What’s been wearing death clothes in a life can get up and walk, what we’ve felt as wounds, by His wounds, are being healed, what’s being burnt to ashes will birth beauty. Ashes are always the papery birth announcement of beauty rising. – Ann Voskamp
http://www.aholyexperience.com
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If you break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields
By Major John McCrae – 1915 – Boezinge
Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me
Happy Easter!!!
Passion is a kind of waiting – waiting for what other people are going to do. Jesus went to Jerusalem to announce the good news to the people of that city. And Jesus knew that he was going to put a choice before them: Will you be my disciple, or will you be my executioner? There is no middle ground here. Jesus went to Jerusalem to put people in a situation where they had to say “Yes” or “No”. That is the great drama of Jesus’ passion: he had to wait for their response. What would they do? Betray him or follow him?
In a way, his agony is not simply the agony of approaching death. It is also the agony of being out of control and of having to wait. It is the agony of a God who depends on us to decide how to live out the divine presence among us. It is the agony of the God who, in a very mysterious way, allows us to decide how God will be God. Here we glimpse the mystery of God’s incarnation. God became human not only to act among us but also to be the recipient of our responses.
. . . And that is the mystery of Jesus’ love. Jesus in his passion is the one who waits for our response. Precisely in that waiting the intensity of his love and God’s is revealed to us.
Henri Nouwen
http://www.henrinouwen.org
I cast my suffering away and bind it onto you—
or so I think.
But pain is a thick cord, a sticky strand,
a thread spun deep within that does not break.
The web, once woven, only joins.
Every act of cruelty or blame, every thought
that someone deserves some pain,
every permission given for one to suffer
for another, secretes another thread,
a stronger cord, and weaves a thicker web.
I cast the lines, and they wholly bind me.
Anger winds me in its sheets.
I am matted together in one mass
with all whom I have rejected or hurt.
I am covered in my own life-sucking cocoon,
unable to move, to breathe, to imagine,
doomed never to change from life into life —
until, because we are wrapped together,
I see my victim, my neighbor as myself,
and in the burning anguish of my seeing
dissolve the binding ropes, and then
come out, so fragile and small,
and willing to be wounded,
finally free.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
Strange to realize
on our very worst day of life
someone else is having their very best.
Every death
is countered with birth.
Every grieving tear
with belly laughter.
Our weakest moments
are also our strongest.
Our greatest challenge of faith or doubt
is when true faith is finally began.
The deepest mysteries come clear
as we accept what we don’t know.
On the night we see the stars fall
the sun is rising on the other side of the world.
The human spirit cannot be conquered
we rise from ashes again with each burning.
Tides come in
as tides go out.
With every broken heart
there is an answering new moment of love.
For every first kiss
a final slamming of the door –
figuratively or literally.
For every threshold we cross
we must cross again in a new moment.
We each have moments of glory
moments of defeat.
Worry is the paper tiger
which strips our moments of joy.
Illusions of control hide behind our eyes
always revealed to be a waste of our precious resources.
There is a time for every season.
In all we are to bring the sacrifice of praise.
It is the amazing hat-trick to the healing of our wounds
that in every single circumstance
we stand in the truth of that moment
and we give thanks.
AL 1/18/14
I part the out thrusting branches
And come in beneath the blessed and the blessing trees.
Though I am silent
There is singing around me.
Though I am dark
There is vision around me.
Though I am heavy
There is flight around me.
– Wendell Berry
—-
I am heavy
Stepping with sand bag feet
Slow
Hello life
In this dark day
I look for beauty
It’s always there
I wonder if I would have jumped or gone back to die
If I had really known how hard it would be
On and on
Do I really believe it will ever get better?
No answer comes
I move away from the question
I made my choice
I go curl up
In the Legacy Garden
On the round plaque with Wendell Berry’s words of understanding
Underneath the gondola’s painted ever-green leaves
– There should be a raven
Who cares if someone sees me?
AL 12/3/12
A year
It’s been a year since that day
When I ran out of light,
ran out of being able to choose.
I arrived inside the pitch black –
The dark night of the soul,
as I have read it called since.
That day I lay on Wendell Berry’s words,
unable to see, or seek, hope,
I surrendered –
Into Thy hands I commit my spirit.
The words branded themselves on my soul.
A few months later I found more words from Wendall Berry about darkness. (See graphic below)
I cried and grieved,
absorbed huge, long-standing grief-icebergs.
I have thought, and sought,
to understand the events of that day
for the past year –
It has definitely change the chemistry,
even the very shape of my soul.
