Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
Jesus asked them, Who do you say that I am?”
—Mark 8.29
Jesus is God’s best selfie,
and humanity’s true DNA.
Jesus is the great overlapping.
Jesus is God’s fragile hope set loose in the world,
God’s vulnerability surviving among us,
the living wound of the Beloved.
Jesus is the tear in the world where we see through to God,
what we look like when we let the Divine burn in us.
Jesus is the living bit of love that every empire trips over,
the peasant who shatters the world,
the victim who ruins our judgments
and leaves us with nothing but mercy.
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Jesus is my wizard, my teacher, my elder,
my big brother and little sister,
my comrade, my accomplice, my troublemaker, my trickster.
Jesus is my healer, my lover, my peace,
and not mine.
Jesus is my possibility. The flavor of God.
Infinite mystery in an old shirt.
Jesus is the coach who expects almost too much of me,
and is never disappointed.
Jesus pushes me out of uncomfortable places,
and pulls me into them.
Jesus invites me into the world’s wound
deep enough to find light.
Jesus is always dying so I get the hang of it.
And rising.
Jesus is always a step ahead of me
except when he’s disappeared into me, waiting,
always pouring God out at my feet,
always weeping and joyful and curious.
Jesus is always setting me up on blind dates with God,
and then coming along just to watch.
He’s got heaven all over him like pollen on a bee’s legs.
Jesus is my glasses, my hearing aid. Also my hard hat.
Jesus has light spilling out all over, especially through
those holes in his hands.
Jesus has a million questions, and most of them are the same one:
“Do you know how much I love you?”
—September 12, 2018