Easter

I think there is a very real way in which these people are images of Christ crucified. And if that is true then there is hope for them for they will , as Jesus  said to the man on the cross next to him, ' be with him in paradise'. 
                                                           
Maybe that seems facile. Because we know that sometimes life does not get better and then we wonder if there could be a paradise? 

There are two things I think are worth thinking about here:
                                                         First of all, experience does teach us that paradise exists where love exists. We also know by experience, that we are given the power to love. So... by loving those who are suffering we can make paradise present for them and for us. When we can feed the hungry, visit the sick, free those imprisoned by fear, clothe the poor, educate children and nurse the sick then, I think, paradise is present. Then these people we see here would no longer have to live like this.             

Secondly, by using this power of love starting with those right next to us and spreading out to neighbors and nations so that justice prevails, we won't even need to ask whether paradise exists for we will be 
there in the midst of it.

                        HAPPY 
                       EASTER!

Holy Saturday

 This is from Kahlil Gibran's Jesus the son of man:

When Jesus spoke the whole world was hushed to listen. His words were not for our ears but rather for the elements of which God made this earth.
He spoke to the sea, our vast mother, that gave us birth. He spoke to the mountain, our elder brother whose summit is a promise.
And He spoke to the angels beyond the sea and the mountain to whom we entrusted our dreams ere the clay in us was made hard in the sun.
And still His speech slumbers within our breast like a love-song half forgotten, and sometimes it burns itself through to our memory.
His speech was simple and joyous, and the sound of His voice was like cool water in a land of drought.
Once He raised His hand against the sky, and His fingers were like the branches of a sycamore tree; and He said with a great voice:
“The prophets of old have spoken to you, and your ears are filled with their speech. But I say unto you, empty your ears of what you have heard.”
And these words of Jesus, “But I say unto you,” were not uttered by a man of our race nor of our world; but rather by a host of seraphim marching across the sky of Judea.
Again and yet again He would quote the law and the prophets, and then he would say, “But I say unto you.”
Oh, what burning words, what waves of seas unknown to the shores of our mind, “But I say unto you.”
What stars seeking the darkness of the soul, and what sleepless souls awaiting the dawn.

To tell of the speech of Jesus one must needs have His speech or the echo thereof.
I have neither the speech nor the echo.
I beg you to forgive me for beginning a story that I cannot end. But the end is not yet upon my lips. It is still a love song in the wind. 

---

Good Friday

Now it is Good Friday, the day that began a journey that goes on even today. It is a journey about love and its response to unjust suffering; it is about the ways in which we lash out at those we don't agree with or who in some way threaten us. But it is also about the possibility of healing and the existence of life-giving hope. 

I marvel in the example of the Nelson Mandela's of our world who, in spite of all the evil actions that are inflicted upon them, manage somehow, through faith and courage to rise, not unscathed but yet stronger, more loving, more compassionate. There are too, the unending stream of women in our world who are brutalized, raped , denied humanity and yet rise above all that to be people of life, people who will not be crushed by all that we at our worst can do to one another. I know too, many men and women who born with scars of handicap, who are written off as not being worthy and full human beings, are yet in spite of ridicule, deprivation of rights, or persecution ,they become people alive with dignity and joy.

We do not ever, ever, ever wish suffering. We do not ever, I hope, think it right to inflict suffering. But the sadness is, it exists and I think we can, like Jesus, like the Mandela's of our world, like the brutalized and disenfranchised women of our world, like the mentally and physically disabled of our world, take what is bad and with God's Spirit in our hearts, make it something new, something compassionate, something whole. And then, our world is a better place in which to live.

I think that is what Jesus' crucifixion led to. If God is like Jesus, then we found out that God is not distant and uninvolved. God is  here with us hanging on that cross of terror, giving us the wherewith, not just to endure, but in the end,  to overcome all that is hurtful and dark in a world meant to be loving and care-full and joyful.

Holy Thursday

Today is  what many call Holy Thursday. It is the day in which we remember especially, Jesus' Last supper with his disciples - the men and women who were his closest friends and followers. One of the things he did then which was such a humble and beautiful act of love, was to wash their feet. This is a statue found at Mount Pleasant cemetery in Toronto which beautifully depicts that moment when he washed Peter's feet.

 

Puppets or beloved?

I am currently re-reading 'Love's Endeavor, Love's Expense' by William H. Vanstone. This  book reflects his struggle to understand and to some extent, describe what we mean by God's love. This seemed like a good subject to begin what many people call Holy Week which is all about God's love.

