Good Friday

Not everything is blooming.  There is much that still waits for new life to begin. 

Today is Good Friday.  This morning, getting up at 6:00 am in order to go to Morning Prayer, was very difficult.  This body was weary and aching and not willing to cooperate.  I certainly was not standing in judgment of the disciples who couldn't stay away to pray with Jesus, the night he was betrayed. 

Grief weighed heavily on them, along with great fear.  They knew what was coming.  Jesus had talked about it.  They didn't want to know, stayed in denial, slept through Jesus' anguished prayers, ran away or denied him when the moment came of his betrayal and being taken away to be crucified.  We heard the passion story read last Sunday, and this week, those of us immersed in the life of the church, are walking through it in detail. 

Last night people stayed and kept vigil through the early morning hours at the church.  One friend was there by 3:00 am and was still there for Morning Prayer.  

This morning, when we arrived at the church and I walked to my preferred spot to sit, I knelt for a moment of silent prayer as I sometimes do, and then sat back in the pew, looking at the alter.  Woosh...There it was, the altar, stripped and bare, no altar candles, the eternal flame which always (almost) burns in its red glass was extinguished, and the little door on the place where the elements are kept (I know there's a name for this, but I'm still a new Episcopalian, so you'll have to allow me some slack),  was open and the elements gone.  All of it was a poignant reminder of the stark absence of hope those early disciples and the whole world felt that First Good Friday, and that can appear in our lives at any moment.  Tears came, and my heart felt both full of a kind of wonder as well as bereft of the symbols and signs which have come to mean so much to my faith these past months.

It is only temporary.  But as Barbara Crafton talked about in her beautiful essay today: don't try to tell that to someone who has just lost their beloved to death.  The reality, the emptiness, the terrible separation that  feels so permanent, comes with a grief that feels inconsolable.

Many years ago, on a Good Friday (forgive me, if I've told this story a dozen times before), I traveled by subway from Brooklyn to attend a day long service at St. Patrick's Cathedral.  I arrived early, and went exploring and discovered the chapel in the front of the main part of the Cathedral.  As I turned the corner and walked into that space, my senses were suddenly filled with a great perfume, like the scent of the oil that must have filled the room when the woman who anointed Jesus' feet broke open the alabaster jar.  Everywhere you turned, flowers filled the room.  They were for the main part of the Cathedral for Easter, but here in the smaller space, those flowers were an astonishing and glorious gift.  That year had been full of such sadness, as I was teaching in an inner city school, and the stories of the people and the children, hurt my heart. 

Yes, the poor will always be with us, but the extravagance of God's love, poured out, is a precious and lovely anointing on our broken world. 

The Lighter Side

Last night my best friend and I were talking together.  It was a very serious conversation about health and making ends meet and how hard life can be at times.  We did compline together, a practice which both of us appreciate.  My favorite prayer time of the day.  We always remember a few people in our prayers, and I always include the names of those who would probably consider themselves my enemies.  Praying for one's enemies is not an easy action.  Being deliberate about it is the only way it will happen.  For most of us, rehearsing old wrongs is about the only way such names get mentioned at all, which creates more space for more misunderstandings, and for bitterness and anger to grow. 

Finally at the very end, when we normally say amen, I sang it, in silliness, going on and on, until we were both hooting with laughter. 

Staying too long in the pain wears us out.  We all need a break from it.  No matter how messed up life gets, or how hard, laughter is one of the best ways to release the stress, break the tension and store the heaviness away for a while. 

Hope your day has lots of it.  Laughter I mean...

Emptiness

Sometimes we live with a deep loneliness in a certain way, and when someone comes along who understands that place and we don't feel so alone anymore, some of us get clingy.  Okay, plain and simple...this is me.  There are places in me that not many people understand.  We all have those places.  The really spiritually mature folks know about those lonely spots in themselves and are able to stay with the emptiness, so they can be more present to others.  It's a kind of hospitality.  That emptiness makes room for the stranger. 

There are some places, deep within the unconscious of the human heart, where the wind never ceases to howl, and the darkness presses in so closely it feels like a heavy and stifling blanket thrown over us.  Fear lives there.  And the only one who can speak peace to the terror, is the One who calms the chaos and can cast out a whole legion of demons. 

Recently, when I was doing an exercise in which I invited Jesus to work in my subconscious, I opened the door and in my mind's eye, there was a wall of the Grand Canyon.  He was going to have to join one of those caravans that travel to the bottom of the canyon on donkeys to get anything done in there.  It's deep and wide, to say the least.  A dangerous trip for the hardiest.  And at the bottom of the canyon is a raging river that has carved out that canyon over millennia.

