April 4, 2010
Happy Easter!
The Resurrection and the Life
I cried a lot today. I cried in Mass, I cried in Twelfth Night, and I cried in Pericles. It was a good crying, a "my heart is so full" crying.
This will be my second-to-last daily reflection. I want to finish 3 John since I loved 2 John so much tomorrow. I will continue, however, to reflect on the Mass readings every Sunday, and I would like to add one more entry a week, although this one will be more irregular. So, my two lovely readers, check back in this time next week if you're still interested!
I kept thinking today about the change it was. The women came to the Tomb because they had to leave the ritual unfinished on Good Friday. The Sabbath prevented them from washing his body clean of the blood that poured out of Him and wrapping his limbs and pour the ointments and perfumes.
Walking to the Tomb that day they were preparing themselves for this, all the practical things that had to be done with a dead body had probably been covered (at least well enough) on Friday, but they had to come to the tomb and put their hands on his body one more time, moving slowly and quietly and thinking about who he was and how he changed their lives and what he did for them and why. And slowly, as they worked, teach themselves to think of him in the past tense, slowly teach themselves how to live in a world without him, as they wrapped his lifeless limbs and perfumed his bloody head and closed his wide, staring eyes, they would teach themselves how to move on.
But that is not the story that greeted them. The rituals of farewell were unnecessary. Only Mary Magdalene saw Him again that day, but what had to be stopped, both those angels in blinding white robes, was the ritual farewell. Because it would never again be fully appropriate.
Every culture, every religion, every people and every mourning community there has ever been has the ritual goodbye. The burning pyre, the funeral, the coins for the ferryman, the closing of the coffin. They're about honoring the dead, but they're for us. For us to stand together and teach ourselves, in the midst of rituals structured enough to not require our thoughts and symbolic enough to speak more closely the language of our souls, how to live in a world without our beloved. And they involve direct contact with the physical dead body because they involve forcing ourselves to know, with our hands and our eyes, not just our ears and our minds, that our loved one is dead and gone and will never return. So that we can move on with our lives. So we can let go. It's why deaths that leave no body for the family to bury are so cruel. We must who ourselves, physically, that our loved one is no longer here, and see that the world continues on. So must we.
But the women on their lonely walk, the first step of their journey to acceptance of death, and all of us who mourn without remembering the promise of Easter Sunday, are only seeking the living among the dead. He has gone ahead of you. So have they all. They followed Him.
And we weren't to the ascension yet, the living could not yet touch the dead after they had risen. There is still a veil that separates us, but we do not now have to teach ourselves to live in a world without those we love. We have to learn how to find them in Beyond, to find their love and spirit reaching down from the place to which they have ascended.
Twelfth Night and Pericles are both stories of reunion, the reunion with those who perished at sea. And they're fairy tales rather than symbolic mysteries, so the plotlines run more along the lines of "reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated," but the feeling is the same. When Viola and her brother stare at each other, scarcely brave enough to believe that death and tempests could be so kind as to spare them - scarcely daring to believe that death was but a temporary parting, because they never could let themselves believe that there was a reunion to come.
Thaisa and Pericles spent twenty-eight years apart because of a difficult childbirth, massive miscommunication, and superstitious sailors (hey, I didn't write it). Their daughter Marina was lost fourteen years later to pirates (again, don't look at me) and spent her time converting the customers of the brothel to whom she was sold from their wicked ways until her father wandered close enough for his best friend to hear tell of her way of speaking. And it took forever, watching them, because you knew the truth, but finally they could not hide from their wild hopes any longer and they let themselves believe that the world could be kind enough to reunite them. And then the Goddess Diana appeared and led them back to Thaisa, who caught on quicker and shed her nun's livery in the joy of reunion.
But the first story, the first I heard today and the first of its kind in the world, was when Mary Magdalene and the other women with her came to the tomb and saw that the great stone had been rolled away. And they were surprised, but they were probably little more than relieved at one less problem they had to solve this morning that would be so hard to get through with such painful lessons to teach, but then the body was gone and they couldn't quite let themselves believe that the world had changed and become that much more kind until the angels told them that they would not have to spend this day learning to live without the Son of God. And for the one who could not believe, who could not believe after her terrible life and the torture of her soul by seven demons for heaven knows how long, for the one who always believed in Him the most and needed Him most desperately, she was given the reunion that had been promised her that very day. It was not complete, because she had a mission to complete on the other side of the veil of death, but it was the first such gift.
