Pieces of Coloured Glass - The Empty Stable

 

 

And in that region, there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy, which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.  (Luke 2:8­-12)

Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again. Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self­-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of humankind. If holiness and the awful power and majesty of God were present in this least auspicious of all events, this birth of a peasant's child, then there is no place or time so lowly and earthbound but that holiness can be present there too. And this means that we are never safe, that there is no place where we can hide from God, no place where we are safe from his power to break in two and recreate the human heart, because it is just where he seems most helpless that he is most strong, and just where we least expect him that he comes most fully.                        

                       - Frederick Buechner, “The Face in the Sky,” from The Hungering Dark

 

Reflection: The Empty Stable. The Empty Tomb.

The tradition of the church is that Easter is the most holy of holy days in the Christian year. It is, after all, the day of the empty tomb, the day on which we commemorate and celebrate the sign that Christ has conquered death, and that we too, through him, are saved, redeemed. The empty tomb symbolizes the grace of God revealed ultimately through the death of Jesus, freely accepted on behalf of all, and through his resurrection from the dead. Thus, those of us who will admit that we look forward more to Christmas than Easter may feel a little guilty. Is it because we know that, before we arrive at the empty tomb, we must walk the bleak midwinter road of Lent? That before we get to the Resurrection, we must live the pain, the horror of Holy Thursday and Good Friday with Christ once again? Are we drawn more to Christmas because of family gatherings and even (gasp!) because we enjoy giving and receiving gifts? Does all of this mean we are spiritually underdeveloped or deficient in some way?

I’m beginning to wonder about this. Maybe the intuitive, almost gravitational pull we feel toward Christmas, toward the empty stable, is spiritually truer than we have been led to believe. For in being drawn to the empty stable so strongly, aren’t we responding to the magnetism of the most important revelation of God’s grace: That God would abandon the power that created the universe and become incarnate as a man who lived in poverty and obscurity and was executed as a criminal and enemy of the state? Isn’t the empty stable a primary symbol of the very nature and character of God incarnate in Jesus Christ—the crude hut of mud and straw, empty of adornment and fragrant with the smell of earth and animals—the very opposite of all we normally associate with power and glory? Perhaps, just perhaps, we are drawn to the empty stable because we know that it is the stark symbol of a gift, the ultimate gift of God. And maybe we are drawn too by the obvious, simple, critical, and compelling logic: If God had not come to this empty stable—if God had not, in this crude shelter, become incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth—there would have been no revelation in the man and his teachings of the very nature of God, no three-year ministry, no calling of disciples, no threat to the religious and civil powers of the day, no walk to the cross, and no resurrection from the dead. Mightn’t we be drawn to the empty stable because we know, at some deep level, that God’s gracious mercy and the promise of salvation are inextricably entwined, enfleshed both in Jesus’ death and resurrection and in his life and teaching, distilled in his new commandment—that His followers are to love family, friends, neighbours, strangers, and yes, enemies—to love as He loved us? So, as we enter this Advent, maybe we can be gentler with ourselves, and reflect: Perhaps being drawn to Christmas is an intuitive, spiritually true impulse, for there can be no empty tomb without the empty stable.

                                                                                -Pastor Lorraine Street

An Advent Prayer    by the Reverend Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Holy One,
prepare your way in me.

Give me faith, like the stable,
to know your presence within me.

Give me courage, like Mary,
to let your life overwhelm mine.

Give me strength, like Joseph,
to protect what is holy, tender, and growing.

Give me patience, like the shepherds,
to be still and listen.

Give me humility, like the magi,
to kneel before your presence.

Give me trust, like the child,
to let myself be borne into a new world.

Give me joy, like the angels,
to bring good news to the poor.

Give me love, like the manger
to hold Christ within. 

Holy One,
prepare your way in me.

__________________
Copyright © Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light www.unfoldinglight.net                                                       

 

“Pieces of Coloured Glass”

Advent Devotion 2021 written by members of the congregation

 

When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.  - Matthew 16: 2-3

 

The Season of Advent gives people a chance to reflect on ‘this time’ and interpret where and how God is birthed in the world today. This liturgical season focuses on what the coming of  Jesus means now. Through our Advent devotions you are invited to reflect on the participants of the Christmas story and interpret anew the meaning of life, and Christ, in and for your daily life.

