Month: April 2018

This morning we’ll be out in the rain cheering our niece Andrea, running the Boston Marathon. Thirty thousand runners, for almost that many reasons, sploshing through the wind and rain for 26.2 miles. Elite athletes will run it in a couple of hours. Some people will take 6 or 8 hours. It takes a lot of commitment, perseverance and spirit.

Second only to the commitment, perseverance and spirit of the runners is the commitment, perseverance and spirit of the spectators. They’ll stand out there for hours and hours even in the rain cheering all along, cheering every runner, cheering indiscriminately, selflessly, cheering with admiration, hope and encouragement.

I cheer today for everyone who is on a long, hard journey—physical, mental, legal, relational, medical, professional, marital, artistic, spiritual—whatever their marathon is. And I cheer for everyone who is out there cheering them on. This is what God means for life to be like: all of us cheering all of us, everyone wanting everyone to do their best, hoping for victory for each of us, encouraging, believing in each other, sharing hope and amazement. Maybe even a little inspired by each other.

Cheer somebody on today. Cheer indiscriminately. You don’t know what long, hard journey they may be on. And trust this: when you’re in the thick of it, struggling to keep going, slogging against wind and rain and exhaustion, you may not hear it, but God is there, cheering you on, believing in you—maybe even a little inspired. Keep your head up.
 

   —April 16, 2018

         A paraphrase for meditation

Love, what love you give me.

I am your beloved child.

You hold me. You adore me.

People may never see my true self

because they don’t see you.

I am yours, now, in this moment.

I let go of who I should be.

I dwell in this moment, and your love.

The more clearly I see you
         I reflect you.

This is my true self.

In my hope in your pure love
         I become pure love.
 

   —April 13, 2018

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and peace to you.

         Jesus himself stood among them
         and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
         They were startled and terrified,
         and thought that they were seeing a ghost.
                  —Luke 24. 36-37

Still after all the proof and rehearsals
you startle me.
When I’m forgiven,
or given the opportunity to forgive,
when my wounds shrink under your hand,
when the long unmapped road of grief
leads into a gentle meadow,
I’m not sure what I’m seeing is real.
When you stoop into the wreckage of my life
and reach out to take my hand,
when I have betrayed you and you come to me,
wounded but whole, and bless me,
I can hardly believe.
In my shattered ruins you pick up the pieces,
you gather the dust and breathe life into it
and it takes living form
and it is me, and I am alive and free.
You will understand, then, if like a newborn
I am bewildered, maybe even terrified,
before I come to myself and,
squinting in the light,
cling to you with all my might.

―April 12, 2017

Merciful One,
I enter the garden of your presence
open to the mystery of your love.
The hurt I have caused and the hurt I have borne
I lay to rest in the tomb of your grace.
All resentment, shame, dread and anxiety
I wrap in the linens of your mercy.
All distrust and defiance
I lay in the ground of your patient redeeming.
See if there be any evil in me,
and in your tender mercy lay it to rest.

Dawning One,
let Christ rise in me,
free of all fear, free of the power of doubt
and the shroud of the past.
Let Christ rise to new life in me,
wounded but whole,
radiant, forgiving and alive with your love.
Create me anew: by your grace let there be light.

This is the day you are making;
let me rejoice, and be glad in it.

   —April 11, 2018

         “Thus it is written,
         that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day,
         and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed
         in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
         You are witnesses of these things.
               —Luke 24.46-48

What do you talk about when you come back,
bodily risen but still wounded, from the grave?
Forgiveness.

The repentance we preach is not forced on others,
it’s our repentance,
turning from from retribution to forgiveness,
from self-protection to self-giving.
When we forgive, we offer resurrection.
Christ is risen in the body
of those who forgive in this world.

Forgiveness is where resurrection takes form,
where wound becomes blessing,
where lives become actually new,
where people become free,
lured by astonished fishers out of graves into light.
The new self is freed from the old life;
anger no longer has dominion.
Justice rises not from the cross of retribution,
but the empty grave of grace.

Members of the crucified and risen Body of Christ
are not afraid to be wounded in offering forgiveness.
No suffering can stop us:
we have already died and gone to heaven.
We are as fearless as angels.
We are witnesses of these things.
 

   —April 10, 2018

Those mornings when you wake up burdened,
already thinking Oh why bother,
start here:

thank God for one thing.

