day 19 - in this light.

The very rainy month of March is coming to an end, and at last the sun has come out. The whole world seems different in the soft sunlight: awakened and bursting with life. It's as if we are all emerging from the cocoons of winter rains, stretching our newly grown wings for the first time. Days like today make it easy to praise: easy to see God in the joyful fresh faces, and the dewy green of the grass. There seems to be light everywhere, as if it has always beens just beneath the surface of things, waiting to break open the dim. Instead of fighting against the harsh edges of things, we are all softened in this daylight, able to see with the eyes of hope and compassion that we should have been gazing with all along. For at least a brief moment in this spring air, we are able to pause the constant battle to change one another, and just see all this battered beauty, and hold it in our loving gaze.

William Meredith's poem seems written for just this sort of day:

Consequences by William Meredith

ii. of love

People love each other and the light

Of love gilds but doesn’t alter,

People don’t change one another, can scarcely

By taking will and thought add a little

Now and then to their own statures

Which, praise them, they do,

So that here we are in all our sizes

Flooded in the impartial daylight sometimes,

Spotted sometimes in a light we make ourselves,

Human, the beams of attention

Of social animals at their work

Which is loving; and sometimes all dark.

The only correction is

By you of you, by me of me.

People are worth looking at in this light

And if you listen what they are saying is,

Love me sun out there whoever you are,

Chasing me from bed in the morning,

Spooking me all day with shadow,

Surprising me whenever you fall;

Make me conspicuous as I go here,

Spotted by however many beams,

Now light, finally dark. I fear

There is meant to be a lot of darkness,

You hear them say, but every last creature

Is the one it meant to be.

day 18 - play in the mud.

With my Jr. High students at confirmation we talked about Miracles this week. As we discussed about Jesus calming the storm, we made connections to God's redemptive and creative work with water elsewhere in the Bible. From God's spirit hovering over the waters in the first act of creation, to the parting of the red sea, to the story of Jonah being swallowed by a fish, to the new testament images of water turned to wine, baptism and walking on water. In each story, the youth talked about the ways God used water to cleanse, to heal, to reveal, to mystify, and to bring about redemption. Jesus' calling the storm to be calm was not a one time miracle; its a part of this much larger narrative of redemption. Of God speaking over and out of the waters of chaos, to bring grace, wholeness and resurrection.

Father Rick Moley makes a similar observation about the mud in the story of Jesus giving sight to the blind man. He writes, "I can't shake the poetic links to God digging in the dust of the ground in Eden, and giving us his breathe that we might live. God lifted us out of the earth in the Beginning, and Jesus is still in the business of lifting us up. And opening our eyes. And bringing us Life.

And, as the Way of Jesus, it is meant to be our way too. There are a lot of broken lives out there that need picked up. Whole countries of lives, in fact. Japan. Libya. Sudan."

God doesn't use extravagant methods. No magic potions or expensive jewels. Just a little dirt and water. Jesus is unafraid of getting his hands dirty. Because that's the way healing happens: not in pristine, sanitized cathedrals, but in the real organic dirt of people's lives. And I think we are called to do some miracles. We are called to follow Jesus and play in the mud.

day 17 - several lives worth living.

I was flipping through radio stations on my ride home from work last night, and I found myself listening to a man's voice on a public radio station. He describes the lives he imagines he could be happy living. He said he imagined himself being a repair man who fixed the parking meters. He described the joy he would feel walking outside on a sunny day, checking the machines and providing a small and simple need. He also said he imagined being a bread delivery man in the city. He imagined loading the freshly baked bread into the truck in the early hours of the morning, smelling that warm toasty fragrance as he drove through the almost empty streets. The he imagined delivering the loaves to restaurants across the city, and chatting with chefs as they began their prep work the day and started to simmer their stews. He imagined sitting in the almost empty kitchen and drinking a cup of coffee as he and the chefs called each other by their first names and made small talk.

These wonderful imaginings brought to my mind the line from a Mary Oliver poem: "I know several lives worth living." I like the idea of being freed to imagine the particular beauties of your unlived lives, from the most glamorous to the most ordinary.

Here are several lives worth living:

A nanny, wiping away tears, playing games, feeding, clothing and loving the most precious little ones.

A dog walker in the city, leading playful furry friends through the chaos of the streets and the freedom of parks.

A folk singer/songwriter, putting all the beauty into words.

A museum security guard, standing almost imperceptibly among such brilliant creativity.

A baker, combining simple ingredients to create mouthfuls of joy.

A worker in an orchard or at a winery, plucking the fruit from its branch at the brief moment of perfect ripeness.

