The older brother became angry and refused to go in.
                  —Luke 15.28

I refuse you.
I resent somebody, and your love for them.
I want to be better, more deserving.
I won’t go to your heaven if he’s there.
He’s not my brother. Your kin, but not mine.
I denounce your party. I scorn your joy.
I won’t go in.

Yet you come out to me,
here in the far country of my bitterness.
Just like him I have left your side;
just like him you invite me back.
I am no more worthy, no more loving.
He came to that point of turning to you.
I have not come there yet.

Yet you come to me.
You offer perfect love.
Will I release my resentment?
Will I rejoin my kin?
Will I come in?
Will I come?

   —March 26, 2019

         “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;
         I am no longer worthy to be called your son;
         treat me like one of your hired hands.”
                  —Luke 15.18

Empty hollow husks and crusts.
Treasure spent and spoiled.
Sorrow, mess and brokenness.
That’s what I have to offer you.

Hunger drove me then and draws me home.
Oh, I confess I have not come for you,
to heal your broken heart or give you thanks,
but only beg another scrap.

And yet you see me not as beggar
or as thief but your Beloved,
lost and found, and dear,
a cause for your rejoicing.

How do I bear this grace’s weight,
this love around my neck, this gift?
I don’t. I let it lift me up beyond myself,
amazed, where all there is is you.

   —March 25, 2019

         Let me dig around it and put manure on it.
                  —Luke 13.8

Life-Giver, you pronounce your judgment:
“Surely there is in you (I see it)
a fruit (it is your nature), a gift (I put it there).”
You call me to penitence:
“Here, let me give you more life.
Receive it.”

And this is my repentance: compost.
What was life, then death, turned to life.
Shovelfuls of fasting dug around me,
the hard blade, the removal.
The manure of the failed,
submission to being beneath the lowest.
Accepting offal as a gift of grace.

This is my repentance: I receive.
Deeply rooted, deeply fed,
my soul is satisfied as with a rich feast.
Bread which satisfies.

And then, little buds.
New birds in the branches.

   —March 22, 2019

         Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way
         they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?
         No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.
                           — Luke 13.2-3
                  

You do away with the notion
that good things happen to good people.
You make the rain fall on the just and the unjust.
So you do away with my need
to be better than some, those sinners.
There’s only one kind of human:
broken and forgiven. Redeemed.

I am a sinner.
I am in need of repentance.
Keep me humble, God,
and aware of my need.
In conversing with others,
especially those I judge,
remind me: I am a sinner.
Keep my heart open to your saving grace.
Amen.

   —March 21, 2019

Light and shadow, night and day,
joy and sorrow, rage and serenity,
cruelty and compassion in Christchurch.

Light swells, breathes in, then breathes out.
Earth arrives at equipoise and moves on.
In Boston Spring begins, in Christchurch autumn.

It is not true in God there is no darkness at all.
The universe is mostly so, and beautifully.
A painting without shadows is mere paste.

We seek light, and to be light,
and accept with grace we live in a shadowed world.
Even in heaven there are shadows, and always the choice

to be light,
and to make of the shadows
beauty.

   —March 20, 2019

         Your faith has made you well.

A friend and I are walking with her boys. Ice on the path.
She’s ahead, I’m with Teddy, the three year old.
He slips and crashes to his knees,
feet splayed, face inches from the ice.

He doesn’t crumple, doesn’t wail. Not a sound.
Doesn’t demand that mommy come back.
No pleading, no drama. Doesn’t even look up.
He calmly raises his hand above his head.
He knows what will come next.

Behold.

What a Mother we have, that we have come to know
—we know—
we are accompanied,
we are in need and we will be helped,
all will be well.

Faith, Jesus showed, is not certainty, but reaching out.

   —March 19, 2019

Holy One,
give me grace
to reach out,

to seek you
in your usual
unlikely places:

the unfamiliar face,
the passing moment,
the fruitless interlude.

Deepen my trust
in the root beneath the snow,
the beckoning in the silence.

In the ordinary conversation
in the spaces between what isn’t spoken
you reach out with such a quiet hand.

The beautiful instrument,
you breathe through it,
it becomes my body.

The unsuspected pause
swells with your presence.
By your grace, I notice.

I notice again.
By your grace,
I notice.

   —March 18, 2019

         Jerusalem, Jerusalem! How often have I desired
         to gather your children together
         as a hen gathers her brood under her wings,
         and you were not willing!
                           —Luke 13.34

Gather me, Mother Christ.
I am your wayward child,
impetuous and free,
defiantly lonesome,
wholly at risk without you.
Never mind my rebelliousness,
my fear of your fierce adoration,
how I disbelieve
how deeply I need your love
and how deeply you give it.
Gather me in, Mother Christ,
with all your little ones,
all of them.
Embrace me, hold me
long and gentle,
for I am tired and afraid
and will run no more.
I am willing.
Gather me in.

—March 15, 2019

         They said, “Herod wants to kill you.”
         He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me,
          ‘Listen, I am casting out demons
         and performing cures today and tomorrow,
         and on the third day I finish my work.’”
                           —Luke 13.31-32

Crucified and Risen One,
give me your courage to hope in the face of evil.
Give me your patience to serve under stress.
Give me your faith to work for justice
in the face of threat and opposition.
Give me your pluck to persevere when it is hard.
Give me your love, for our love itself
changes the world.
May I meet fear with healing and hate with love,
side by side with you,
who die and rise daily with me.
Amen.

   —March 14, 2019

         In the wilderness for forty days,
         … he ate nothing at all.
                           —Luke 4.1-2

Fasting, I am aware of my privilege:
food at every turn.
         May I never take it for granted.

I am aware of my desire,
my conviction that it matters.
         Set me free from believing I need what I want.

I am mindful of the hungry,
who will not break fast tomorrow.
         May I never eat without them.

I am habituated to fueling for the race,
consuming calories for a hectic pace.
         Slow me down tomorrow, too.

The longer I am hungry the deeper my desire,
the wider— not for food, for you.
         Deepen my hunger for you.
         Satisfy me, and keep me wanting more.

   —March 13, 2019