"...the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Wednesday, 25 April 2012

  •  

    Do you know what I feel is the least spoken of idea, but the most needed point of meditation, among my fellows in Christian faith? 

     

    A proverb. That well-known one, Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.  (Pr. 16:18)

     

    Don't worry, this isn't an (ironic) rant about other people.  This is a result of gazing at no one other than myself, someone who has lived most of her life believing herself to be, basically, good, wise, unaffected, caring and love-able (to...a degree). It could even be said I was surprisingly "good", in contrast to a few of my, ahem, superiors.

    Ah, but.

    Adulthood can't really be reached, in my opinion, until you are baptized into it through choking in water up to your eyes, the waters of the realization that, Yeeeah, I can most definitely screw THAT up. In fact, those areas I felt myself to be most strong in were the exact ones in which I crashed and burned.  I practically believed I could post clowns instead of guards on that side of the tower. That side of the fortress is made of titanium-'n'-sh*t.  

     

    Humor. A sense of it, is returning me. 

     

    And so it goes that, a few years later, after I've rebuilt that disappointment of a wall (or, perhaps it is still being repaired?), I can say I'm a little more than aware of an unfortunate side-effect to being someone who has lived her life mostly concerned with behaving well and making "moral" choices (as a dyed-in-the-wool, I've-got-a-major-in-Bible Christian): I esteem myself a little unrealistically, a little fantastically.  

     

    I remove myself from my lot as human, remove myself from the very need of my God, and, I guess, opt for some other, more painful way of getting it: road rash. 

     

     

Sunday, 08 April 2012

  • ...he opened the Scriptures to us...

     

    Thankfully, there is never only today and its worries and doubts. There is tomorrow...and the great Tomorrow, as foretold. Jesus did not only die (and leave). He lived and came back (physically) to incite their (our) courage, incite their (our) faith, and incite their (our) trust in a God that has power and love.

     

    But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they werefrightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Manmust be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.

    That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles[a] from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them.But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophetmighty in deed and word before God and all the people,and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive.Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses andall the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.*

    So they drew near to the village to which they were going.He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

    As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish,[b] and he took it and ate before them.

    Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third dayrise from the dead, and that repentance and[c] forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations,beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed withpower from on high.

     

     

     * This strikes me because of my own curious struggle with doubt during this Easter season.  I do not doubt for lack of evidence, that much is true. I doubt for lack of optimism.  I doubt for lack of joy.  (Not that doubt is the opposite of those things, but their absence surely aggravates a prone doubter like myself.)  Truly, when the world is so...soberly...met during the season of Lent, when one might chose to do without something (mine being Facebook), what we do is try to clear away distractions, in whatever form they take.  And when we do this, we find the world is lacking.  Because, in fact, the period of waiting during Lent only symbolically ends on Resurrection Sunday.  Sure, Lent-followed-by-Easter represents the long wait for an actual Messiah to redeem the world, who did come, but ...Jesus' resurrection in no way ends the story.  And so, when we practice waiting, as a ritual of sorts, we are perhaps more intentionally forming the pattern of our very lives.  Not that life as we know it doesn't have MUCH beauty and goodness to savor and soak in (heck no!), but there is the reality of brokenness, still, of grief...of hurt...of imperfect people unlovingly living out a sad story, in parts...and that's what causes us to feel impatient for restoration.**  And, I think, it is those things that unfortunately and subconsciously grip my heart and cause a lot of my doubt.  My waiting, it seems, is characterized by a struggle with doubt. I am hopeful, sometimes, but other times, I just...want to stop waiting because I've only been waiting this long (27 years, Becky?! come on!), I tell myself, because nothing is actually going to happen anyway. 

     

    It is...a spiritual discipline for me, maybe: waiting without fear. Hmm. 

     

    Well, off I go to try that.

     

     ** Ha! My daily newsletter from Richard Rohr (which I only read now, after writing this) has the most interesting timing.  He says, in part, "Christ Crucified is all of the hidden, private, tragic pain of history made public and given over to God. Christ Resurrected is all suffering received, loved, and transformed by an All-Caring God. How else could we have any kind of cosmic hope? How else would we not die of sadness for what humanity has done to itself and to one another?"

     


     

Saturday, 07 April 2012

  • holy week: Good Friday, Saturday

     

    I could not write anything on Friday.  

     

    I found myself, after our Good Friday service (a tenebrae service), numbly in the grips of doubt of the so-called Sacrifice that was brought about by indignant Jews protecting what they had deemed to be sacred: Observing the Law of God (as they saw it).

     

    Saturday finds me the same way, in miserable un-appreciation.  And the truth is, this death of the Son of God is mysterious. I am asked to believe it means what the Bible says it means. But, my mind is ever the skeptic and cannot believe today.  It is...unfortunate timing, because I like Easter.

