to Life, a sonnet
____________________________________Praise.
_________________________________Ovate
______________________________Now
___________________________How’s
________________________Why’s
_____________________Cries
__________________Birth
_______________Groans
____________Crows
_________Creation
______Weep
___There:
Here:
Sleep…
[read my other Holy Week poetry here]
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For Easter Week: readings/reflections + Easter Music Mixtape + Holy Day poetry.
{More on the why and how of Lent/Easter here.}
prayer.
O God, who has made this most holy night to shine with the glory of the Lord’s resurrection: Stir up in your Church that Spirit of adoption which is given to us in Baptism, that we, being renewed both in body and mind, may worship you in security and truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
(from the the Book of Common Prayer)
reflection.
Easter ought to be an eight-day festival, with champagne served after morning prayer or even before, with lots of alleluias and extra hymns and spectacular anthems. It is any wonder people find hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don’t throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live the resurrection if we don’t do it exuberantly in our liturgies? It is any wonder the world doesn’t take much notice if Easter is celebrated as simply the one-day happy ending tacked on to forty days of fasting and gloom? It’s long over due that we took a hard look at how we keep Easter in church, at home, in our personal lives, right through the system.
to death, a sonnet
A fear as frank as frankness be
I hold within this frame so dear;
so dear please hold me, till this dark is past
_____— till the darkness passes mine eye.
But to be so engraced I know I must face
_____– and lose-
___________to this spectre this prospect requires.
O this still darkest night, I lie here betwixt
competing rays
__________of glory’s gaze.
One lies ahead; one lies to my face
___both wooing and charming a choice from my hands:
___________to re-seize and be lived,
___________or release and be sieved?
[read my other Holy Week poetry here]
[image by Mark Rothko]
all writings licensed:
For Holy Week: reading schedule/reflections + local Holy Week gatherings.
{More on the why and how of Lent here.}
prayer.
O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
(from the liberti Lent & Easter 2012 prayerbook & the Book of Common Prayer)
When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God. And now let the revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods of the world, carefully weighing all the gods of inevitable recurrence and of unalterable power. They will not find another god who has himself been in revolt. Nay (the matter grows too difficult for human speech), but let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.
–from Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, as quoted by philosopher Slavoj Zisek, in this article on “German Idealism & Christianity, from Hegel to Chesterton” (via Micah Towery). Read the rest of this Lent series on “The Lamb Eternally Slain”
Coffee Crucifix
Crescent ring under porcelain smooth
___stain the wood-stained finish.
______(It is finished.)
___Marked with muddy water;
___mark the merry day; to
___marry the murdered man.
Floral notes in blackened waves
___crash the shore of trembled lips.
Choral bright, in darkest night,
___wake the tone of trebled kiss.
Younger tastes left open-wide; older eyes made
satisfied.
Mark the wood: complex simplicity.
Pierce my heart: storied infinity.
[read my other Holy Week poetry here]
all writings licensed:
For Holy Week: reading schedule/reflections + local Holy Week gatherings.
{More on the why and how of Lent here.}
prayer.
Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
(from the liberti Lent & Easter 2012 prayerbook & the Book of Common Prayer)
Today is Maundy Thursday which is the time in the Christian Church calendar where we celebrate the institution of the Lord’s Supper; it also initiates the three Holy Days of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday.
I was raised as a Southern Baptist in Dallas, Texas. Liturgy, Church calendars, Holy Days, and Prayer books were as foreign to me as R-rated films, alcohol, and dancing. Now, though, as I’m looking for a Church to go to for a Good Friday service, even the Presbyterian church service all my friends are going to doesn’t feel liturgical and structured enough for me. What happened?
In the last few years between going to seminary (and dropping out) and changing churches, I have fallen in love with both liturgy and Sacrament.
For Holy Week: reading schedule/reflections + local Holy Week gatherings.
{More on the why and how of Lent here.}
prayer.
Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
(from the liberti Lent & Easter 2012 prayerbook & the Book of Common Prayer)
by Jen Huber
He can easily say what he has lived by:
God and belonging; known from childhood.
He was raised to believe in what was taught
To stand by his father’s belief in his Father
Accept the judgement of another,
The forgiveness of one another
Believing in something unseen
From generation to generation
This belonging to faith has remained
And grasped his life long-lived
And to know that his Father carried
Him throughout his time
He can easily say what he has died for
[image credit: Lauren Chandler]
For Holy Week: reading schedule/reflections + local Holy Week gatherings.
{More on the why and how of Lent here.}
prayer.
O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
(from the liberti Lent & Easter 2012 prayerbook & the Book of Common Prayer)
If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross. It is a terrifying prospect. In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavy on every move we make. That is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the “heaviest of burdens”. If eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, then our lives can stand out against it in all their splendid lightness.
But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid?
…. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to earth, the more real and truthful they become.
Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.
What then shall we choose ? Weight or lightness?
— Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Continue reading
For Holy Week: reading schedule/reflections + local Holy Week gatherings.
{More on the why and how of Lent here.}
prayer.
O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
(from the liberti Lent & Easter 2012 prayerbook & the Book of Common Prayer)
All of us know that one of the things that can affect our mood like no other is music. And so, to that end, I wanted to tell you about one of my favorite albums ever, by my favorite band ever (they’ve had that title since I was in high school, so I promise, I’m not just exaggerating for effect), Cool Hand Luke’s Of Man.
Last year, on Palm Sunday, I got the privilege to deliver a little message to a group of men at the prison ministry my church does each month. I ended up building off of that message and its outline and writing a series of blog posts meditating on Holy Week and the radical, scandalous grace inherent in the story and actions of Jesus over those days. For your mediation this year over Holy Week, I wanted to post these links for your perusal and, hopefully, your blessing.
The Scandal of Holy Week
{i} the forsaking of God | In this post, we meditate on the fact that Holy Week was the week-long process by which everything–from humanity to creation to God Himself— forsakes Jesus. We see that true disciples are not those that never forsake Jesus. In fact, we will all forsake Jesus in radical ways at some point.
Continue reading
the long way home 