 

This year Resurrection was gifted with a homemade stained-glass nativity scene. Each character was lovingly created with pieces of broken coloured glass. Devotions presented on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Dec. 1^st – Jan. 7^th, will introduce you to each of the 15 pieces.

 

Pastors have beautiful stories and carry many beautiful people in their hearts; beautiful when one considers that people are ‘broken pieces of coloured glass.’ All of us understand brokenness, whether experienced as failure, shame, hopelessness, grief, or sadness. Despite brokenness human beings are continually created, ever-changing, healed, restored, -beautiful pieces of glass- trying to live to let the sunshine through. And when pieces of coloured glass come together into community, wholeness is found, just like in a stained-glass window.

 

The beautiful story of this nativity scene is that it was created by Nyborg Sorensen, in New Denmark, NB. Shortly after arriving in my first call (in New Denmark) I went to visit Nyborg and his wife Dorothy. Over the years, I was shown many pieces of stained-glass work, this nativity included. I marveled over the pieces as I ate Danish cookies and enjoyed hot tea in a china mug. After I moved to Halifax, Nyborg and Dorothy left the community they grew up in and moved to Halifax to be closer to their daughter. I started to visit them here. Their daughter brought them to church, sitting on the Windsor St. side just under the stained-glass window. The beauty of the story is that our relationship made the transition easier, for them, and for me too. In their Halifax apartment, the nativity scene was displayed, at least in part, and the tea was just as hot. But then, for a number of years, the pieces did not come out, as the couple moved to a nursing home and there was no room. The family surprised me this summer with beauty I thought was but a memory. Nyborg’s family has gifted us with pieces of broken glass made beautiful through the loving hands of an artist.

 

God of colour and sunshine, you created humans to be as beautiful as coloured pieces of glass that shimmer. Advent is a time of reflection ‘interpreting the signs of the time.’ In this time, we see brokenness in ourselves and in the world. Through this season colour our spirits to let God through our brokenness, to shine as hope, love, peace, and joy. Amen.

----Pastor Kimber

A Microcosm of the Kindom of God - Advent 1

 

 Jer. 33: 14-16; 1 Thes. 3: 9-13; Luke 21: 25-36

 

I am excited to share with you something very beautiful –

a microcosm of the kindom of God.     (show a branch covered in lichen)

 

Jeremiah 33 reads:

The days are surely coming…

I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up …

 

The branch I brought to church with me is dry and dead. It was broken off its tree by heavy winds and torrential rain. It was discarded to rot at the side of the road with other tree debris. The dry stick, bark falling off, reminds me of death and that earthly life comes to an end.  I reflect that life is full of struggle and desperate circumstances. I am ever-more aware that the world is a place of brokenness. I am reminded of the lives of people who are hanging on for dear life.  The days are surely coming … dry wood, broken branches, peeling bark … the day is here!

 

And the day comes – to this world of brokenness, in the midst of debris- it comes with hope and promise.  Of that day, the Gospel of Luke says, stand up and raise your heads because redemption is drawing near. (Lk 21). What does it mean that redemption is drawing near? It sounds too good to be true. Take a look at the branch, what appears dead and broken is encased with beauty and teeming with life.

I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up…

 

Lichen on this branch -any branch- is beautiful. Diverse in colour and texture. It is alive.

Lichen is a composite organism; to be an organism requires a relationship between an algae and a fungus, and usually includes another organism mixed in for good measure.  This lichen is self-sustaining and does not take nutrients from the branch. It is not a parasite. Lichen lives in symbiotic relationship with other creatures; when found on tree bark, it does not hurt the tree in anyway. Lichen on a branch does not signify that a tree is sick or dying; it means that Tree has a companion, a beautiful friend.

 

Luke 21 reads:

 look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So, also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kindom of God is near.

 

The kindom of God  - is near. It is right here on this branch. Lichen is an organism with a symbiosis so intricate and well-balanced that it is considered a self-contained mini ecosystem. It is adaptable, living in most environments – from deserts to arctic tundra-   thriving on all most any surface. It doesn’t take nutrients from others. It lives in relationship – a community of living organisms- and gives beauty to the world. It leads by being the first living creature to grow in areas devastated by disaster, first to bring life after landslides and fire. And it is multi-generational, having a long lifespan – with a constant dedication to a slow and regular growth rate. Lichen is among the oldest living creatures.