     

    I will write more on this later.  I just thought I'd admit that I doubt.  Lord help me.

     

     

Thursday, 05 April 2012

  • holy week: Thursday

     

    Just before the Passover Feast, Jesus knew that the time had come to leave this world to go to the Father. Having loved his dear companions, he continued to love them right to the end. It was suppertime. The Devil by now had Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, firmly in his grip, all set for the betrayal.

    Jesus knew that the Father had put him in complete charge of everything, that he came from God and was on his way back to God. So he got up from the supper table, set aside his robe, and put on an apron. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of the disciples, drying them with his apron. When he got to Simon Peter, Peter said, "Master, you wash my feet?"

    Jesus answered, "You don't understand now what I'm doing, but it will be clear enough to you later."

    Peter persisted, "You're not going to wash my feet—ever!"

      Jesus said, "If I don't wash you, you can't be part of what I'm doing."

     "Master!" said Peter. "Not only my feet, then. Wash my hands! Wash my head!"

    Jesus said, "If you've had a bath in the morning, you only need your feet washed now and you're clean from head to toe. My concern, you understand, is holiness, not hygiene. So now you're clean. But not every one of you." (He knew who was betraying him. That's why he said, "Not every one of you.") After he had finished washing their feet, he took his robe, put it back on, and went back to his place at the table.

    Then he said, "Do you understand what I have done to you? You address me as 'Teacher' and 'Master,' and rightly so. That is what I am. So if I, the Master and Teacher, washed your feet, you must now wash each other's feet. I've laid down a pattern for you. What I've done, you do. I'm only pointing out the obvious. A servant is not ranked above his master; an employee doesn't give orders to the employer. If you understand what I'm telling you, act like it—and live a blessed life.

     (from the book of John, chapter 13, The Message translation)

     

     

    I find it interesting that, not only does Jesus exemplify the humility of service, but his very act demands the humility of the willingness to be served.  When he says "Do you understand what I have done to you?" the word "to" does not seem to point to some future change in Peter, as he learns to 'wash feet' himself, but the Peter who is sitting there now, who must let Jesus come near, who must yield to his actual need for his feet to be clean.

    "You must wash each other's feet.  I've laid down a pattern for you." Jesus says.

    This does not just command that the service be done, that the head be bowed and the hands engaged in a humble position of nurture and practical care, but that we allow it to be done for us as well.  That is, I think, something especially urgent and necessary to see in light of the American/Puritan ideals of self-sufficiency and weakness-avoidant sense of pride.  Jesus asks us to put on our aprons, to be willing to wash the dirt from others (perhaps especially to those closest to us, those who know our weaknesses as well as our charms?), and he asks us to sit down, to allow others to do the same for us. 

    This has potential for real intimacy. Scary intimacy.  Beautiful intimacy.  Perhaps it is this intimacy that might lead us to truth about ourselves and God, and hopefully, to holiness.

     

     

  • holy week: Wednesday

     

     

    [crickets chirp]

     

     

     

     

     

     

Wednesday, 04 April 2012

  • holy week: Tuesday

     

    These last two days, in parts, I watched Into Great Silence (a documentary about silent monks, in a monastery in the French Alps). Truly, it was beautifully done. And a glimpse into something so easily forgotten, and therefore unpracticed, outside of monastic-like living.  The lack of dialogue and music and overall sound was the soundtrack to what else there is to pay attention to. The touch and smell and taste and sight of all else seems much louder, and suddenly, real.  

    It reminds me that there is much to living. Much to being alive.

    And noticing all that there is, even for a brief time, seems to sharpen the outlines--as in the moment of waiting, while turning the lenses of the camera, looking, blurring, and, finally, finding.  

    I know:

    it   is   so

    hard.

     

    To sit.

     

    STILL.  

     

    But, you must.          You must.  

     

    It is necessary for all of you to live, for all of your createdness to know itself as created.  Breathing, feeling, blinking, seeing,

    listening. 

     

    Practice with this short clip (in full screen mode. duh.):

     

     

     

     

     

Monday, 02 April 2012

  • holy week: Monday

     

    This morning, I am reminded of my favorite poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, a German poet who's poetry assists my soul, consistently, in meeting with God. 

     

    The Man Watching

     

    I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
    so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
    that a storm is coming,
    and I hear the far-off fields say things
    I can't bear without a friend,
    I can't love without a sister

    The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
    across the woods and across time,
    and the world looks as if it had no age:
    the landscape like a line in the psalm book,
    is seriousness and weight and eternity.

    What we choose to fight is so tiny!
    What fights us is so great!
    If only we would let ourselves be dominated
    as things do by some immense storm,
    we would become strong too, and not need names.