The easiest, yet still complicated, way to describe it is,
That day the seed went into the ground –
and died.
As I cross the year mark,
I do feel a few young sprouts of new life.
Green tender life
stirring,
beginning to push through towards sunlight.
Very young and shy.
The old husk still sits under 12 inches of dirt
Dead
Split open
Burned to ash
composting back into the soil
Some days the wind blows in the wrong direction
and the smell can be overwhelming.
That day, a year ago now,
God picked me up
and placed me tenderly in His boat.
(Yes, God was there.
As well as angels
and screaming demons)
There I remain –
and will.
Unless I am called out,
by Jesus,
to walk on the water
with him by my side.
I am His alone.
Now I truly understand the words
Of Paul the Apostle,
For me to live is Christ
to die is gain.
AL 12/03/13
In the beginning…the earth was a formless void
and darkness covered the face of the deep.
God breathed deeply over the face of the waters.
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
—Genesis 1.1-3
By the tender mercies of our God,
the dawn will rise upon us from above,
to give light to those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the ways of peace.
— Luke 1.78-79
It is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.
For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers;
the night is far gone, the day is near.
Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
— Romans 13.11-12
In the darkness, in the chaos, God whispers.
The light of new creation rises slowly.
The dawn of a new world blossoms, rising silently
throughout the universe, and within you.
Your soul is the color of the sky before the dawn.
God is coming in a new way.
Open yourself.
Let the light unfold in you.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
Today is a new day. I will rejoice and be glad I am still here.
I had fainted,
unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Wait on the Lord : be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart:
wait, I say, on the Lord.
– Psalms 27:13, 14
I’m not sure if I am standing
I feel faint and dizzy
the room spins,
as the world tilts,
as death hangs out in the dining room
shuffling papers on the table,
the word
contagious
sits in the air heavy,
smelling like the nightly skunk visits in the yard.
This mother and son hang out in beds
as I witness their daily fading.
The land of the living feels very far away.
I want to run.
I want to seek fun –
people and activities.
I want to walk in sunshine and breathe fresh air.
How can I have courage at a time like this?
How can I wait?
How can I wait for God?
How can I know the strength will come?
How can I know this will turn out for good?
How can I trust, what I cannot do on my own,
I can do through waiting,
getting myself out of the way,
so my mighty God can do it for me?
I have seen many things of God before now.
I have seen countless miracles.
My God has been faithful.
I have never been abandoned.
I am sure of God’s goodness.
I know Love beyond measure.
There have been times I could not wait,
I remember them well,
they turned out badly.
I will wait,
I will see the goodness of my Lord…
again…and again…and again.
Everything is grace.
God goes before me,
and so, having done all I can,
I stand,
I wait,
I serve,
knees knocking
hands shaking,
smiling watery,
way too woozy to walk.
This, my friends, I have realized,
is, truly, the only way to allow God to show up,
this IS faith and courage,
(if I can do anything myself, then I don’t need God –
and I won’t see God).
Yes, this what the battle looks like,
on any given day
for warriors of the light.
AL 9/25/13
The Day I Die
by Krista Lukas
will be a Saturday or a Tuesday, maybe.
A day with a weather forecast,
a high and a low. There will be news:
a scandal, a disaster, some good
deed. The mail will come. People
will walk their dogs.
The day I die will be a certain
day, a square on a calendar page
to be flipped up and pinned
at the end of the month. It may be August
or November; school will be out or in;
somebody will have to catch a plane.
There will be messages, bills to pay,
things left undone. It will be a day
like today, or tomorrow—a date
I might note with a reminder, an appointment,
or nothing at all.
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/
__________________________________________
When Death Comes
by Mary Oliver
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/mary_oliver/poems
_______________________________________
In the End
by Tara Mohr
In the end
you won’t be known
for the things you did,
or what you built,
or what you said.
You won’t even be known
for the love given
or the hearts saved,
because in the end you won’t be known.
You won’t be asked, by a vast creator full of light:
What did you do to be known?
You will be asked: Did you know it,
this place, this journey?
What there is to know can’t be written.
Something between the crispness of air
and the glint in her eye
and the texture of the orange peel.
What you’ll want a thousand years from now is this:
a memory that beats like a heart—
a travel memory, of what it was to walk here,
alive and warm and textured within.
Sweet brightness, aliveness, take-me-now-ness that is life.
You are here to pay attention. That is enough.
www.taramohr.com
twitter: @tarasophia
_____________________________________
The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean–
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down–
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
life: acoustic & amplified 