 

As the shortest day of the year creeps closer, as the trees have lost most of their leaves, and as temperatures turn colder, we know that winter is coming. It can be a little depressing to bring out our coats and boots, watch it rain for days on end, and prepare for indoor living. It can be depressing to settle in for another season of avoiding large gatherings of people. It can be almost too much to hear more and more unsettling  headlines in the news.

 

I understand why people asked Jesus for signs: signs of hope, signs of freedom, signs of redemption, signs of God coming near, signs of the kindom.

Long nights can make life feel like a dry dead branch…

 

Jesus, as his response was so often, replied with a parable, look at the fig tree… look at Lichen on a branch.

The prophets responded to their warnings of doom, destruction, and judgement with colourful language flourishing with promises of righteousness, justice, blamelessness, wholeness.

 

The parable of a branch covered in lichen, reminds us to not focus on the world as seen through headlines or reported to the -enth degree of brokenness.  We are called to stand up and raise our heads, because redemption is drawing near. Through this Season of Advent look around and be enchanted by beauty that embraces that which appears dead and be awed by places that are teeming with life. Look at Lichen and how it grows – a community that works in relationship to create and be an organism – well-balanced and whole.  This is the kindom of God.

 

And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all…

May God so strengthen your hearts in holiness…     (1 Thes. 3)

Amen.

Reign of Christ: the Great Mosaic of Being

John 18: 33-38 

 We are not here to fit in, be well balanced, or provide exempla for others.  We are here to be eccentric, different, perhaps strange, perhaps merely to add our small piece, our little clunky, chunky selves, to the great mosaic of being. As the gods intended, we are here to become more and more ourselves.  

These words of Jungian analyst Jim Hollis are quoted in Brené Brown’s book, “Dare to Lead: Brave Work, Tough Conversations, Whole Hearts.”

 

I have spent a lot of my lifetime trying to fit in, to be well balanced, to be an example. I have played down or hidden eccentricities, difference, any part of me that could be judged as strange. I believed this was truth, so that I could protect myself from hurtful comments, have friends, be welcomed in social groups, be liked by colleagues, and be hired and kept in jobs.

This truth  - of sameness – status quo- although real lived experience, is it really truth?

 

Jesus’ final words to Pilate, “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Then Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?”

 

World Vision recently held an event titled: ‘The Connected Generation: A Canadian Conversation,” which presented research by the Barnam group of a survey done with 18-35 years. The questions asked young adults about faith, spirituality, purpose, feelings and fears, issues affecting society and the world.

One item arising from the research was that young people are more interested in knowing that the church is good rather than true. 

 

Pilate asked, “What is truth?” What if Pilate had asked, “What is good?”

 

The research went on to discover that truth is not heard in statement of beliefs -so called truths, rather the connected generation experiences truth as performative, in actions – naming action as good.

When taking a walk-through Jesus’ life as described in the Gospels, have you noticed that Jesus didn’t teach a creed or a list of beliefs. Jesus didn’t offer a statement of faith or have the disciples swear to a set of doctrinal theses. Jesus went about living a life where truth was performative: Jesus prayed, studied scripture, healed the sick, cast out demons, raised the dead, confronted power, touched the unclean, welcomed the marginalized, taught by telling stories.

What is truth? … Whatever is good?

 

Jesus does not answer Pilate’s question, “What is truth?”

This week, a colleague, in conversation on this text, suggested that Jesus had no answer because Pilate asked the wrong question.  Pilate was thinking about truth as fact, belief, statement.

The question when looking at Jesus’ life – a life where truth was performative- was to ask, “Who is truth?”  That question changes the preceding dialogue between Jesus and Pilate that asks if Jesus is a king. “Who is truth?” is answered in the actions of Jesus’ life, and yes, a king but not a king as Pilate would have described a king.

 

Who is truth?

This week on the Lutheran calendar is a day to commemorate Jehu Jones.

Jehu Jones was a native of Charleston, South Carolina, and was ordain in 1832 by what was known at the time as the New York Ministerium.  Jones was the first African American Lutheran pastor.

Studying his life, one will note that he is not remembered for truth – as in his statement of faith, the saying of the creed, or holding to Lutheran Confessions, which he did as a Lutheran pastor. He is remembered for Truth lived.

