Christmas Meditation

Tiny child wrapped in handwoven cloths and laid on prickly, earthy hay, the graced presence of God living, breathing, crying, and suckling in precarious vulnerability. With every rise and fall of Emmanuel's tiny chest, the fragile-strong Christ-child reveals: 

If grace is life, then the greatest injustice is to stanch its flow. 

Running child dressed in dirty rags, fleeing the terror of exploding bombs, piercing shrapnel, and the stench of gun powder, only to be barred from safety by those who fear their presence. With every scream of terror and cry of anguish, the Christ-child groans:

If grace is life, then the greatest injustice is to stanch its flow. 

Hungry child with worn-out shoes, too young to work, too old to ignore that they live in a wealthy, powerful country, but all too often go to bed with painful, aching stomachs that have had too little to eat. With every rumbling stomach, the Christ-child groans:

If grace is life, then the greatest injustice is to stanch its flow. 

Hidden child dressed for success, covering the bleeding wounds left by love offered with conditions too high to reach, masking the consequences of another's pain on their own bodies, fearing yet hoping that someone will notice. With every secret tear and silent plea, the Christ-child groans:

If grace is life, then the greatest injustice is to stanch its flow. 

Grown-up child clothed in adult-sized skin and bones--angry, grieving, hurting, despairing while surveying the fragile pieces of their unsafe childhood. Love came down for this child, too, gracing the groanings of all creation:

If grace is life, then the greatest injustice is to stanch its flow. 

This Christmas, may we feast on Christ, who sates our tired, downtrodden, and heavy laden souls thirsty from fear, despair, and grief with the ever-flowing grace of the Christ-child, that we may become grace-givers in a world famished for Love Incarnate.

Voice

A voice--
the intricate wonder
of muscle and tissue
perfectly shaped to
mold the breath that gives us
life into vibrations of sound,
intimately joining the essence of
life with human physicality to express
the glorious seat of human meaning--thought.

A thought--
the firing of synapses,
brain waves constantly
moving, working,
controlling the movements of
eyes, ears, nose, fingers,
processing the data received by
the body into words and forms in
an attempt to make sense of surroundings
which ends and begins, cycling, seeking understanding--reflection.

A reflection--
a seeing-back,
the perusal of thoughts
and imaginings as they return
home from the mind from which they
came, pointless if left unexamined,
beautiful when cherished, its treasures intimately
unearthed, brushed off, polished to shine in the sun
of God-self-communal discovery,
finally taking on visceral form as fingers hit keys,
cords vibrate in the throat, and seeing-back midwifes expression--voice



Raspy, youthful,
boisterous, quiet,
female, male,
wizened, or naive,
voice vibrates the powerful
communication of self.
Whether on the tip of the tongue
or welling out of the soul's depths,
the voice sends forth the identity of a person
to be heard and understood by the world.
And my voice, well it is mine, and no one else's,
But only in its sharing do I vulnerably open the
great risk and treasure of neighboring.

I Hear You

I hear you:
when you cry in anguish
with a beyond-words-profound pain.
When the tears are too heavy to run down your face
because they are caught in the place,
in the moment when the hopes you once had
are pummeled by the attempts of another
to love themselves at the cost of your personhood.
In the silence without tears,
I hear you.

I hear you:
when the anger bubbles over
like molten lava, oozing out of every pore
as injustice and rape and tragedy and hatred
make you want to change the world while
asking God if there is any good still out there to save.
When you are arrested by the knowledge
that if this anger turns to rage
and life becomes more about trumpeting a cause
than protecting a person,
then you have traded in your heart of flesh
for a stone in the hands of hypocritical piety.
In the silence of your anger,
I hear you.

I hear you:
when you are sighing,
at the end of the weighted breaths
you hold deep inside, the internal mark
of the drooping shoulders you try to hold straight,
the downcast eyes that hold more lamentation
than a thousand sad poems ever could.
Weary and worn, the world passes by your stories
because the wisdom of wear-and-tear is not
nearly as entertaining as empty fairy tales and cheap love.
In the silence of your neglected sighs,
I hear you.

I hear you:
when empty hands equal empty stomachs,
when the only sound your body makes is
the gnawing ache of never having enough,
and when never having enough means your
dignity is stripped by those who have never known
life-draining hunger and thirst.
As hunger drowns out all life-sustaining impulses,
steals away the hope to keep going,
the hope that someone will finally see you--
In your hopeless hungry silence,
I hear you.

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says.