And that moment when the reunion we didn't dare believe would come sweeps over us is the most joyful and heartbreaking and shattering and life changing and exhilarating moment that exists - because we could never quite believe that the promised reunion was to come. Because it would break our hearts. And those of us who do keep that hope are so at peace that we look twice as crazy to those who cannot find that peace, that gift. We look daft, we look like we are in denial.
We just believe. He has gone ahead of you. They all have. He went to prepare a place for them. And you. The reunion, the completion of our joy, is yet to come. Tempests, all deaths, are kind.
Sunday, 4 April 2010
Saturday, 3 April 2010
April 3, 2010
Holy Saturday
2 John
I never know quite what to do with Holy Saturday, between the two holiest days of the year, the wait, the limbo of the time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. What is today?
In a way, I wonder if that is some of what happened when they were deciding what books to include. What do you do with this tiny book of the Bible shorter than most of its chapters? It's a note, and it seems almost written in code - or at least to refer to specific people and situations without wanting to name them in writing (such texts being hardly secure in this time).
And it seems to be writing about a time when a spiritual community was in a kind of limbo. A terrible schism of some kind had happened, and they were being asked to wait until a spiritual leader arrived to figure out how best to solve the problem, heal the breach.
And it began like this: "The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth," which is a great nod to feminism right there but mostly the purest personal greeting I have come across in the letters. And at the end, I wanted for a moment to read the salutation as a clue that it was a woman writer, but it could also be another instance of passing along a personal message, "The children of your elect sister send you their greetings." More interpersonal love than I've seen in any other epistle. The love of a shepherd for his flock, not as a whole but as individual sheep with beautiful glistening coats you admire so.
What I really love here is the idea of a network of women, the bedrocks of the Church. Their children, reaching out to each other across some distance, negotiating the way to handle - interpersonally, which more and more I come to realize is the only way that really matters - the schism of a spiritual community.
This isn't about advancing doctrine, the second thing the author says is, "not only I but also wall who know the truth, because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever."
And they'll know we are Christians by our children, our families and those who become our children in faith, whose guides we however temporarily become, who worship with us and who take their reminder of God's light from us. "I was overjoyed to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we have been commanded by the Father." Whichever of you causes the least of these children to stray...
The writer is planning a trip, where the elect lady, the elect sister, their children (and the writer, if she/he is separate) will work out the finer points of the truth, will figure out all the endless conundrums of a human-run church with little fixed doctrine and less means of communicating it globally. As we still do, in Parish Councils and retreat program board meetings and carpools to Sunday Mass and Bible study groups. In the great chambers of the Vatican they do this too.
This letter is just a quick note, to say that until the community could figure out what God would want, what is the most Christian thing to do, there are certain very important things to do: stay away from those who would lead you astray until we can figure out how to handle them, either to bring them back or correct them or realize they need to be cut out of the life of the community. Until then, do not let them prey upon you. Protect your children and your community.
But more than anything, I just love here the process. The writer has dropped this letter to ask the community to wait, wait until she/he can arrive, and then they will talk. And they will pray together. And they will study the Scripture and the teachings and the letters and they will try to discern the will of God. And then they will choose the Christian path. As they have done before, those who know the truth and who support each other constantly in realizing that truth in the world so often not ready to deal with it.
And even if the writer is not a woman, the "dear lady" written to is considered a spiritual elder of the community, her children recognized by a spiritual leader on a grander scale.
A community, including women, that comes together to figure out the way of God in this world, the path of the Kingdom of God, and does so continually and together.
That's just so beautiful.
If our experience of the modern negotiations written above seem to fall short, then perhaps we need to look over them again and realize what we are experiencing but have not the wit to see. Perhaps they need adjustment. Perhaps it's just our attitude that needs adjustment, perhaps we just need to remember: we are in this together. We are strong, and we are equal, and we are a family. We belong to each other and we are accountable to each other.
Everything else we can figure out as we go along. We have been given the answer to all the Big Questions by God Himself in human form. For all the smaller ones, we have each other.
Holy Saturday
2 John
I never know quite what to do with Holy Saturday, between the two holiest days of the year, the wait, the limbo of the time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. What is today?
In a way, I wonder if that is some of what happened when they were deciding what books to include. What do you do with this tiny book of the Bible shorter than most of its chapters? It's a note, and it seems almost written in code - or at least to refer to specific people and situations without wanting to name them in writing (such texts being hardly secure in this time).