After ordination Jehu went back to South Carolina, commissioned as a missionary to accompany a group of Charlestonians to Liberia. Instead, he was arrested –it was illegal for a free black to re-enter the state of South Carolina after having left. In the face of much difficulty, Jones served in Philadelphia for 20 years as a missionary pastor, forming the first African American Lutheran congregation, St. Paul’s, and constructing a church. He died in 1852, having lived Truth by tirelessly working to improve social welfare for the black community, actively participating in Pennsylvania politics, organizing blacks to sign civil rights petitions.

 

Jehu and Jehu’s life lived out a Lutheran understanding and experience:

God’s grace is abundant and is freely given. God loved the world so much that God dared to enter human life and die – out of love, for love. This unconditional love – that someone, that God- would freely give this gift is beyond comprehension and bigger than a statement of Truth. Once experiencing even a small portion of Truth in action we too are compelled to live Truth performatively too.

 

The church has wasted time describing or pontificating on ‘what’ is truth; making statements of what we believe, what one needs to believe, what God’s will is, what God causes to happen …

 What is truth?, at times rears its ugly head and becomes public outrage, like the pushback to  the truth statements made by the pastor in Amherst around COVID and God’s will …

 and younger Canadians look at the church finding it difficult to use the word ‘good.’

 

This is the Reign of Christ Sunday. It is a Sunday where the church explores the characteristics of Jesus as Christ, who because of love died - performative truth.  Reflecting on Jesus’ life, I could characterize it as a life of brave work, tough conversations, and whole heart (to use part of the title from Brené Brown’s book).

When I feel that something is good and picture what good looks like, when I picture the Reign of Christ, I experience good – Truth- in colour. I see a rainbow, like the double rainbow that stretched across HRM a week ago; bright, vibrant, energized, people excited about it, full of wonder and awe, a shared experience of beauty, gratefulness, connectedness… good. Truth.

Jesus -by his living performative Truth- encouraged the same of the disciples and those he touched- to live by adding their small piece to the great mosaic of being.

The Reign of Christ is a multi-coloured vibrant action-filled church with a purpose of good – not focusing on the “what” but, “who.”

 

Jesus did not answer Pilate’s question because Jesus’ life lived the answer, “who is truth?”

Jesus’ silence to Pilate, is a silence where we are challenged to change our relationship with Truth, where we redirect our living based on the reflection of Jesus’ life where life’s purpose was performative Truth.

Let us answer Jesus’ silence and challenge.

 

Be freed and empowered, to live the Reign of Christ… and remember…

We are not here to fit in, be well balanced, or provide exempla for others.  We are here to be eccentric, different, perhaps strange, perhaps merely to add our small piece, our little clunky, chunky selves, to the great mosaic of being.

Apocalypse: Disturb Us O God

 Daniel 12: 1-3 and Mark 13: 1-8

When I see my God-son there is always an expectation that I will play with him. Often our time includes a reading of a book, or two, or three.  Sometimes he has a whole pile of books from the library.  I love to see what he has chosen from the shelves and which ones he asks me to read with him.

Do you remember the stories you liked to hear in your early years? 

There are so many good tales: quests, fairy tales, happily ever-afters, and lots of superheroes.

There are fantastical Bible stories of an: ark-builder, sea-parter, wall-tumblers, giant-slayer, lion-tamer, strong-man, chariot-rider, whale-survivor, fire-walkers, raisers of the dead.

These stories are bigger picture stories. Stories that delve into emotions, morals, and long term consequences. Even though a story may be about a person, their ethics and actions have repercussions on the whole community. 

 

Our scripture readings this morning are apocalyptic texts, one from Daniel and one from Mark. The stories although effecting individuals are not about an individual; these are bigger picture stories.  Bigger picture stories are those that are epic, full of drama, tribulation, with moments of courage, hope, and consuming large tracks of time. The stories are ones where individual and community ethics and actions effect the whole community.

Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories of our time are a genre of science fiction – many have been written on nuclear holocaust and life on the other side of nuclear fall out; stories of the climate crisis destroying life and those who survive to tell the tale; other stories include apocalypse due to worldwide disease/plague; zombie, or alien invasion; or an AI takeover of humankind.

Such stories are an articulation of wrestling with our existence, as an individual and as humankind. Questions arise about human purpose and the ‘why’ of life. Times of great upheaval and chaos, disasters and circumstances beyond our control, can cause an existential crisis. And it is the reaction to the existential crisis that determines what the future will be.

