The Praying Life

Spring was coming, maybe. A man much of the world will declare is God is making his way inexorably into death. He is going to do that ordinary thing people do every day. He is going to suffer and die.  What makes this different is that it is God who is doing this and that God overcomes the sting of it all by being God, by being the One who attains victory not by escaping evil or by beating it to a pulp, but by surrendering to it and going right through the heart of it while remaining God.

As we begin the spiritual journey we relate to the Holy as it is revealed through the created order and experienced through our will, intellect and senses. Yet Jesus and the saints tell us there is more to the spiritual life than meets the eye or satisfies our senses. Just what this might be is hard to describe.  Some call it unknowing, the worship of spirit and truth, being born again in the spirit, or, simply, faith. Though it was the miracles that brought out the crowds, Jesus repeatedly said that was not why he had come. And, further, he praised those whose trust in him came not from facts and objective data, but from the more obscure and intangible certainty of faith. However it is described, there appears to be a way to be with God that transcends the limitations of ordinary human experience. Yet it is not in itself extraordinary. It does not involve visions, ecstasies or any kind of spiritual fireworks.  It is a more refined and subtle, deeper being with God.

As we watch  Jesus walking toward the cross, we want to call out. “Don’t do it. Don’t go that way.  And for heaven’s sake, don’t ask us to do it too.”

But he, who has set his face like flint will not hide from the insult and spitting. No, the amazing claim is that this grey day, this aging body, this meager life houses glory. And our reluctant following after Jesus is grounded in the slim hope that somehow, some way this is true.

Spring doesn’t come from some far distant place like an eagerly awaited guest bringing exotic presents. Spring recoils, bounces up from the heart of winter and jiggles before us like a jack in the box. The joke is on us. We strain to turn the crank that sets free joy and just when our guard is down and we think life is only a meaningless turning to an idiotic tune, out pops Jesus winking his eye. “Now, die!” he says. We, who thought we were chasing joy and were hot on its trail find ourselves swallowed up by life and dwelling in the inner parts of the God who creates joy.

 We give names to Truth. We compose prayers, and rituals. We sew up little suits for Truth to wear. Over time Truth grows beyond the suits. Its legs stretch below the pant cuffs. Shirt sleeves ride up to the elbows. We try to stuff Truth back in its ripped clothes. We sew patches here and there. We get into fights about the right color of patches. We pay more attention to the clothes than to Truth.

Truth condescends to wear the forms we give it only briefly. Jesus bursts the wineskin of the tomb we called death. The church shudders, draws in its breath and exhales, bursting its seams. Some panic. Some become weary and simply turn away. When Truth as we have known and cherished it begins to grow beyond the forms which have mediated it for us; i.e. language, institutions, rituals – we may feel betrayed, resentful, angry or lost.

Here is a spare, bare love. All that is left is a man walking alone carrying what will kill him, the merciless weight of mortality. Here is only a naked soul surrendered to God, slung from the pillar of its own predicament.  If God could enter into our humanity with humble love, can it be too much for us to do the same? There is no other way into the Realm of Love Here this is what is so:  we all screw up. We all are limited and frail. And we can rejoice because we do not have to lie about it anymore.

Spring tenses in the roots of the pear tree. And all the creatures and mortals who were ever carried off in the teeth of jealousy or simply in the way of things, all innocence defiled, all vulnerability exploited sink with a sigh into a white dawn that stretches like a shroud wound round the world. “Come follow me,” the Dawn whispers. And we are all invited to take another step into that place beyond knowing, beyond feeling where everything really is all right.

Excerpts from Chapter 28 in Letters from the Holy Ground – Seeing God Where You Are
by Loretta Ross (-Gotta)

Read the whole chapter and more here

But standing by the cross of Jesus was his mother…
When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near,
he said to his mother, “Woman behold your son!”
Then he said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!”   John 19:25-27

It was Valentine’s Day.  She held his limp body across her knees, as though she could rock a full grown man.  His head rolled back against her shoulder, his throat bared to heaven’s jaw.  She reached for his torn, red smeared hand.  Did she remember the valentines he had made for her…the way his tiny hand gripped her finger, and the dear sounds he made when he nuzzled her breast?  Did she remember the valentine gifts…the pretty rocks he brought her, the bird feather, the ripe olive, shiny and black?

It was Valentine’s Day. And there on the hill called Skull she held her Valentine and sang him a love song, a lullaby.  It had no words, but was a mixture of the sound of angels’ wings, the smell of frankincense, and the taste of dust and blood.  She looked at his eyes, the muscles of his chest, the strong sweep of his thighs, and thought of how divinity had swelled within her, of how she grew big and awkward as she puffed up the hills of Nazareth.  My, it seemed only yesterday.  She thought of him moving within her and of his birthing out of the dark pain.  And she remembered how she felt that she could not bear his sweetness.

It was Valentine’s Day.  He lay slumped on her lap like a great heavy mail sack stuffed with the cards and letters of creation’s lovelorn.  They spilled from him with the blood.  “Save me.  Heal me.  Help me.  Love me.  Save me.  Heal me.  Help me.  Love me.”  Over and over the messages were the same.  Some were written in the scraggly script of the old, some in the sprawling letters of the very young, some on the finest stationary.  Others were on scraps of newspaper, prison walls, and sheets from hospital beds.  Some were stamped out in the snow, and some were imprinted on faces, especially around the eyes and mouth.  “Save me.  Heal me.  Help me.  Love me.”

It was Valentine’s Day.  She sat there with God on her lap,holiness in a heap.  From all appearances the love affair between God and creation had gone terribly awry.  The Valentine sent to us had been trampled, torn, spit upon, and rejected.

She held her Valentine and her heart broke, and he, broken for her, for us, allowed himself to be held.  And holding him she held all the others spilling from him, the whole aching lonely hearts club. And in that moment she became a Valentine herself sent from Love to be Love.

Those who follow God’s ragged Valentine, Jesus, get their hearts broken over and over.  For Christ dwells in them, swells in love, and bursts their hearts with compassion. Such are the lovesick fools who hold creation’s broken ones.  Such are the lovers who mother God’s children and in their mothering discover their own brokenness is mended.

It was Valentine’s Day.  Some will come to call it Good Friday.  It might even be fitting to call it Mother’s Day.  But calling it Valentine’s Day helps me remember what love is all about.

This piece is from a collection of monologues and reader’s dramas I wrote a number of years ago titled Blessed Are the Poor. 

 This post first published Feb 12, 2009

Hello,

Are plans for Christmas and the New Year weighing you down?
Stop.
Take a deep breath, and again … Right
here is the glory:

The whole journey is about embracing our weakness, failure, and vulnerability like Mary held the helpless baby close to her heart with overflowing love.