And it seems to be writing about a time when a spiritual community was in a kind of limbo. A terrible schism of some kind had happened, and they were being asked to wait until a spiritual leader arrived to figure out how best to solve the problem, heal the breach.
And it began like this: "The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth," which is a great nod to feminism right there but mostly the purest personal greeting I have come across in the letters. And at the end, I wanted for a moment to read the salutation as a clue that it was a woman writer, but it could also be another instance of passing along a personal message, "The children of your elect sister send you their greetings." More interpersonal love than I've seen in any other epistle. The love of a shepherd for his flock, not as a whole but as individual sheep with beautiful glistening coats you admire so.
What I really love here is the idea of a network of women, the bedrocks of the Church. Their children, reaching out to each other across some distance, negotiating the way to handle - interpersonally, which more and more I come to realize is the only way that really matters - the schism of a spiritual community.
This isn't about advancing doctrine, the second thing the author says is, "not only I but also wall who know the truth, because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever."
And they'll know we are Christians by our children, our families and those who become our children in faith, whose guides we however temporarily become, who worship with us and who take their reminder of God's light from us. "I was overjoyed to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we have been commanded by the Father." Whichever of you causes the least of these children to stray...
The writer is planning a trip, where the elect lady, the elect sister, their children (and the writer, if she/he is separate) will work out the finer points of the truth, will figure out all the endless conundrums of a human-run church with little fixed doctrine and less means of communicating it globally. As we still do, in Parish Councils and retreat program board meetings and carpools to Sunday Mass and Bible study groups. In the great chambers of the Vatican they do this too.
This letter is just a quick note, to say that until the community could figure out what God would want, what is the most Christian thing to do, there are certain very important things to do: stay away from those who would lead you astray until we can figure out how to handle them, either to bring them back or correct them or realize they need to be cut out of the life of the community. Until then, do not let them prey upon you. Protect your children and your community.
But more than anything, I just love here the process. The writer has dropped this letter to ask the community to wait, wait until she/he can arrive, and then they will talk. And they will pray together. And they will study the Scripture and the teachings and the letters and they will try to discern the will of God. And then they will choose the Christian path. As they have done before, those who know the truth and who support each other constantly in realizing that truth in the world so often not ready to deal with it.
And even if the writer is not a woman, the "dear lady" written to is considered a spiritual elder of the community, her children recognized by a spiritual leader on a grander scale.
A community, including women, that comes together to figure out the way of God in this world, the path of the Kingdom of God, and does so continually and together.
That's just so beautiful.
If our experience of the modern negotiations written above seem to fall short, then perhaps we need to look over them again and realize what we are experiencing but have not the wit to see. Perhaps they need adjustment. Perhaps it's just our attitude that needs adjustment, perhaps we just need to remember: we are in this together. We are strong, and we are equal, and we are a family. We belong to each other and we are accountable to each other.
Everything else we can figure out as we go along. We have been given the answer to all the Big Questions by God Himself in human form. For all the smaller ones, we have each other.
Friday, 2 April 2010
April 2, 2010
Good Friday
1 John 5
Such love could be but recompensed were you crowned the non-pareil of beauty. (Shakespeare again).
Such love could be but recompensed were you crowned the epitome of agape.
"Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we are the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes in God?"
What a beautiful message for today. Today, the anniversary of the day that Jesus died for us. Such love. The day that Jesus conquered death and the world and made it new. A new world, conquered for us by our God, given to us in our hearts. To enjoy and love in for all time, and that's how they will know we are Christians.
I read the Left Behind books once upon a time, and I'm not enough of a scholar to parse what was nonsense and what came out of actual Biblical prophecy, but the idea of a visible Mark of God seems, to me, overkill.
You know a sister and brother in Christ by how they act, by the love for God and His children in their hearts. I suppose a physical mark on your forehead would be more immediate, but it's also a little...easy. We should never lose the urge to reach out, to connect; the ability to see God in each other, in our fellow man, and act accordingly.
Because the world has been made anew. Today there was darkness and a rip in a veil and though Darkness fell over the whole land for three hours, during which God Himself suffered and died as a man to save us from our sins, but on Sunday the new world will be reborn.
And today is the proof of His love - such love that could not be recompensed even should we become the people that we know we could be.
And on Sunday His love, His proof, is greater still. He loved us enough to die, enough to limit Himself, enough to suffer, enough to pass through the pangs of death. And then He made the world anew for us so that He would never have to leave our hearts. He set us free from death, and He also gave us this gift: the world is new. The Spring has followed the long winter. Our new life has begun. We are living in the Kingdom of God.