If I may paraphrase, Vanstone suggests three qualities that tell us how God loves. The first quality is that God sets no limits on God's self-giving. All of God is expended for us and and for all creation. Every bit of God (if it is proper to speak in that way) is given to every molecule of creation. Constantly.  The second and third  qualities he says, are that the activity of God's love is both precarious and vulnerable. Basically from this, he is saying that the outcome of God's love is uncertain. Will it be accepted or not? We can accept it or reject it. We are partners in this work of love.We are grown-ups.

What I find so helpful in his pondering - to which I have done very little justice - is that this God makes much more sense to me than the God who controls everything, who has a plan for everyone and who is un-touched by our response. Because if God really is love then because love feels, cares, God is in some sense affected by our response.

But what might all that mean for us? As I understand, it means that we are given the gift to choose; to make of our lives what we can. We are given the gift of the power of God's love to start again, to rebuild. We are given also the gift to endure that which is tragic and suffering and hurtful in our lives when we cannot change it. It seems that God will not make things right in the sense of  zapping things better but will be with us, empowering us with the grace so that we ourselves can make things right or at least,  try and try again until we can move forward.

If this is true then when we say things like 'how can God allow this to happen?' perhaps we can ponder what the whole process of creating something is like, as we can see it with artists, poets, composers. Perhaps the most important thing is that creation is a work in progress and so as with any creative process there will be moments when things go wrong and moments when they go right. 

The implications of the above are that because God does not predetermine the path of creation nor the path that we as individuals take, things that are hard will happen. We will make mistakes. We will hurt one another. We will do evil things. The underlying reality though, is that God's love is there to enable us to move forward toward the continuing redemption of it all if we choose. 

The story of Jesus' death which we remember especially this week is both about creation going wrong and also, at Easter, about creation going right,  being redeemed. It is a story about how God never abandons us however we may feel. It is in fact, a story of awesome love.
I will blog again on Good Friday (Mar. 29) and Easter day (Mar. 31)


 

A Time for peace

This is one of those days when you think finally, that Spring is possible; that it will happen. It is sunny, not exactly warm but not snowy or freezing or unpleasant. So, because it was so lovely I decided to go for a walk in the park on the lake. Clearly, many other people with their dogs and their fishing gear and their families had made the same decision. 

As I walked around enjoying the barren trees, avoiding the mud, and people-watching with great joy, I was filled with such gratitude. That we have such beauty here in this huge and bustling city; that it is free and safe and beautiful is so very special.

As I was sitting on a lovely bench overlooking the lake and pondering what an awesome (literally) gift this is, I began thinking about a book I have just finished reading. It is called *' I shall not Hate' by Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish. Dr Abuelaish is a Palestinian physician who, in 2008 lost his wife to cancer and then only a few months later lost three of his daughters and a niece in an Israeli shelling of his house in the Gaza strip. The title tells you what his response has tried to be; how he has chosen to try to love rather than hate. But what I was particularly thinking about, because his book opens with a scene of him and his family at the beach near Gaza enjoying a brief moment of peace in a land of chaos, was  how the accidents of where we are born are so mysterious; how many of us through no effort on our part are born in safety and without so-called ancient enemies.

Dr Abuelaish's description of life in Gaza, of the suffering and the poverty and the pain is as it is in many other parts of our world: horrible, inhumane, unbearable. Many countries and many peoples are suffering in a way I have no experience even to imagine. So, why can I sit by Lake Ontario in peace and safety while so many others have no lake, no safety, no peace. I do feel as if it lays a heavy responsibility on me to live, to act, in such a way that builds peace and not enmity; that acknowledges that I have no right to what I have but that if I have it I must treasure it and be grateful for it yet be willing to let it go if I am asked. Such a gift means that I need to live my life in such a way that others may have such gifts. I may not be able to do big things but every small act I make can add either to the healing or to the inhumanity of the world. I see that it has to do with the little choices I make.

In some ways, as I was reflecting on this I thought that this leads back to what Thich Nhat Hanh so often reminds us about living in the present moment only and holding everything lightly. But also he reminds us often to let go of labels. This is what he says: *We are separated by labels, by words like Israeli, Palestinian, Buddhist, Jew and Muslim. When we hear one of these words it evokes an image, and we immediately feel alienated from the other group or person...People are caught in these notions and images and they cannot recognize each other as human beings. The practice of peeling away all the labels so that the human being can be revealed is truly a practice for peace.

*I Shall not hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey by Dr Izzeldin Abbuelaish,Vintage Canada, 2010/11
*The Everyday wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh, compiled and edited by Melvin McLeod, Shambhala Press, Boston, 2011  

  

The Scarlet Pimpernel revisited

I love words. And as with most people, over the years I have come to experience their power - for better and for worse. We all know the sorrow and despair of hurtful words and too, the joy and healing of words of love. We know the way words can be twisted and misused; we know words that will clarify and speak truth. We use words carefully or carelessly and we see how powerful they are.