When my family visited the Grand Canyon, I was about 12, I wouldn't get out of the car.  I was afraid of heights.  I guess in some ways, not much has changed.  I still don't want to look at the scary stuff.  It's easier to turn away, but it stays with us, even when we run the opposite direction.  Doesn't stop me from running however.

I wrote the poem below this afternoon and felt it would be a good add on.  There are so many layers of things to dig through, and I work so hard to figure it out, and I put up so many defenses, trying to protect myself and all of it wears me out...when I'm not running that is. 

One of my instructors told us that when she got completely befuddled, she would lie down on the earth for at least an hour, and when she got up again, things would be clearer.  Just being out in nature helps me to a degree.

armed with a spoon
determined to dig
through all the layers of earth
of stone
of rubble
of fossils
to end up at the underside
of the earth,
the work
wears us out.

Hacking away at stone
doesn't allow for tenderness
we think
and try to be as hard as iron,
unyielding,
though clearly the spoon is bent.

Lie down you children of earth
against your mother's heart
take in her sweet aroma,
and listen to her song.

Go gently
walk gently
speak gently

wait in the silence,
leave your little spoon
for appropriate things

and the stone will melt away
like wax in summer's heat,

The children
will learn to trust again,
come out to play,
their laughter dancing
in the moonlight. 


  

Opening

Last week was a dickens of a week.  Three major things went wrong, and I went reeling from the blows, one following another.  But despite the catstrophes, and a couple of days in which I sank about as low as I go, feeling like some droopy flowers noticed the other day after a particularly cold night, I find myself opening to the sun again. 

The re-emergence began yesterday morning after my meditation, and then a visit from a friend.  We had lunch at one of my favorite spots and talked about everything EXCEPT the problems.  Well, that may be an exaggeration, but I found myself recovering from that dive into the depths.  My friend brought a bit of sunshine along with her, and offered me a helping hand. 

The temptation after bad news, for many of us, is to isolate when feeling so badly; to shut out the sun, quite literally.  Some of us barricade ourselves in the house, watching melancholy movies, eating badly, feeling terrible!   Some folks turn to drinking or taking drugs.  Some go temporarily insane.  And many want to blame others for the pain.

The good news is that it doesn't have to stay that way, even if it's the way one has always coped.  When hard things happen if we reach out for the help we need; trying to find the thing that is going to lift us up, rather than get tangled up in the self hate, in which some of us have spent so much energy and time, love begins to trickle back into our lives.  Taking responsibility for our own lives is part of the answer.  The other reality, is that as we immersed our lives in community (and for me this is definitely the liturgical life of the church), help comes.  As we open up our hearts, it is amazing the gifts which appear in the form of friends:  both old and new; practical help; happiness about the things which really matter; solutions to catastrophes that don't need to be the end of life as we know it...and are certainly not the measure of one's worth as a person.

Well, it is amazing how "busy-ness" comes to a quick halt without easy transportation.  So I'm diving into creativity to fill the time.  And since I'm trying to organize an Easter brunch, I'm thinking that I will make some cinnamon rolls to freeze...or muffins...or scones?  Oh dear, did I remember to buy butter?  I did.  So I'm set.  And I'm set up to make some cards.  And I'm preparing for a house concert in April.  And I'm working on some new poems.  And a friend and I have been talking about writing a musical together...and that's sitting on the back burner, awaiting attention.  Not to mention that Joy needs a good walk today, and the house could use some cleaning.

There's enough to keep me busy for a while. 

Hope your day is full of sunshine, and that your heart is wide open to it!

C.   

The Crocus!

The Crocus are blooming here in Ashland.  I caught these the other day on a walk with Joy.  Doesn't that sound like a nice title for a blog?  "Walking with Joy!"  There are many lovely things about having a little dog named "Joy." 

I am feeling a bit spoiled here in the Rogue Valley where the weather has been so mild over the winter.  Far different than spending it in New York.  You know when I moved back there some 15 years ago now, the first winter we had 6 feet of snow within a very short time.  I was definitely asking myself "why in the world?" I had moved there.  Now I am back here and though I'm feeling spoiled, I'm happy. 

It's such fun to look for signs of spring.  It's a familiar topic, but somehow it never grows old for me.  The crocus, the daffodils, the robins (who never really left here), the little wildflowers popping back up amidst the grass.  I always loved when the peepers started singing back in upstate New York.  Spring there was in sharp contrast to the harsh winter months. 

Last week this poem came flowing out of me, so I thought I'd share it.

The wind came
raucously dancing
down the hills in a frenzy
of whirls and swirls,
slipping into my pocket,
laying claim to a bag
hurled, wildly away
joining the fun.
And the little black dog
braced herself in the
mighty gusts,
one ear flattened against her head
and the other straight out
pointing off to the west.
The wind came,
raucously dancing,
laughing, her fingers
mussing my hair,
her invisible self,
pressed hard against my body...
Such frivolity
in lent of all seasons!
She seemed to shout her "Alleluias"
without compunction
or regret.