And His love fills our hearts, shining into our world.
There is still so much darkness and so much death, because we put up walls that cast shadows then cower behind them. And our job is to go into the corners of the world and draw the children God loves so absolutely, so shockingly that He did all this from the murky shadows of the world if you let it in.
But He conquered the world today, and it felt like a pyrrhic victory because He died, but that was only the beginning. In the old world, we couldn't see it. Now we can.
It's shocking, it's unbelievable, it's gorgeous, it's true.
For God so loved the world.
Good Friday
1 John 5
Such love could be but recompensed were you crowned the non-pareil of beauty. (Shakespeare again).
Such love could be but recompensed were you crowned the epitome of agape.
"Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we are the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes in God?"
What a beautiful message for today. Today, the anniversary of the day that Jesus died for us. Such love. The day that Jesus conquered death and the world and made it new. A new world, conquered for us by our God, given to us in our hearts. To enjoy and love in for all time, and that's how they will know we are Christians.
I read the Left Behind books once upon a time, and I'm not enough of a scholar to parse what was nonsense and what came out of actual Biblical prophecy, but the idea of a visible Mark of God seems, to me, overkill.
You know a sister and brother in Christ by how they act, by the love for God and His children in their hearts. I suppose a physical mark on your forehead would be more immediate, but it's also a little...easy. We should never lose the urge to reach out, to connect; the ability to see God in each other, in our fellow man, and act accordingly.
Because the world has been made anew. Today there was darkness and a rip in a veil and though Darkness fell over the whole land for three hours, during which God Himself suffered and died as a man to save us from our sins, but on Sunday the new world will be reborn.
And today is the proof of His love - such love that could not be recompensed even should we become the people that we know we could be.
And on Sunday His love, His proof, is greater still. He loved us enough to die, enough to limit Himself, enough to suffer, enough to pass through the pangs of death. And then He made the world anew for us so that He would never have to leave our hearts. He set us free from death, and He also gave us this gift: the world is new. The Spring has followed the long winter. Our new life has begun. We are living in the Kingdom of God.
And His love fills our hearts, shining into our world.
There is still so much darkness and so much death, because we put up walls that cast shadows then cower behind them. And our job is to go into the corners of the world and draw the children God loves so absolutely, so shockingly that He did all this from the murky shadows of the world if you let it in.
But He conquered the world today, and it felt like a pyrrhic victory because He died, but that was only the beginning. In the old world, we couldn't see it. Now we can.
It's shocking, it's unbelievable, it's gorgeous, it's true.
For God so loved the world.
Thursday, 1 April 2010
April 1, 2010
Holy Thursday
Happy April Fool's Day!
1 John 4
I think my friends Linden and Clara and I pulled the nicest April Fool's Day joke ever - but it was only as we implemented it that we discussed the people who might be offended by it. This has nothing to do with the reading I'm looking at, but it took up my whole day, so I wanted to say something about it. There's a horrible mural in a classroom heavily used this semester by our program. It's bad - and in a really distracting way. Really low quality as well. So we made a higher quality one and hung it carefully over the old mural, so it can be removed easily without damaging the underlying in two weeks time.
I admit - it's a huge relief. And it's pretty. Very good for the soul. Ten thousand things to get accomplished in the next two weeks, already working on very little sleep, taking two days to do this was probably stupid, but it was very good for the soul.
The first part of this chapter is a counterpoint to my kick about not needing to call God by His proper name if He abides in your heart, but I think it's less of a rebuttal than at first glance. So although "every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God," the thrust of this argument (and it seems to be talking about the people who know the truth but choose to walk away from it rather than just "anyone who doesn't know and listen and believe") seems better summarized a few lines later, "the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them."
And that's really everything I've been saying and figuring out this whole time right there (appropriately enough since Lent is now over and Triduum has come to bridge the gap between Lent and Easter). God and the Holy Spirit are in us and with us, and that means that the Kingdom of God is here, all around us, because heaven is where God is. And that is greater than anything the world has ever known - than anything the world can comprehend - than anything the world can offer - than anything we can understand while we walk along the earth - than anything we have ever known. Eye has not seen; ear has not heard.