There is one word that particularly appeals to me at this season of the year. It is the word 'delight'. I find this word so beautiful especially when it is used of God. In the scriptures we hear that God delights in us; that God delights in all creation. Delight is about joy I think, and so instead of the God of wrath and judgment that we used to hear about in Lent we should be hearing about this God of joy who delights in all of us.


I believe that Lent and even more, Easter is all about experiencing this word. For God gives us a gift out of delight.  God gives us first, the vulnerable baby - the one we celebrate at Christmas and then there is the man. This man, Jesus,  both shows us how to be human and how to be delight-ful. I am sure that for other religions there are also many reflections of God's delight but for me, I see through Christian eyes so that is what I can speak of.

So when we feel delight, that is a reflection of Jesus' delight. Even in small daily ways we can experience it. When a child does something simple and beautiful, like smile or laugh or play we feel delight. When the sun shines on the tree-tops and turns them orange and makes them glow, we take delight. When we hear a piece of music that transforms our spirits, that too is delightful. 

It also seems to me that there is not a big difference between delight and beauty. Certainly beauty gives us delight and both are Godly. Beauty is what makes our spirits lift. I can recall walking in a field some years ago. It was a perfect summer day, sunny with the enveloping sensation of  the scent of fresh grass and the rustle of trees in the breeze. Suddenly, I looked down towards the edge of the path and saw this tiny, tiny flower, hardly visible in the long grass. I knelt down to examine it and I thought my heart would burst with delight and joy. It was, I now know, a Scarlet Pimpernel. It was exquisitely formed and deep in its center were beautiful shades of yellow and burnt orange contrasting with the scarlet of the flower. There were tiny dots of other color as well and all this beauty hardly visible, rarely seen, but blossoming there in the long summer grass as if it were the most beautiful thing in the world. Perhaps we have all experienced something like this. I hope so.


I guess I am writing about this because that is how I see life. Perhaps we and our world would be a happier place if we knew how to be more aware of the delight all around us; if we took delight in one another and if we trusted that we ourselves are delightful in God's eyes. 

Denzel Washington and Jesus

I am still thinking about the issue of making choices. For some reason this seems to me to be a terrifically important thing to ponder. Why? Maybe because if we think we are just being battered back and forth by other people or other systems' or circumstances will we never become the people we want to become. If we understand that we can have control over our lives, little by little then no matter what happens we will not become victims. We may get battered or betrayed but if we choose, we can remain free.

That aspect of freedom when we choose what we know is right or true or noble was exemplified in a film some of us watched the other night. The film is called "Flight" starring Denzel Washington. Washington's character, a pilot, though in some sense heroic, is also an alcoholic who keeps saying ' I can stop drinking any time I choose'. But he does not stop. At the end of the film he is before a tribunal because it is believed that he was drunk when flying an airplane that crashed. He has denied this but when confronted with the opportunity to blame someone else and get away with it, he finally makes a life-giving choice. He admits that he was indeed drunk. That admission leads to the end of his career, many of his friendships and as well, he heads for a long prison sentence. At the very end of the film we see him speaking to an AA meeting in his prison where he admits to being an alcoholic and even more, says that it is the most freeing choice he has ever made. Though he is in prison, he is finally free in himself.

Another more life-giving example of the freedom of choice is found in the story of Jesus and his temptations. Whatever the truth of the story in historical terms the real issue is that Jesus, fully human as he was, faced life-challenging temptations to misuse his gifts. So the picture is seen in terms of the devil offering various ways for Jesus to use his power to enhance his own agenda and be god in a way that is a betrayal and abuse of God's love. In each case Jesus chooses to reject the kind of power the devil is offering and to choose the way of God. That choice will mean that Jesus is always going to be at risk - people will and do reject him, he can't force people to accept what he says, he can't and won't manipulate people to achieve his ends. Jesus simply does what he believes is right and lives and dies through the consequences.

At the same time I was thinking of a woman I knew years ago. Iris was a beautiful and thoughtful woman who was one of the core people at the l'Arche community where I lived. She had been living in a hostel and we were inviting her to come and live with us. One day after she had spent quite a bit of time with us I asked her if she had decided if she would like to move in. She was quiet for a time and then said, I don't know how to decide, no one has ever taught me how to make a decision. I was totally overwhelmed by this simple statement. But I realize now that it is true, we do need to learn how to make good choices, it is not altogether an innate gift.

So, I guess I am wanting to say that of course making good and life-giving choices is not easy. It requires a certain self-knowledge or at least, the willingness to face myself and it requires courage to live with the consequences. Choices are best made in stillness and that too is something to work towards as Thich Nhat Hanh keeps telling us. But I would guess that most of us have experienced the quiet freedom and peace that came from choices we made that enhanced our journey. 

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