It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation  perfect through sufferings.

He had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested. –Hebrews 2.10;17-18

In the scripture readings of Holy Week, I take the part of someone in Christ’s life. Perhaps Peter, John, or Mary Magdalene.

This year, if I have the courage, I want to be the angel in Gethsemane.

On Holy Thursday I will get to comfort Jesus in his difficult hours in the Garden before he is taken into custody. (Luke:22) Walking the path of Christ’s life, leading to Calvary.

Knowing the profound love that led my Creator to do the unthinkable: To become the son of man, joining us in our suffering, this veil of tears, when He could have stayed in the eternal light. When the reality of this enters my soul, I weep.

When I do a role from scripture I experience Christ’s humanity. It does bring me closer to Jesus.

-Marianne Dreyspring

“Spirituality without a prayer life is no spirituality at all, and it will not last beyond the first defeats. Prayer is an opening of the self so that the Word of God can break in and make us new. Prayer unmasks. Prayer converts. Prayer impels. Prayer sustains us on the way. Pray for the grace it will take to continue what you would rather not continue and to surrender what you would rather not surrender.”

-Sister Joan Chittister, O.S.B.

“Memento mori: remember, you will die.”

I once found this idea terrifying, and frankly, could not find much comfort or meaning in the sentiment. Seeing a few loved ones pass on, I found it hard to find peace. Looking into the void of death and not really knowing what comes next filled me with hopelessness.

Genesis says, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” What is the meaning in that?

The book Cosmos, by Carl Sagan, was something that gave me comfort at a time of life many years ago when I was struggling with that question. Sagan said “The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff.”

Another great human being, Neil DeGrasse Tyson said “We are all connected: to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.”

That is where I have found meaning and comfort: not in some abstract idea of a God far away from us, but in our connection to everyone and everything else that is or has ever been.

-Robyn Hyden

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.

You desire truth in the inward being;

therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;

wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness;

let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and put a new and right spirit with me. -Psalm 51

I discovered a “treasure hidden in a field” a few years back when I flipped through the pages of a tiny bound book called Garden of Hollows: Entering the Mysteries of Lent & Easter at a flea market. In a classic “someone’s trash is another one’s treasure,” a flea market cast-off has become a gift that keeps on giving to me! What first drew me was the simple beauty of the book, with uneven hand-cut pages, a beautiful cover sheet with leaves pressed in and yet trying to burst out, and a few simple charcoal-like pictures. As I have read and re-read the book, taking care not to tear its delicate pages and bind, I remember why I am thankful it is so beautiful – because otherwise I would avoid ever opening it!

When I read the introduction which describes Lent as an invitation to “explore its hollows and, in so doing, to explore our own, to enter the sometimes stark spaces in our souls that we prefer to avoid,” I cringe. I have my hollows I like to avoid and being asked to “explore” them does not sound like a walk in the park. In fact, because hollows are usually shadowed and secret (and that’s how I want to keep it, thank you), exposing the contents fills me with fear.

 

The fear of exposure can be a strong force, and when I allow the fear to dictate my emotions and actions, I blindly run away from the people I love. But when I recognize the fear for what it is, I have the choice to claim it and “lean into it.” I think this is the painful process that Lent calls me into: the process of choosing vulnerability as a step towards love instead of running away.

 

Because like my beautiful and precarious treasure I found out of someone’s cast-offs, perhaps the most beautiful things are the most vulnerable and worn. As I embrace Lent and all that this season might take me through, perhaps I will discover that the secrets are not as evil as I think and the fears not as powerful as the love of friends, Beloveds and God – and a love for myself that I might learn to receive just as I am.  –Leah Clements

A tree crashed through the roof of my house and a tornado tore off the roof of the church I pastor on the same stormy night last month.

God did that, I’m told. Or Satan did. Depends on who you ask.

Some say God was punishing me, or at least warning me, to repent from my sinful ways.