And those who would lead us astray, who so often talk about our religion as if they do understand it, they make so much "sense" because it is just what they claim it is: "common sense." Common, worldly, "down-to-earth" sense that looks at something and draws the straightest line possible. Imagine a series of dots on a page, and someone telling you to connect them, promising that the picture will become clear someday, but the important thing is for you to reach out and make connections. Love. Now imagine someone came along and looked at the same dots on the page and saw not the infinite possibilities of interconnected lives, of a web of love and Body of Christ, but instead drew a line straight up the middle of them, from the "beginning" dot to the "end" dot that they so designated. And they called it common sense. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. That's just common sense.
And that was an elaborate metaphor that I'm not entirely sure made any sense, but it sounded beautiful in my head, so I wanted to share it for a moment.
And all the beautiful pictures I try to weave around these words, these truths, in the hopes of making them clearer are really all just silliness - as is (what I hope is) the opposite of trying to make them dance before you and along a certain agenda (which I admit I sometimes worry I am doing). It's all silliness because the truth was always very simple:
"Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God."
"We love because he first loved us. Those who say, 'I love God,' and hate their brothers and sisters are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister who they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also."
"God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them."
So love.
I should really count, at the end of this, how many of these references I made, but at least one time more (and probably thousands):
They'll know we are Christians by our love. So will we. It is the very definition of being a Christian. Abiding in love. Abiding in God. They are the same statement, said two different ways because we (English speakers in particular) sometimes seem to love nothing more than coming up with multiple words for the same thing.
For such as I am all true lovers are. (That one's Shakespeare)
For such as Jesus was, all true Christians are.
Holy Thursday
Happy April Fool's Day!
1 John 4
I think my friends Linden and Clara and I pulled the nicest April Fool's Day joke ever - but it was only as we implemented it that we discussed the people who might be offended by it. This has nothing to do with the reading I'm looking at, but it took up my whole day, so I wanted to say something about it. There's a horrible mural in a classroom heavily used this semester by our program. It's bad - and in a really distracting way. Really low quality as well. So we made a higher quality one and hung it carefully over the old mural, so it can be removed easily without damaging the underlying in two weeks time.
I admit - it's a huge relief. And it's pretty. Very good for the soul. Ten thousand things to get accomplished in the next two weeks, already working on very little sleep, taking two days to do this was probably stupid, but it was very good for the soul.
The first part of this chapter is a counterpoint to my kick about not needing to call God by His proper name if He abides in your heart, but I think it's less of a rebuttal than at first glance. So although "every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God," the thrust of this argument (and it seems to be talking about the people who know the truth but choose to walk away from it rather than just "anyone who doesn't know and listen and believe") seems better summarized a few lines later, "the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them."
And that's really everything I've been saying and figuring out this whole time right there (appropriately enough since Lent is now over and Triduum has come to bridge the gap between Lent and Easter). God and the Holy Spirit are in us and with us, and that means that the Kingdom of God is here, all around us, because heaven is where God is. And that is greater than anything the world has ever known - than anything the world can comprehend - than anything the world can offer - than anything we can understand while we walk along the earth - than anything we have ever known. Eye has not seen; ear has not heard.
And those who would lead us astray, who so often talk about our religion as if they do understand it, they make so much "sense" because it is just what they claim it is: "common sense." Common, worldly, "down-to-earth" sense that looks at something and draws the straightest line possible. Imagine a series of dots on a page, and someone telling you to connect them, promising that the picture will become clear someday, but the important thing is for you to reach out and make connections. Love. Now imagine someone came along and looked at the same dots on the page and saw not the infinite possibilities of interconnected lives, of a web of love and Body of Christ, but instead drew a line straight up the middle of them, from the "beginning" dot to the "end" dot that they so designated. And they called it common sense. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. That's just common sense.
And that was an elaborate metaphor that I'm not entirely sure made any sense, but it sounded beautiful in my head, so I wanted to share it for a moment.
And all the beautiful pictures I try to weave around these words, these truths, in the hopes of making them clearer are really all just silliness - as is (what I hope is) the opposite of trying to make them dance before you and along a certain agenda (which I admit I sometimes worry I am doing). It's all silliness because the truth was always very simple:
"Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God."
"We love because he first loved us. Those who say, 'I love God,' and hate their brothers and sisters are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister who they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also."
"God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them."
So love.
I should really count, at the end of this, how many of these references I made, but at least one time more (and probably thousands):
They'll know we are Christians by our love. So will we. It is the very definition of being a Christian. Abiding in love. Abiding in God. They are the same statement, said two different ways because we (English speakers in particular) sometimes seem to love nothing more than coming up with multiple words for the same thing.
For such as I am all true lovers are. (That one's Shakespeare)
For such as Jesus was, all true Christians are.
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