“Love so amazing”

                                  

“What wondrous love is this…”

                                                        

 “Sorrow and love  

flow mingled down…

Love so amazing, so divine,

                         

                   

Demands my soul, my life, my all.”

                                

May you journey fully, completely

with the Holy One, the whole one, this week,

moving every closer to the Fullest Gift of Love Possible.

 

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Lent in the Incarnational Form ~ as in muscles and ligaments, fascia and connective tissue

I received an email response to my previous post that reminded me of a very earthy Ash Wednesday experience.

Five years ago I was serving First Presbyterian Church of Cadillac and on Ash Wednesday Paul and I led the Ash Wednesday Service together.  After the others had come forward we offered the imposition of ashes to each other.  When he dipped his finger in the bowl he ended up with a large clump of ashes.  Try as he may to make just a cross on my forehead the whole clump fell apart and I ended up with ashes on my glasses, nose and forehead, perhaps looking more like a raccoon than an Ash Wednesday worshipper.  And try as we may, we couldn’t quite stifle our chuckles.   This was my invitation to a very incarnational Lent.

I had been experiencing leg pain while sitting but as Lent started the pain got worse and within 10 days I was off work.  I half jokingly said that I gave up church for Lent ~ a peculiar predicament for a pastor.  As Paul reminded me that was 5 years ago.   This 5 year journey has taken me down paths I couldn’t have imagined: struggling to receive disability benefits as pain is difficult to document; moving to a new community and creating a new and extended network of support; ending my marriage and claiming my new life; leaning into the lessons of living with chronic pain and its limitations ~ all the while discovering the endless ways that God provides: the love and care of family, friends, and the wider community of saints, deepening faith, layers of trust and healing, opportunities to peel away who I am not and embrace who I am.  Lent was, and continues to be, a physical experience linked closely to pain. 

Three years ago, after ranting and raving in my journal about pain, the words below found their way to my page.  I shared these words before but since pain has many faces: physical, emotional, spiritual, relational, environmental, communal, global ~ I still ask these questions:

                                         

Can I honor this pain?

Can I dare call it sacred

     and believe that You are

     right in the midst of it?

Are You inviting me to call it holy

     and receive it with compassion?

     To know this pain, like all other pain,

     is on the cross

     because of Your unending love for all?

Does redemption, healing

     come by entering the pain

          rather than asking

          that it be removed from me?

                                     

Not many images come to mind for this post but I have a figurine of open hands… as I try to live with open hands ~ open to receive, open to let go, open to be led ~ I offer them here, for all who wrestle with pain, who open their hands and hearts in the midst of struggle and during Lent…

                                                 

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Lent in the Winter Wonderland

  

                                                                                  

We are definitely in the Winter Wonderland ~ so much winter that most area Ash Wednesday Services were cancelled and worship Pine Island Presbyterian Church, on this First Sunday in Lent, was also cancelled.  I’m able to recall the words and intent for each day but I find myself wondering what it means to begin this season of Lent without community: hearing the words read thou art dust and to dust thou shall return; and Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, singing the familiar songs, passing the Peace, and receiving the blessing ~ all of these just aren’t the same when recited within the mind.  Sometimes we have to lose something before the true value of it speaks to our soul.          

Yet the irony is that, although I didn’t receive ashes on my forehead this year,  I do feel innately connected to the earth as I watch, for the umpteenth time this winter, the snow swirl across the road and around the trees and wonder if there will be yet another snow day tomorrow.  Perhaps the temptation in this is to continue believing the earth serves us and that sometimes the weather simply gets in our way.  Perhaps the call in this season and beyond is to re-think our relationship with the earth, our stewardship of this planet we call home and whose resources support our living.  Reading entries at To Inspire and Moblize: Earth Ministry’s Blog on Faith and Environment  offers encouragement to stretch one’s thinking and daily practices during Lent.  Living in Lent, Caring for Creation is a resource that offers 40 Ways to Fast and Feast for God’s Creation. 