Philosophers suggest there are two ways of reacting: either society moves toward a more just and egalitarian future, or it descends into conflict, sectarianism and nationalism.  Setiva, an MIT philosophy professor, who teaches a course on the ethics of climate change, describes the choice coming from a sense of how we feel about our own existence as a species, concluding that: “The answer depends very much on whether we respond to crisis like this with grace and compassion and justice, or not.”

Interesting that Setiva uses the word GRACE.  Do we respond to crisis with grace?

 

In a recent article, “COVID-19 and the Apocalypse: Religion and Secular Perspectives,”  Simon Dein, writes:

Pandemics indicate the fragility of life and the world, chaos, engenders paralyzing anxiety that the world is dissolving, a sense of detachment and raises significant issues of meaning resulting in existential crisis.

 

Pandemic and post-pandemic apocalypse; the apocalypse of climate change –

How do we feel about our own existence as a species?

Do we respond with grace … compassion … justice … or not?

 

The apocalyptic texts of Daniel and Mark are full of urgency with commanding language addressed to the individual warning of actions and choices to be made; difficult ethical decisions on matters that will determine life or death, for the individual and for the whole community.

 

This past week F.W. deKlerk died. He was South Africa’s last head of government from the era of white-minority rule. He received a Noble Peace Prize for his work to end apartheid and introduce universal suffrage. Of note he released Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists. He publicly apologized for apartheid’s harmful effects.

 

The end of the Wikipedia article on de Klerk says: “Glad and Blanton stated that de Klerk, along with Mandela, ‘accomplished the rare feat of bringing about systemic revolution through peaceful means.’ His brother noted that de Klerk’s role in South African history was ‘to dismantle more than three centuries of white supremacy’, and that in doing so his was ‘not a role of white surrender, but a role of white conversion to a new role’ in society.”

I share this story because it reflects responding to what should have been an existential crisis from the beginning, with a change of heart and ethic, to respond to the crisis with grace … compassion … justice.  I share this story because it was 300 years of oppression by minority-rule, institutionalized racial segregation and classification, and discrimination. Apocalypse is a time of trial and tribulation, full of calamity, wars, rumours of wars … when in-the-midst-of-it there is the question “will it ever end?” And will there be life?

 

During apartheid, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was a passionate South African anti-apartheid activist. One who took many risks to respond to the crisis of his time and he did so with urgency, an urgency of grace.

Every other week since the beginning of Sept. we have been praying a prayer,

Disturb Us O God,

 attributed to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, adapted from an original prayer by Sir Francis Drake. It’s a prayer that prays well in an apocalyptic time, when facing existential questions, when trying to choose grace … compassion … justice.  It is a prayer that has us look at the long-story, the epic tale, holding hope for generations, to struggle for --- not ourselves: but, rather, change - fulfilment of promises - freedom – redemption – wholeness- life, 300 years from now.

Are your ethics and actions -your existence- consciously living and working for redemption that might not prosper until 300 years down the road?

 

The  words of the prayer, admit that too often we selfishly live in our own story without thought of the future and the whole community. We have been praying:

When our dreams have come true because we sailed to close to the shore …

When we have lost our thirst for the water of life

when, having fallen in love with time, we have ceased to dream of eternity

and in our effort to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim…

This response is anything but grace.

 

I pray that hearing apocalyptic text, living through pandemic, hearing stories of change 300 years in the making – gives you hope to carry you through, to aid you in choosing GRACE as your response to crisis, and to live your story not for yourself, but for the freedom of the earth and its creatures 300 years in the future.

And in praying this prayer may GRACE arise in our ethics and actions – grace that materializes as advocacy, forgiveness, mercy, compassion, reconciliation, restorative justice, healing, peace –

And so, living GRACE, our existence is about

daring more boldly, to venture into wider seas, where storms show God’s mastery,

where losing sight of land,

we shall find the stars.

 

In the name of God who pushes back the horizons of our hopes and invites the brave to follow.  Amen.

Drawn In: Speaking to Compounded Grief

 

Isaiah 25: 6-9

A day is a perfect piece of time/to live a life, /to plant a seed, /to watch the sun go by.

A day starts early, /work to do, /beneath a brand-new sky. / A day brings hope.

