Easter Prayer

“Good Friday Morning” DS 2017

As we stop to appreciate Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for us, we can also take the time to look at darkness – the blue darkness in our own lives. I do not necessarily mean sin. I take stock. I struggle. I want to recognize where I have been a good and faithful servant in enduring difficult situations – or not.

Sometimes I think of that saying, no good deed goes unpunished, as a way to laugh when there is opposition to our leadership. I think of times when our children take the road that we do not recommend. Like walking through mud uphill our attempts at friendship fail. The mere expressing of our opinions causes offence. Our apology brings no bridge. The way we live brings oppositions – yes, those times when we are just minding our own business and others resent us, try to trip us, do not value our efforts. When we ourselves slip, hurt others or become our own worst enemies, we can look at those areas of darkness.

But let us examine those areas as shadows, shadows of beings and doings that the light illumines. There must be light in our lives for the shadows to be seen. We go forward tomorrow in the day in between Friday and Sunday, not dwelling in the darkness but seeing the shadows, appreciating our own sacrifices and stumblings, for what they are.

So we follow Jesus not only on the Via Dolorosa some days, but meet him powerfully in the garden resurrections of our lives, as well as around the campfire where he has cooked the seafood, the writing in the sand that frees us, and the inviting of him to our houses both to speak and to wipe his perfumed feet.

In his name we offer a cup of water. If that is all we are asked to do, it is enough. For now we rest. Everything is an incarnation, a cross gift, a knowing that he ever intercedes for us at the right hand of the father. He asks to live in us by the Spirit to be salt and yes, light, shadowed light, to the world around us. I want to soak my shadows with Presence, his essence colouring mine. This is my Easter prayer.

The Spiritual Discipline of Letting Go

A lecture on ‘letting go’ had me riveted to the hard pew on Sunday morning. As my eyes glanced across the familiar tangerine and teal stained glass windows, my thoughts reviewed my inner life.   Purging has been a lifelong practice for me but has never caught up with my ability to acquire, to accumulate, to pile up possessions or offenses. Yet again I realize I need to weed out the garden of my heart. Some dandelions that seemed useful perhaps for tea drinking have actually become entrenched in my mossy green lawn. Their roots have strangled my grass and some of my reasoning about words and deeds I have heard and observed.

Some of my formative years were spent in my grandmother’s house in Scotland. Every spring and autumn what we called ‘McGuinty’s closet’ would get some spring-cleaning attention. This walk-in closet held layers of belongings decades old. Only the things close to the door were gone through and given away. These were mostly children’s clothes too small for the new season.

Last Sunday’s guest talk was no mere spring-cleaning or polishing up of what was there near the door of our hearts and minds. It was like our moving day to me. Long held possessions of hurts, and ways of doing things a certain way, were to be let go of or group life would fail. That was the message, yes.

My mind goes today to a large outdoor sculpture that used to be in Vancouver called “Device for Rooting out Evil.” It was a hut-sized 3D silver church sitting upside down on the landscaped lawn. The steeple had been dug into the ground. The first time I saw it I felt angry, was this an insult, I thought. As the work penetrated my thinking, as all good art will, layers of understanding emerged in my mind. I wondered, is this rooting out of evil, to be of the church by the church, can it be.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Ramsay+famous+upside+down+church+uprooted+after+lease+expires/9382601/story.html

Let it begin with me, yes. I carry my hurts rattling along like tin cans on festive streamers attached to a wedding car. But this is not happy. Yes, I have a muffler silencing them, as any good Christian would, but what if I were to detach from them and drive along free, unencumbered to my future. Unencumbered, is this the freedom of forgiveness that the cross symbolizes, I muse.  I wonder if this is part of the power of spiritual disciplines: to hold sacred space for inner movements toward God.

I will be free of that which so easily besets me. I take out my steeple and dig it out, this memory of unintentional hurts. So, what if someone said this or did that. I choose to be over it by the power of the Spirit.

Book of Philippians

 I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally…

I feel spring-cleaned and ready for Easter. The intriguing thing for me, as one who holds a graduate degree in the art of spiritual formation, is that the church changes will come now by way of ‘new’ (but ancient) spiritual practices and disciplines (perhaps mingled with art practices) that have become my life’s work. God’s ways are of course higher than mine. I really love spring, especially the outrageous pinkness of spring in Vancouver’s Cherry Blossom Festival.

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Book of Isaiah

Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.

 

 

Apologies

 

“April Collage Workshop” 2014 DS

Apologies seem to be in short supply in our culture.  We have no fault divorce, no fault insurance and – actually a general sense of non-accountability abounds everywhere.  In an accident it would not be wise (or so the ‘wise’ say) to admit fault.  Even if one were caught red-handed stealing or killing, someone it would be advised by legal counsel to keep quiet.

Therefore, I must say, it was refreshing this evening at the workshop to receive an apology for a comment of last week.  The apology was gracious, specific and heart felt.  It was a pleasure to receive it.

I am no lawyer but it seems to me that if a genuine apology – a timely statement of regret; of responsibility taken for the misdeed or mistake – were given, the healing would begin right away.  I suppose some in our culture have put this idea into practice with the restorative justice movement.  It is a good trend in these days of every system needing reform.  I guess the slogan “let it begin with me” would be appropriate here. 

Actually I live a blessed life.  I offered several apologies myself last week and received one unexpectedly.  Can one be rich in apologies? There was something else that I could have apologized for but decided in that complex situation it would make it worse so I refrained. Perhaps more than an apology is required for healing.

I realize that at this particular workshop the women have bonded over difficult times.  There is no one-upmanship so one cannot really ‘lose face’ or lose one’s place in the pecking order by apologizing.  The regret can be received the way it was given – in honesty and caring.

If only we could package this experience in this microcosm of people in that place tonight, the world would be changed.  I can personally think of several people I would like to receive heartfelt apologies from.  There might be a couple that I need to give too.

This idea is what the church is meant to embody.  Is this practice freely given what the cross is all about?  Is the payment then so that we can apologize and accept those of others graciously without all of the posturing and cover up?  I think I have grasped some of the transforming power of the cross tonight.  If everything I have ever done has been forgiven, how can I not pass it on?