Arisen 2017

Ask me what's wrong. It's easy to tell you. The slow burns of disappointments and frustrations and the sharp intrusions of unexpected pain and news---they are easily cataloged and discussed.

Harder, much harder, to tell you what's good, holy, joyful. It becomes a fearful thing to express. We will make fun of the happy-making things in an ordinary day. They get dismissed as trite.


It has become trite, facile, naive to believe in the Christian story. I am a product of an academic understanding and exploration of the faith and I know the ways other such people can be dismissive.

One of the most joyful people I ever knew, also an academic, often described herself this way: "I'm nothing if not trite." She was also one of the few people I've personally known to deeply dive into the suffering of the world. She suffered with it. With us. She understood and practiced compassion in a way for which I've yet to find the strength. Or the vulnerability.

I believe in resurrection. She trusted  resurrection. 

I can list the things that bring me joy and I might fumble around for the words to explain how this is resurrection. Anyone who has experienced the pounding absence of a loved one, a dead loved one, can tell you how hollow those things sound.

And yet, most of us beaten down by grief will also eventually laugh again.

This is not reportage. This is witness.

Christ is arisen. Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia! Alleluia!

Holy 2017

Her son was dead and she wished it weren't the Sabbath. Work would take her mind off it.

Sitting there, "resting," all she could think about was the image of her son, beaten, bloody, dying on that cross. She shakes her head in bitter comfort that he died quicker than most.

She wasn't even sure where she was. His friends were milling around. The women were making plans to care for the body the next day; she couldn't decide if she would join them. The men were doing what men do, fretting, vowing to protect her, as if any of them had power to do anything. The one keeps picking up and setting down a sword. She can't help but think that old fisherman looks like a little boy, playing at war. Reckless, unskilled---he'd be lucky to be run through with a Roman sword rather than captured and hanged like her son.

"Put that thing away, Peter!" Her voice had an edge sharper than his sword. She didn't mean to be that angry, but he obeyed. Being the mother of his dead teacher gave her some authority, it seemed. Good. Someone had to keep their head around here. "I never heard him teach you to be a swordsman," she said more softly.

Did it matter, though? What he taught? She hoped so. She hoped everything she and Joseph went through wasn't for nothing. After all she and her husband had seen and heard, surely this wouldn't be the end of her son.

The sun was setting. The men were getting more anxious as the darkness fell, but the women were making their pallets for sleep. They wouldn't break Sabbath by preparing the ointments and perfumes so they would get up early.

She herself also went to her pallet. Let the men fret. She would sleep. Tomorrow she would find work for her hands. That would get her through the grief, as it had through every grief she'd known. Her hands itched to knead some dough. She fell asleep having decided on making bread in the morning, something with leaven.

Good 2017

You loved without letting us off the hook.

That's what got you hanged, really.

You couldn't just support us no matter what, couldn't let us enjoy our power and wealth without noticing, without pointing out that there people all around us suffering want.

That really made us angry.

And yet, you really loved us. You met with us at night when meeting with you in daylight felt dangerous. You healed us, our family, our lovers. You had compassion, even when we tore the roof off to get to you.

You taught us that such love and compassion was true wisdom.

Honestly, as messiahs go, you were kind of a disappointment. We wanted a little more fire. You could have stood to have a little less courage and little more sensible fear. Strategy.

Remember how we cheered and laughed when you let the scribes and pharisees have it? Whitewashed tombs! That was a good one!

But you were no good at building a coalition behind you. Herod found a way to work with the Romans. You needed a sponsor. Some of us think that if you'd gotten to Pilate first, he could have been brought around to protecting us.

But you couldn't do it. So there you are, on a cross. We don't know what to do next. We worry they're going to come after us now.

All this while you're up there, letting everyone off the hook because they don't know what they're doing.

Great time to start, Jesus.

Great time to start.

Maundy 2017

The ever new commandment: love one another, just as I have loved you . . .

I pray help me love better and before I reach amen I think if all the ways I will not.

I'm going to fall asleep in the garden while you sweat blood.

I'm going to betray you, your fate sealed with a kiss.

Over and over and still you come back.

Random thought passes by: This is why we killed you at 33 and I'm still alive at 53.

Love one another, you said. Ever new to the recalcitrant, recidivist heart.

Palms 2017

I've been thinking about enemies. For the maybe the first time in my life, I'm seeing I have some.

I've been thinking about loving them. For maybe the first time, I'm seeing the depth of that challenge.

Jesus rode a donkey into a city where he knew powerful people wanted to kill him. They'd tried before.

Lord, I want that courage.