 

It was one of those days, a day with lots of time to spare and nowhere to be. It was February and I found myself meandering through a village, where I walked into an interesting shop. There was the aroma of coffee and tea biscuits with herbs and cheese; the displays were curated in an artsy sort of way, with themes and colour and curiousities. There was a little of this and a little of that. There was something for every kind of browser.

That day I was drawn to a children’s book with a black and white and yellow cover: it was graced with Nikki McClure’s simple and expressive drawings throughout, and a poem. Cynthia Rylant begins her book, All in A Day, with the words I started with this morning.

 

A day is a perfect piece of time/to live a life, /to plant a seed, /to watch the sun go by.

A day starts early, /work to do, /beneath a brand-new sky. / A day brings hope.

 

For whatever reason, - the colour, the drawings, the words of the book,- drew me in and  spoke to something deep inside me. I needed the words and drawings of the book at that precise moment of time.

 

I often feel like that as I read the lessons in preparation to preach each Sunday. Sometimes I am even surprised on Sunday morning when the scriptures are read and I hear the texts in a new way – the right words for that precise moment in time. I am even more conscious of the texts chosen and used at funerals and gravesides.  

The truth on that is that I do think of the person who died, their family and friends, but I also think of the words that I will need to hear at that precise moment in time. My heart breaks too.

 

This has been one of those years when grief has caught up to me. What I mean by that is that grief is cumulative; one death lays beside another in the heart, other griefs and losses are tucked in too; and sometimes grief accumulates faster than the heart can heal. What I found the hardest this year is that, when my heart is full of grief, I experience a greater grief. Compounded grief for me is the death of what I know as perpetual optimism and never-ending creativity; two traits that are the very mechanisms that I use to cope with grief.      …

 

Today – this precise moment in time- is important. We are given a gift of time and space to articulate that we have broken hearts, raw and fresh grief, and grieves that linger on. Of all the years in the lectionary readings, this one, talks about tears: God wiping away tears, Jesus weeping at the death of his friend Lazarus. We have been gifted with a moment in time when tears are okay; tears can be shed, shared, and welcomed.

We are also gifted this morning with words -whether in hymn, scripture, or story – meant to draw us in and to speak to the places deep inside us: relaxing the grip of grief and nurturing room for seeds of hope.

 

The passage that we heard from Isaiah draws me with its poetry and its articulation of the griefs and fears of human beings the world over, by not mentioning the places of death and loss, -the fuelers of grief-, but rather, boldly expressing a jubilant counter-possibility.

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich foods, a feast of well-aged wines … God will destroy the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations … God will swallow up death forever … God will wipe away the tears from all faces

In this jubilant counter-possibility, the fears, griefs, and ills of our time are healed:

Hunger, food insecurity, unequitable distribution of resources, war, conflict, refugees, displaced persons, climate change, greed, individualism … gone; swallowed up forever.

 

At first when I hear the words of Isaiah, my heart receives them to speak to what I consider personal grief, to speak words of promise of no more tears, eternal life where all is made right – speaking to the sadness of being without people who meant (mean) a lot to me. Hearing these words in community, with all of you, my grief is mine, but, for the same people and others, you too grieve – part of our grief is shared.

And in the passage of Isaiah, directed at a community of faith, the words penetrate more deeply to sow seeds in the dirt of cumulative grief, and grief that is beyond any one person, griefs born and worn by peoples, nations, and creation through the hands of powers and systems.

 

In this precious moment of time, I pray that something draws you in and speaks to the grief you carry -scripture, story, hymn- the flicker of a candle, the nod of a friend when Christ’s peace is shared; in the breaking of bread; in the offering of prayer; in a tear shed in the safety of this place; in knowing that you are not alone.

 

Your ears, listening to the ramblings of my heart, have eased the grief I bear. Each time I am in this space with you  -praying, reading, hearing, singing, eating, sharing- a little bit of the grief in my heart turns to compost, and seeds of hope planted there grow; waiting for the return of perpetual optimism and never-ending creativity…

until that time, and the time when the fullness of Isaiah’s jubilant counter-possibility is realized, I will live as Cynthia’s book, All in a Day, ends:

This day will soon be over/and it won’t come back again.

So live it well, make it count, / fill it up with you.

The day’s all yours, it’s waiting now … / See what you can do.