A teacher in Jr High or High School helping students discover their favorite novel or poem for the first time.

day 16 - breaking the stone, sharing the story.

Tomorrow morning I am preaching from the story of the woman at the well (John 4:5-42) , along with the wilderness story of the moveable well in the dessert (Exodus 17-1-7).

I've been wrestling with Jesus' promise that those who drink of the water will never be thirsty again. I know so many people who are so very thirsty -- and whether or not they have faith seems to have little to do with it. Christian people still hurt, still face loneliness, still struggle, longing and needing good health, love, acceptance, and an endless list of wants. We are thirsty people.

And this woman at the well was no different. She was thirsting. A woman who had been through five marriages, gone through more loss than most people experience in a life-time. She had been discarded, considered used up and therefore of no worth -- tossed aside like trash.

But with this man Jesus, she is seen. Really seen. And counted as a person of value. This short conversation changes everything. In reality her circumstances are the same: her past hasn't disappeared. Her reputation still proceeds her. Whatever prejudice, rejection and isolation she faced before the encounter with Jesus, she will still face afterwards.

But still, she goes away changed because he broke open the stone of her life. With his open ears, his knowing gaze, his few words, Jesus held her story. He held the hurt, the pain, the regret, the fear, the hopes. Holding someone's story is a powerful thing, and for her that was all it took. She didn't need for her life to be fixed. She needed to be seen and heard. It was such a powerful experience, that she told as many people as possible; she shared the story, and allowed them to become a part of it.

When we gather for worship we come to a well of rich stories. Like the early Jewish people drank of the Torah when they had no temple, and nothing else, we come to worship and in the Eucharist we drink of the living Word, drinking from the deep well of a God who forgets no one. We eat of the Living Word -- a Word that isn't just the story of Jesus, but a Living Word that holds within it, all our own stories. Just as he broke through the stone of the life of the woman at the well, the moveable well of Christ breaks through our own stony hearts to quench our deepest thirst: to be seen and heard. Through worship, even in this wilderness of lent, the stony earth of our sin and mistakes is for a moment broken open with possibility, as we hear God's story, and each others stories, and know that in this community we are seen and known. In being known, we are transformed, as we see ourselves as part of the story of God.

day 15 - be a child.

I rode a ferris wheel today and smelled cotton candy. I walked a dog through a happy chaos of tourists, street artists and food vendors. I watched the ocean and laughed with friends.

There are moments, when I think I would give up every book, every class, all the knowledge I've acquired in years of higher education, for just a few minutes of the pleasure of salty sea air and child-like joy.

day 11 - sabbath is good.

On Saturday, I enjoyed a sabbath for the first time in more than two weeks. No work, no class, no place I needed to be. I slept in and awoke to a stormy day, and no reason to get out of my sweatpants. I drank a cup of tea, got caught up on school work, read almost an entire book for fun, read poetry, looked at art, started my sermon, blogged, cooked a real dinner with homemade somosas, did laundry and prepared a sunday school lesson. I prayed and I rested, and I felt like I got so much done with time to spare.

Just that space of one open day, made me realize how important taking a sabbath is. Over the last few months both Kyle and I have had our parents in town for weekends... while seeing family is always a blessing, it is rarely a sabbath. You are out and about -- site-seeing, entertaining, walking or in my case learning to ski (a tale of pain, discouragement and ultimate triumph for another time). All of that is fun. But it is not relaxing.

I feel that for the last month, I've been playing catch-up. When I'm at school, I feel there's some work thing I should be doing. When I'm at work, I'm thinking of all the things I've left undone at school and at home.

So, I am overwhelmingly thankful for a sabbath: a day to just stay inside listening to the rain, getting a few things done, but more importantly just enjoying the act of just sitting and being cozy.

After this weekend, I came to Monday ready. Ready for the wildness of Jr. Highers at confirmation, the sermon and paper writing, the planning, the commuting. All of it. Sabbath makes me into a better, kinder, more patient person. I hope that when I am no longer juggling full-time work and full-time school, I will be better at making time for these kind of days. These sabbaths are the days that allow us to be our best selves, that prepare us for the work ahead, that let us celebrate the life we've lived and the life that is coming. To allow yourself to just be is such a rare and significant gift.

day 10 - the shape of absence.

These lines from a poem by Christina Hutchins cause me to feel sad, wistful, free, warm, regretful, at-home and far-off all at once. All from one simple image of a crumpled pair of jeans... I love when I read something that makes me fall in love with poetry all over again.

Here is the warmth of my stride, left in a heap

on a rug beside the bed, blue jeans shed

in the shapes of my legs. I, too, have held

the shape of an absence.