The focus of Lent is just outside my door, and its chill settles quickly in my bones, as I remember the journey toward Easter was a journey walked on this earth as food was eaten, parables of yeast and lost sheep were told, stones cried out, and a body was anointed.  This week, as meals are prepared and eaten, snow is shoveled, and wintry roads are navigated I’ll hope for clear skies and dry roads next Sunday so we can gather as community and continue this journey in each other’s company.

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Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday, holy waiting,

          holy wondering, holy preparing.

                                                                                                                     

With regards to Jesus, we know how the story goes,

           so we know for what we are waiting, wondering, and preparing.

But more often we are like the women at Jesus’ tomb,

            not knowing for what we are waiting, wondering, and preparing.

We don’t know whether to laugh or cry,

          what type of meal to prepare for

          how to set the table

          which music to choose      

          are the spices and anointing oils

                      for life or for death?  for both?     

                      

                                                                                           

New life means a new beginning

            which also means an ending.

Behold, I create all things new.

            The old has passed away.

                                                                                                        

A day of transition, a day like much of life –

            letting go and embracing,

            emptying and filling,

            dying and rising,

            exhaling and inhaling.

So I shall empty, clean and fill the bird feeders

           preparing the table for those

           who have returned as they do every spring

Telling of the great cycle of life’s rhythm,

             of God’s great work of love

             that hope has the last word.

                                                                                             

The birds sing from the treetops

             as we prepare to sing Alleluia!!

                                        

Blessings on your waiting, wondering, preparing,

Cathleen

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Giving Blood

As I entered the fitness center this morning for my therapy swim, I noticed that the American Red Cross had personnel there setting up for a Blood Drive: signs in several places indicating time and location, appropriate equipment and necessary staff all getting ready for their task.  Part of me laments that this day is treated by most as any other day and Good Friday worship services get squeezed in where they can.  But if one has to work, or volunteer, is not giving and receiving blood, in a manner that sustains life, an appropriate act at noon on Good Friday?

                        

+     +     +  

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Hyphenated Service

Palm – Passion Sunday, Pine Island Presbyterian Church

I was reading the RevGalBlogPals blog and the question was asked “Will this Sunday be Palms only, Passion only, or hyphenated?”  The general response was hyphenated, as it was at Pine Island.  We began with the simple line from Godspell, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord,” solo, then congregation, then processing with our palms.

Throughout the service we worked our way toward a Readers’ Theater version of the passion narrative.  The congregation had the voice of the crowd in the story, crying out, “crucify Him, crucify Him!”  I had not done that before – the story felt different, I now had a part and I wasn’t sure that I liked my part.  But we’ve all had that part at some point in our lives – individually and collectively.  And much could be said of the ways we are still crucifying Him with war, poverty, homelessness, the list is long.

As I thought about this “hyphenated” service, one that covers the gamut of emotions and actions, I thought of how this service reflects our life: one minute we are happy with our life, singing Hosannas and praises to God, the next minute events have turned and we know not what we are doing as we crucify the least of these among us or even ourselves.  Mid way through the service the choir sang,

Everybody brought their hopes and dreams.

Life just isn’t always what it seems.

Need somebody who can help us be,

liberated from captivity.

This is the week that reminds us that life is not always what it seems, that we need some vision beyond ourselves to hang our hope on.  The whole range of life fits somewhere in this week, and Palm-Passion Sunday leads the way.

May you find your place, wherever it is, in the story of this Holy Week.

                                                                              The Alchemist

 

 

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“God’s Tears”

5th Sunday in Lent, Pine Island Presbyterian Church

This was a Sunday of images and of movement, so with photos and few words I hope to share the spirit of the service.

Again we sang, “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened” and we shared in unison that “from the depths we cry to you, O God” aware of the grief and burdens, individually and collectively, we bring to our time together.  So we were invited to let go – by writing on paper that which we give to God, that which is claimed and cleansed in the waters of baptism. 

Singing, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me,” we brought our burdens forward.

And by an act of God’s unending grace in Christ, we were claimed and cleansed again with the waters of baptism.

