes (again) that I would see Your face. Show me the new creation that you love, and empower me to love the ways you do. In the name of the Risen One, Amen.