One person whom you love will do,
though even a remarkable coincidence is acceptable.
You don’t even need to go into peaches,
the color blue, or migratory birds,
or a child’s laugh you heard the other day,
let alone the angelic speech of nerve synapses
or the inscrutable ballet of spiral galaxies,
or God’s outlandish love for you.

Just one thing to give thanks for.

Then resolve to live the day
in adequate gratitude for that one thing,

and begin.
 

   —April 9, 2018

       While it was still dark,
         Mary Magdalene came to the tomb…
                           —John 20.1

Light out of darkness is the primal dance,
all things dance.

God made love with this world
to create it,

freedom
its bones,

becoming
its being,

the one love
of all things.

The face of the earth is the bottom of the Red Sea,
slaves turned free.

God has already kissed this passage,
its losses a flowering seed.

All falling
is into.

What dies starts over,
received into Love’s enlarging,

guilt a stone
turned to light,

grief and dread a jar of myrrh,
given away.

Become a wrought vessel
for God’s alchemy.

All our life is a long walk
in the dark

toward a grave
already empty.

   —April 6, 2018

         “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands,
         and put my finger in the mark of the nails
         and my hand in his side,
         I will not believe.”
                        —John 20.25

The true redeemer is the Wounded One
with the stigmata of the oppressed.
Unless you find him among the incarcerated,
hear her voice in the trafficked and abused,
you have not found redemption, but relief.
Unless you sense others’ pain in your ease,
someone’s death by drone strike in your security,
someone’s suffering in your white privilege,
someone’s poverty in your cheap fruit—
unless you see the marks of the nails,
you have not found the Crucified and Risen One.

Unless you see the Beloved’s brokenness
in your fearful desires and hurtful habits
it’s not your Savior who has risen.
Unless your Christ bears the scars
of your own behavior it’s not you they will save,
not your sin borne off to hell, your betrayal forgiven,
not your life changed, but somebody else’s.

And unless your despair is swallowed up in forgiveness
and your greed changed by gratitude
and your heart emptied out in love and courage
you don’t believe, you just wish.

But when this drops you to your knees, blessed are you.
Rejoice, for you stand before the Living One
who offers you new life.
 

   —April 5, 2018

         Thomas (who was called the Twin) said,
         “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands,
         and put my finger in the mark of the nails
         and my hand in his side,
         I will not believe.”
               —John 20.24-25

Seeker, twin of Tomas, keep searching.
Keep looking to see; keep stretching out your hand.

Your questioning is not refusal; it is loyalty,
faithfulness to the Presence, not the rumor.

Don’t let some preacher tell you what to think.
Seek the living Christ who moves your hand, who trembles it.

Don’t fall for the happily ever after Jesus,
the It was nothing, I’m fine Jesus:

seek the true suffering Christ, whose wounds you can feel,
whose marks sting you, whose forgiveness saves.

The Beloved isn’t testing you, but will reach out a hand
and give you what you need for your next step.

Don’t require yourself to believe any but your heart.
The next step isn’t likely a leap of faith

but to stumble upon love and fall to your knees
crying ,”My Beloved, my Sovereign, my Life-Giver, my God!”
 

   —April 4, 2018

         Tomorrow, April 4, is the 50th anniversary
         of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We lift our song of praise and victory
for beloved brother Martin.
He bore God’s yoke,
God’s passion to set us free.
With the courage of the prophets he named
the evils of our racism, materialism and war.
He stood fast against our hate and greed
and was not silenced.
He stood fast against the tide of fear
and was not swept away.
He stood fast against the threat of death
and was not stopped.
He bore in his bones the sorrow of his people
and their mighty hope.
He did not point the way for others,
but walked the journey of self-purifying love,
with gentleness to speak to our violence,
with humility to demand justice,
with honesty to name our sin,
with love to confront hate.
He became a furnace of God,
where love burned away fear
and light burned away darkness
and life burned away death.
He was murdered for his love,
but his love remained.
This is his victory: not that all ended well,
but he spoke the word of love and justice and freedom
and even in death his word struck the bell in our hearts
that rings and rings and rings.
Death has not stopped the song of freedom;
death has not silenced the voice of truth;
death has not closed the path of justice:
we march on with brother Martin.

April 3, 2018