I am the vine and you are the branches.
                  —John 15.5

You are the vine and we are your branches,
one with your life and rooted in your heart.
Flowing with grace, with life you fill us,
strengthened that nothing can break us apart.

You are the vine and we are your branches.
Deep in our hearts your life is flowing through.
Rooted in you, we grow and flourish.
You live within us, and we live in you.

You are the vine and we are your branches.
One common blood flows though all of our veins.
We all are part of one another.
We all are branches of one living vine.

You are the vine and we are your branches,
flowing with power greater than our own,
bearing your fruit to all Creation,
till all the seeds of your love have been sown.

[A song. Write me for the music.]
 

   —April 23, 2018

Shepherd me, Love.
         Lead me out from my attachments.

Lead me to the green meadow of your heart,
         your deep well of peace and nourishment.
         
Fill me with your breath again,
         breath of your Spirit.

Lead me in your way,
          not mine,

even through darkest canyons
         shadowed by death,

for your presence is my safety,
         your will my comfort.

You invite me to your table with my enemies
         to share with them your grace:

gift that overflows,
         blessing that makes life beautiful.

Lead me where goodness and mercy go;
         then on every road
         I will still be at home in you.
 

   —April 20, 2018

         We know that we have passed from death to life
         because we love one another.
               —1 John 3.14

The grave is skin.
You can stay inside it,
or choose to become infinite.

You are the bird, not the nest.
Give yourself, and there is nothing
left to entomb.

Once you die,
an angel,
you can pass through walls.

When your life becomes nothing
but love
no one can take it from you.

Death is a barbed wire fence.
Love is a song,
it hangs in the air long after.

Death is a thick wall.
Above, the bird flies far
to a beautiful land in need of birds.
 

   —April 19, 2018

         The hired hand, who is not the shepherd
         and does not own the sheep,
         sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—
         and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.
               —John 10.12

I don’t see it coming.
It lurks, beyond awareness,
moves through the underbrush
on tough, forest-wise paws,
smells what I can’t, knowing,
an ancient species.

It scatters and snatches
my innocent goodness.
Fear chasing down love.

Let me gaze at you, wolf.
Know you, name you,
learn your ways.

Who is it, then,
who stands between me and my wolf?
Who alone can tame the wild,
not stone this one (there will be more),
but make my wolf lie down with the lamb?

Let me learn the voice of my shepherd.
Let me listen and follow,
and even through the shadowed valley
stay close.
 

   —April 18, 2018

It’s a long road.
This is what you do.
You’ve worked to get here.

Maybe training for a marathon,
or working for justice.
Maybe parenting.

People don’t get it,
why you do this,
why you do it and do it,

why the early rising,
the repeated drills,
the ceaseless effort.

They don’t get why I cheer
so loud, get choked up,
make a fool of myself.

You give yourself
to something greater,
to the long road, and your soul,

taken up, is enlarged,
your presence deepened.
Changed, you live in a changed world.

Andrea nailed the Boston Marathon.
Tomorrow she’ll return
to her cancer patients,

to the long road,
with love and guts.
And already I am changed.
 

   —April 17, 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