Good News Will Make You Crazy

In Common Prayer, a Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, authors Shane Clarborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Enuma Okoro have compiled a variety of devotional resources.

Their prayers for Monday of Holy Week are based upon the story in Mark 14:3-9, of the woman who anointed the feet of Jesus - a radical act of devotion. They include these words of Emmanuel Katongole, a contemporary Ugandan theologian.

Mary represents the ‘rebel consciousness’ that is essential to Jesus’ gospel. Wherever the gospel is preached, we must remember that its good news will make you crazy. Jesus will put you at odds with the economic and political systems of our world. This gospel will force you to act, interrupting the world as it is in ways that make even pious people indignant.

They close with this prayer:

While we sat in darkness, Lord Jesus Christ, you interrupted us with your life. Make us, your people, a holy interruption so that by your Spirit's power we may live as a light to the nations, even as we stumble through this world’s dark night. Amen. 

In closing, I leave you with this blessing for Holy Week:

May the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ go with you, wherever he may send you;
may he guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm;
may he bring you home rejoicing at the wonders he has shown you;
may he bring you home rejoicing, once again into our doors.

Father Showers

Availability and Vulnerability

There are two simple words at the center of the Rule of Life for the Northumbria Community – availability and vulnerability. Since discovering that Rule several years ago, I have tried to live my own life with availability and vulnerability.

Let me backtrack. Many years ago, David found a prayer book developed by the Northumbria Community in England. The Northumbria Community is a geographically dispersed community that has its home on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.  It is shaped by a spirituality based in the history and experience of the Celts. What holds that community together is their Rule of Life, summarized by the values of availability and vulnerability. As Richard Foster states in the introduction of Celtic Daily Prayer:

These are vows that extend both vertically and horizontally: available to God, available to others; vulnerable to God, vulnerable to others.

While I make no claim to be a member of the community, nor have I ever visited there, I have tried to adopt those values into my life, with their challenge and hope. I continually find myself returning to them over and over again, because they seem to be at the core of my struggles to live a life centered on God. This year, I will consciously bring those challenges of availability and vulnerability into this week between Palm Sunday and Easter.

Holy Week was a time when Jesus was fully available to those who needed him, while becoming totally vulnerable to the fear and cruelty of those who controlled the religious and government institutions. In his acts of availability, such as washing the disciple’s feet, Jesus turns around the expectations of his friends by caring for them. In his interactions with those in power, he refuses to return violence for violence, hatred for hatred. During this week, we recall his betrayal by one of his disciples, beatings by soldiers, abandonment by his friends, crucifixion by an oppressive state, and death.

So, in continuing on my Lenten discipline of what if it’s all true, what can I hope to learn from Jesus tragic, and ultimately triumphant, journey? I don’t know. Maybe nothing. But if I can find a way to stay available and vulnerable to reliving his story, I hope to be able embrace those values more fully in the power of resurrection and Easter.  

A Strange Richness

David Shapiro writes in his forward to Anne Porters’ book of poetry, An Altogether Different Language

it is her oscillation between the literal, symbolic, allegorical and even anagogic worlds that gives her sparse poetry it’s strange richness.

Porter's poems lead me to consider anew the most ordinary of things as objects of delight and avenues of faith. The title poem calls all of us to listen in a new way to voices in and around our world.

An Altogether Different Language

There was a church in Umbria, Little Portion
Already old eight hundred years ago.
It was abandoned and in disrepair
But it was called St. Mary of the Angels
For it was known to be the haunt of angels,
Often at night the country people
Could hear them singing there.

What was it like, to listen to the angels,
To hear those mountain-fresh, those simple voices
Poured out on the bare stones of Little Portion
In hymns of joy?
No one has told us,
Perhaps it needs another language
That we have still to learn,
An altogether different language. 

In this same volume her poem For My Son Johnny talks about the life and death of her retarded son and of her failure to fully understand or respond to his life.

Her poem Native Americans places the life Jesus in our common context:

Blue eggshells 

Empty in the grass,
On the rough-coated hills
Translucent,
The little pasture-rose.

Eagle’s shadow
Sweeping the high pasture,
Wordless gospel.

Older than the sun
And younger than the dew,
Poor as the larks
He came into the world

And walked from town to town
Without a stick or sandals
Carrying his new fire.

And today I saw him out on the street
In front of the post office
Tired out, young,
About the age he was
The day they killed him,

Native pastor
Of a small parish
Up on the reservation

He stood there listening
To an old Indian woman,
One of his people

One of his disinherited
And cheated people.

Eagle’s shadow
Crossing the high pasture
Silent gospel. 

In these final days of Lent her poems have again called me to see a strange richness in all of life.

Fr. Showers

Lent for Children

The internet is a unique entity. It’s also hard to describe. Since I’ve been contributing to this blog, several things have happened to me. 

1. I have not had chocolate. Not intentionally, but just because the temptation did not present itself. 
2. I have been thinking quite a bit about my relationship with God, my faith and my church. More questions than answers have evolved out of that. 
3. I have been googling several Lenten words on the internet and have inadvertently been taken to several sites that have intrigued me.

I would like to share two of those sites I landed on that I believe will increase your Lenten awareness, particularly but not exclusively, if you have young children around you.

The first one is Aslan’s Library and it deals with theological books for children. The article that caught my eye is entitled, Walking Through Lent With Children.

Celebrating religion and faith is a personal experience, but it should also include family and specifically children. As you read this article, you will arrive at the second site designed for families. It is called This Classical Life and the article is “Lent at Home.”

I am tempted to make the gingerbread pancakes and the pretzels just for fun. The prayers, recipes and other links are equally intriguing. I am anxious to see where these musing will take us all now. . .

Joan Shisler

Love is Stronger than Death

Having read Love is Stronger than Death by Cynthia Bourgeault, an Episcopal priest who fell in love with Rafe, a Trappist hermit in the evening of both their lives, I felt it was so moving that it could very well be of interest to other members in our parish.

The author’s writing reflects the deeper meaning behind the title after Rafe dies. My own dear brother John died unexpectedly January 2nd, 2010 in England and the book spoke personally to me as a result. It is a beautiful book, dealing with our beliefs or not, of being able to touch our loved ones who have passed on, through our deep love for them.

I know some of our members have already read the book and enjoyed it, so I would love to set up a discussion group for those and others who might be inspired to read it, too. My own work at my Meditation Retreat Center in NC dealt specifically with this very issue just over a year ago, so I can bring the fruits of that time to the discussion also. I have an extra copy should anyone else want to borrow it. Let me know if you are interested in a joining a 2 hour discussion group by commenting below or contacting me directly.

Brenda Hollweger