They say that God is punishing me for speaking out loud in church (in other words, being a woman preacher), refusing to condemn all LGBTQ folk to everlasting torment, and supporting “those illegal aliens.” They broke the law! No grace for them.

Some say that God brought about these events not to punish me, but to test my faith, or even to strengthen it.

Others say Satan is responsible for the double disaster dealt to me and mine, to interfere with all the truly Godly work I do as a woman preacher serving the poor and oppressed, including, you guessed it, the LGBTQ community and undocumented immigrants.

Some believe that it was all God’s answer to our church ladies’ prayers for much-needed new carpet!

Interesting theologies, all.

I have to admit, the timing is curious, especially for someone who used to carry the title “Disaster Coordinator.” That title caused me some consternation. Wasn’t it supposed to be “Disaster Response Coordinator?” Were they trying to tell me something?

Anyway, everyday I walk into my crushed house, watching where I step. Shards of glass are everywhere, nails, splintered wood, soggy pink clods of fiberglass insulation, crumbled sheetrock. Oh yes, and trees, tree limbs are still scattered about the house. I make my way through these obstacles trying to find some absolutely necessity to take to rental house where we are staying. Sometimes I stand around in a daze. What’s that roof doing on my living room floor?

Until last Sunday, I must not have looked up. When I did, something I hadn’t seen before caught my eye – and my heart. I saw my Christmas stocking-holders, still standing (yes, they were still out at the end of February), spelling the word J-O-Y.

Find JOY, the Spirit whispered to me. Find JOY in the rubble. That’s the theology I want to embrace. Whatever the genesis of the storm, God always invites us to find some cause for joy. Some glimmer of hope. Some possibility of redemption. As Wendell Berry said, Practice Resurrection.

As I picked my way through the debris yesterday, I saw something else. My Christmas cactus is blooming again. Find JOY in the rubble.

Stepping carefully through the mess today, I noticed my Valentine’s roses over in a corner, darkened and dried. Thinking that the place needed a little sprucing up, I put the vase of last month’s flowers on top of the collapsed roof that covers whatever is left of my living room. It makes me smile to imagine what the workers will think when they find roses in the rubble!

-Rev. Angie

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” –Jeremiah 29.11

“Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.”

Hebrews 13.1-3 

This Bible passage describes what I feel is the spiritual core of Beloved Community Church and all that it embraces by way of compassionate action, creative possibilities and caring community.  It’s the main reason why I became a member of Beloved to begin with and have continued to remain an active member.

It can often be easier for me to show hospitality to strangers than to my own family and close friends.  For Lent this year, I would like to send special note cards each day to a dear family member or friend ~ All My Relations.

Neko Linda

“Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3.7-8;10-11

…

Kindness

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.

 

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,

you must travel where the

Indian in a white poncho lies dead

by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night

with plans and the simple breath

that kept him alive.

 

Before you know kindness

as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow

as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness

that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day

to mail letters and purchase bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

it is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you every where

like a shadow or a friend.

I like sayings to keep me on track such as, “Today is the first day of the rest of my life, the rest of my life is the best of my life, and the best of my life is the rest of my life, and so it is. Thank you God!”

I also like reviewing my gratitude list which includes everything, including the kitchen sink.

It is a good time to let go of bad habits like not staying in touch with friends, or connect with someone who would not expect you to call them.

A good time to get in touch with someone you have on your mind, but have not taken the time to call or see.

Cheers,

Peggy Johnson

“So, we do not lose heart. Though our outer man is wasting away, our inner man is being renewed every day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4.16

As I think about the recent dangers we as a church community have faced, I remember what a blessing we share as sisters and brothers of faith in our Lord. Insurance will cover our infrastructure losses. God  and his Son were protecting us (and Angie and son) from harm. Our church building will come thru this even stronger than before. Our faith is reaffirmed by the blessings we received because no one was hurt. Our wonderful friends at Avondale Methodist Church stepped right up and made us welcome to their facilities and hearts. Lets celebrate our good fortunes.

Jesus has once again shown his Love to us.

-Ed Boutwell