    When we win it's with small things,
    and the triumph itself makes us small.
    What is extraordinary and eternal
    does not want to be bent by us.
    I mean the Angel who appeared
    to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
    when the wrestler's sinews
    grew long like metal strings,
    he felt them under his fingers
    like chords of deep music.

    Whoever was beaten by this Angel
    (who often simply declined the fight)
    went away proud and strengthened
    and great from that harsh hand,
    that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
    Winning does not tempt that man.
    This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
    by constantly greater beings.

    Translated by Robert Bly

     

    I am reminded of it as I reflect on my mind/body/heart/soul as a temple, one in which the Spirit of God lives and renews me, one that I would like to resemble more and more that "temple of prayer" that Jesus so fiercely protected in an act of passion 2000 years ago.

    Why does Rilke's poem remind me of that temple? Because, as I sit longer with the idea of letting the Good reside in me, I become aware of how much UnGood has already been taking residence there, in the shadows and corners, in the unswept rooms so often forgotten. Truthfully, I tense at the idea of letting the living God live.  Here. I know there will be struggle between both my desires for destruction and my desires for Life. Considering that I might actually matter enough to care for what resides here, in me, isn't something that pacifies, but rather unnerves.  That temple of prayer, as I mentioned, might just come through storm and furry and "by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings."

    So, next on my list: memorize, internalize and take in to my temple the reality of this poem. 

    (more poetry by Rilke)

Sunday, 01 April 2012

  • palm sunday and donkey king

     

    I didn't realize it until this Sunday, (my very first, thoughtful entrance into Holy Week) but the whole Jesus-on-a-donkey image is a little, well, ridiculous.  And you can't help but feel a little...mocked...when you read the prophecy of it, from Zechariah. That is, if you are really reading it (and not just copy and pasting your "I know this verse from all Easters past" placeholder about Jesus and kingship and all-that-jazz).  

    Anyway, it came in the daily email I subscribe to, from Richard Rohr. I was excited to begin this Palm Sunday with some time to reflect on whatever it is I'm supposed to reflect on to make me more...believing. I was, truly, a little stunned by the humor I found in the meditation, which comes from Zechariah 9:9. I'm going to write it differently, for effect:  

     

    Rejoice heart and soul, daughter of Zion! Shout with gladness, daughter of Jerusalem! See now, your king comes to you; he is victorious, he is triumphant, humble and riding on...

    [drumroll, please]

                            a donkey.

    (On a colt, the foal of a donkey).

      

    I mean, think of it.  This proclamation from this prophet, drumming up excitement about some future coming of a king.  One that is victorious, triumphant and (actually) humble.  Oh, and, by the way, he'll be riding on a donkey.  Like. As strange as that is to picture in today's world of limousines, Air Force One and the near-extinction of the monarchy, it had to have been just as, if not bafflingly, strange to those who know how a king should enter, should conquer, should rule. 

    This foretelling and its actual fulfillment (since it, yeah, happened, just as he said it would) seems nonchalantly counter-(humanPower)culture.  

    Could this be the awful truth of it? That the one whom we've long awaited and hoped for will not control us, not control others, not take over with all power and fierce command?  Will not usher us into his safe, protected kingdom of high fortress walls and multitudes of soldiers, armed and ready for the destruction of all opposing forces?  Will not reassure us that, indeed, having more power than (and over) another is what makes the world go round?  

     

    Oh, we are ruined. 

     

     

Tuesday, 27 March 2012

Friday, 16 March 2012

  • a simple poem

     

    When I read this from The Writer's Almanac this morning, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was like turning to a page in my journal. 

     

    Prayer  


    Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important
    calls for my attention--the drugstore, the beauty products, the luggage

    I need to buy for the trip.
    Even now I can hardly sit here

    among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage trucks outside
    already screeching and banging.

    The mystics say you are as close as my own breath.
    Why do I flee from you?

    My days and nights pour through me like complaints
    and become a story I forgot to tell.

    Help me. Even as I write these words I am planning
    to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence.



    by Marie Howe, from The Kingdom of Ordinary Time. (c) W. W. Norton & Company, 2008.

     

    I mean, it's not the best poem I've ever read, in terms of fresh diction* and surprising word play, but it gets me.

     

     

    *a quote borrowed from the one and only Hougen and being in her writing classes

Top Tags

[no tags]

beckam

  • Visit beckam's Xanga Site
    • Name: Becky
    • Location: St. Paul, United States
    • Gender: Female
    • Member Since: 2/6/2005

About Me

  • and then I remind myself: I am not in control, but at least I am free.

Archives

Don't worry - your calendar is here… to see it in action just click "Save" above and refresh the page.

Groups

[no groups]

Pulse

beckam has no pulse!...

Recommended

[no recommendations]