I Wept at the Table

I wept.  I came to the Table, and I wept.  Perhaps the Table was not set, the feast not set out yet, but my soul came close to Soul Food, and my only response came in tears.  I was preparing and practicing for my practicum service, the Holy Week chapel at Perkins.  As I played through the organ piece that will intertwine with the procession of the elements, I felt tears on my face and a lump in my throat.  My spirit's eye saw the bread and the cup coming to the altar, the meal being prepared.  And in that place, the Supper I typically engage with as providing food for the hungry, equality for the marginalized, care for the suffering was all those things, yet something more.  It was terrible and sorrowful for the very fact that I knew what had to happen for the prophecy of that meal to come true.  Perhaps it is not a new thought, but it was a new spiritual place for me.  To think that when we break the bread and pour the cup--eat the Body and drink the Blood--we prophesy what Christ did and is doing, while receiving the nourishment for all that is to come in Christ.  Should the joy of the meal not also mingle with tears at His suffering?  When we come to the thin place between things of earth and things of heaven which intersect with the pain and joy of the human condition in this meal--should we not greet it with silence and shouts of joy?  I have no clear ideas or arguments for why this is or is not.  Only elusive reflections on the layers of divine meaning found in what seems mundane to clumsy human eyes and hands.  But this I know--if scales must be torn off, if tears must be wept, if healing touch must occur, I do not care.  In the deepest part of myself, I long for spiritual eyes to see, spiritual ears to hear, spiritual hands to touch and heal, a spiritual nose to breathe in, and a spiritual tongue to taste and know and speak the most beautiful gift into the lives of hurting people:

Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

God of the fog, God of our unknowing

God of the fog,
God of our unknowing,
The Irrational Comfort
Of a way unknown and a path unforged,
As we wait, hear our prayers.

God of the storm,
Still God in tragedy,
The Holder of Life,
Creator of order in our chaos,
As we wait, hear our prayers.

God of earthquakes,
God of the Crucifix,
The Despised Messiah
who wears our pain as flesh upon His bone,
As we wait, hear our prayers.

God who cries out,
God who laments death,
God who rips the Temple veil,
To bring hope to God's broken Beloved,
As we wait, grant us peace.

Aren't we all?

This morning over a plate of bacon, eggs, and pancakes, I looked up a my husband and asked, "What if I am called to deal with trauma through and in liturgy?"

[In case you were wondering, we rarely have normal breakfast table conversations.]

I asked this question for several reasons that I won't get into now. But the fact remains, I have a good deal of life experiences and personality traits that give me a disposition to be a strong and compassionate presence in trauma, be it a long term ordeal or sudden situations.

Then, I read a blog this morning by a United Methodist pastor that I respect who made some tough statements about the slow implosion of the United Methodist Church as he sees it.  This is my denomination, this my "home place," these are the people I want to work for and with to spread the Gospel of Christ.  I don't want it to self-destruct.  I want to be a part of bringing it to life.  And, with a husband already an ordained deacon in the UMC and me about to start the candidacy process, being part of a waning denomination is not a very good career move for us, either.   

So, here we are, embarking on life in intentional community; finding God, ourselves, and the bridge between worship and relational minstry in micro-community worship; wondering at the state of our denomination and church and where it will be in 20 years; seeking Christ in the face of a multitude of upheavals on a large and small scale; searching for what it means to be incarnational to a world in pain and a church in distress. 

And I wonder if I'm called to a special work of addressing trauma through liturgy. 

Maybe the better question is, aren't we all?

A Labyrinthine Psalm

This week in spiritual formation, we were assigned to walk the labyrinth.  The labyrinth comes out of the Middle Ages when they were used in cathedrals as alternative pilgrimage destinations for those who could not travel to holy places farther away.  Today, labyrinths are used as meditation tools.  There is only one path leading to the center and the same path leads back out again.  This is a picture of the one at Perkins:

One way to engage with the labyrinth as a spiritual practice is to follow a three step model: 

1. As you move toward the center, release the details, stresses and demands of life.
2. When you reach the center, having quieted your mind, enter into a time of meditation and prayer.  Take in whatever it is God might be illuminating.
3. Leave the center.  As you retrace your steps outward, enter into union with God in Christ, seeking to reflect Christ's incarnation in your own engagement with the world. 

I found this practice to be beautiful, beneficial, and fruitful.  I was inspired to write the following psalm after walking the labyrinth.

Father-Mother God,

Sustainer of life and Great Comforter,

I long for Your refreshing

as for life-giving water.

I delight in Your presence

like the taste of honey on my tongue

Your sweetness renews life in my weary bones.

I am captivated by Your grace.

You lavish me with Your presence,

and my heart, my whole being,

is imprisoned with awe.

Yawhweh is Most High!

Let the earth bow down in worship!

May it so be in me this day.

Amen.