“Restore unto me the joy of your salvation, and renew a right spirit within me,” our singing continued…

“There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. 

There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.”  

God’s tears are tears of love, tears that cry with us, tears that desire wholeness and restoration, tears that claim us in baptism as we face our pain.  We are not alone.

         

May the cleansing waters of our faith wash over you and through you, in your coming in and going out, forever more.

~ The Alchemist

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Searching

4th Sunday in Lent, Pine Island Presbyterian Church

There were 3 bits that I brought home with me this past Sunday:

• At the beginning of the service we sang, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened… come to me… and I will give you rest.”  Later in the service we heard the story of the Prodigal Son.  Among those who are burdened – the hungry, the lonely, the dying, the bereaved, all in harms way – it occured to me that the older son in the story, and all who are responsible and follow the rules, carry their own sense of burden, a sense that life is not always fair, even when the rules are followed.  Rest be will given to all, regardless.

• The wooden figure on the Worship Arts table is of a man searching.  Perhaps he represents not only the father in the story, but all mothers and fathers who long and ache for their children who have traveled astray.  But mostly I realized that as much as we look out for our children and desire their safety and well-being, even more does our God search for us.  Lent is our searching for God, and God searching for us.

• What touched me most from the service were the big, brown, beautiful eyes of the 5 month old girl who sat in her carrier seat on the floor, looking right my way.  Her eyes were bright, searching the area, taking in the sights and sounds.  I wondered what her heart already knows about God’s searching and welcoming love that we could learn from her.  I wondered about how tender and pure her soul is at a young age, and what we as a congregation and family of faith can do to nurture her and all young children, as they grow up in this world.  And I remembered the women and men serving in Iraq and Afghanistan who miss these moments with their children and some who will never have these moments with their children.  It was a bittersweet thyme…

May your searching draw you nearer to the One who also searches for us.

Lenten Blessings,  Cathleen

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Fruitfulness

3rd Sunday in Lent

Pine Island Presbyterian Church

 

Tough love came to visit again, this time in the form of a tree, a fig tree to be exact.  And we were reminded that Biblical fruitfulness is, among other things, concerned for the well-being of the community.  Jesus speaks harsh words in his parable – the tree has not produced for 3 years, cut it down.  The garden needs the shade and shelter that a tree would provide if it were healthy.  Justice – concern for the larger ecological system. But the gardener asks for one more year, another dose of that earthy of all earthy fertilizer – manure.  Mercy – God’s compassion for each.  Tough decisions.  Tough love.  We need both justice and mercy. 

I have enough gardening blood in me to favor the compost/manure option but I also have concern for the larger community, and understand the need for each member to seek to be healthy in order for the whole to be healthy. 

In these days of Lent, which does your heart hunger for: justice and letting go?  mercy and manure? 

Working with lots of compost in this season, 

           The Alchemist

 

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More thoughts on hope…

…and hope does not disappoint us.  But oh how hope can tease us, taking its own sweet time to show up, wandering first through suffering, endurance and character, seeming to spend lots of time at suffering as one’s world falls apart, layer by layer.  Perhaps there’s a small glimpse of hope as endurance begins, figuring “if I can just stick it out a little longer things will get better.”  But endurance takes its own sweet time as well, building up endurance I suppose, a sense of “stick-with-it-ness.”  And then comes character – but what kind of character I ask?  I often feel like it’s not a character ‘pleasing unto You.’  But You are gracious and patient, reminding me that this process is about being honest with myself, not about perfection.  The journey is about authenticity, about bringing all of me to the relationship – all the parts I don’t like, and remembering You accept them all – anger, fear, rage, envy, unmet needs and dreams, sadness.  And therein lies our hope: Your grace is sufficient for every single part of our lives however significant or insignificant they may seem.  Your thyme is not our thyme.  And the journey is not a direct path, a neat and tidy road trip.  Neither was Good Friday. 

Hope does not disappoint us.  It may be a long time coming, but it’s like a mustard seed of faith, somehow enough for the journey.

  

With much hope, The Alchemist                

                                                                                                                                                                                  

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