I always remember a spring day in New Testament class during my seminary years.  The professor was talking about the meaning of pneuma, and all the while the wind raged outside the window, sweeping away the dried leaves to who knows where?  And there in that little room I felt spirit rushing through us, whisking away our dried up beliefs, our old ways of thinking and making room for something new.

What old stuff is Spirit wanting to whisk away from your life?

Spring is a grand time of year!

The Evil Eye? or Jealousy, a Tough Love Friend?

Yesterday I was at a bible study about the parable where the landowner pays one group of laborers a penny for the day, working from the beginning of the day, and a second group, working from noon the same wage and then hiring more workers at the end of the day, for the same wage that the laborers who spent the entire day in the scorching heat received. It was an interesting discussion.

In the King James version, there was a phrase that the priest who was leading the discussion brought out several times: the eye of evil. It was in reference to the laborer's jealousy of the last laborers. I re-watched Fiddler on the Roof recently, and Golda tells her daughters not to tempt the evil eye, by bragging too much.

 

This particular parable really isn't about what it seems to be about.  But I've been looking at some issues of jealousy and envy in my own life and the destruction it can cause when we are not honest with ourselves. 

Jealousy can indeed be the eye of evil. Coveting, envy, becoming bitter when someone is more fortunate than ourselves, or maybe not even more fortunate, but perhaps more gifted in special ways, can cause us to act in ways that are destructive. Sometimes in ways that we don't even see ourselves. We become bitter, and then from that bitterness flows all kinds of things that can cause great harm to the people around us, especially the one in particular of whom we are envious.

If you look at the reasons behind spouse abuse, you will always find jealousy in the mix. If you look at the reasons for murder, you will most often find jealousy, envy and greed at the root. If you look at the broken relationships throughout our lives, jealousy and envy can often be found in the reasons that things go awry. Siblings will often having terrible disagreements about certain items in a family and which goes to whom when the parents die.

Jealousy often happens when someone is a gifted writer, musician or artist and receives fame. Julia Cameron in her book The Artist's Way calls jealousy a tough love friend when working on creative recovery. I have found that to be very true. When I am feeling critical and bitter about someone else's success, it is often because I have set my own creative force aside for what I term "practical reasons." Take a look at some of your own feelings of envy. Of whom are you envious? What makes your stomach tie up in knots with jealousy? Could it be that perhaps you simply need to allow yourself the luxury of pursuing the things you love?

There have been people in my life, even myself at times, who have a need to be center stage, the center of attention all the time. When we lose the lime light to someone else, even for a little while, something rises up and that old eye of evil comes to bear. Be cautious! Let's look at our jealousies honestly and even more powerfully, listen to what they have to say. It is important for our well being. When we brush them aside, or refuse to examine those shadowy feelings, they come out sideways wreaking all manner of havoc.

There was a wonderful friendship in my life many years ago that was destroyed by jealousy. The friend would have said the issue was completely my envy of her gifts. There were many complex issues at work, and that very gifted friend had been terribly hurt by people who had been jealous of those special gifts. I became a convenient scapegoat, however I was not innocent in the story either. I own that, and it saddens me to remember a friendship so full of possibility and creativity, ended because we couldn't address those issues honestly within ourselves.

Our jealousies can come out in all sorts of ways.  Sometimes we can patronize, stereotype or discredit the person of whom we are envious.  Sometimes we spread rumors about them, gossiping and focusing on their weaknesses..  It is interesting behavior.  And it can cause great harm...especially when one holds power.  Channeling and using that power to build others up is our calling.  It is always to make room for others and the special gifts they bring.  And when we ourselves have gifts to bring, it is important that we make room for those to shine as well.  After all, we were created to hold God's glory.  Let's do our best not to leave stains on each other because of the evil eye!  Let's listen to what our envy has to say and give ourselves the gift of allowing ourselves to be creative, to have abundance flow through our lives, and most of all, to remember that we are deeply and wonderfully loved.

Eternal and Loving God, give us eyes to see the truth about ourselves. Give us ears to hear when our own insecurities are getting in the way of your Spirit's flow. Help us to listen and to hear the whispers of our own hearts, our own longings and desires. And help us to know that the things for which we most yearn, have a place in your plan. You delight in giving us the desires of our hearts. You take great joy in seeing us shine with your glory. Give us a spirit of humility which can make room for other people and their wonderful gifts, even as we open ourselves to the source of all creativity and allow you to flow through us. May it be so!