14 posts tagged “faith”
Excerpt from New York Times Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/world/africa/16zimbabwe.html
JOHANNESBURG — The parishioners were lined up for Holy Communion on Sunday when the riot police stormed the stately St. Francis Anglican Church in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital. Helmeted, black-booted officers banged on the pews with their batons as terrified members of the congregation stampeded for the doors, witnesses said.
Tonight at CDSP, we honored the Martrys of Sudan. Upon returning home, I found an email from my friend Bruce, about Zimbabwe, and was reminded of the struggles that have been happening there, and which happened not too long ago in Kenya.
This reminds me of how important to me is my right to religious freedom. It is also a parable for what happens to clerics who sell out the church for power.
We must prayer for those who's creeds expose them to crucifixion that we in our comfort cannot imagine.
What would it take for you to renounce your faith or deepest felt beliefs? What are you willing to die for?
The disciples notice the folded linen
We live out Alleluias
because by your resurrection we will live forever.
The fact that John the Evangelist (John 20) made mention of the cloth that had wrapped Christ’s head was folded – this has stood out to me for a long time. Why that little detail?
Intention. Intentionality.
That the linen is folded is for me a little detail of intentionality. Here I reveal my lack of shame at being a firm believer in the Triune God. I imagine God the Father and God the Spirit huddled together over the dead body of the Incarnate One. I can almost see God the Father, at first the Steadfast-heart downcast, looking at the corpse of humanity. But then a smirk. Almost, perhaps, a faint giggle. God takes off the final cloth and looks into the cold, dead eyes of Love crucified. A pause to fold that linen and set it aside.
And then, a deep breath inhaled, taking in all that bad and death. Then an exhale: with the breath that breathed all that is into motion, the Holy Spirit hovers over the nostrils, and death is dead, life is won. Jesus is risen!
Revel in the intentionality with which God breathes the life of Love into the nostrils of our hearts.
Carefully folded in Love
Our hearts wrapped up in God’s
Into us new life descends
And alites, God’s Dove
Our war in Iraq has created a lot of victims. All war does. My prayers go up for Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paul Faraj Rahho's and two of his companions. He was ambushed only a few weeks ago. I am so sorry for my sisters and brothers in Iraq, whatever faith they may profess, for the horrors of war they see - it is so difficult to imagine, here in comfortable US. My heart also goes out to the soldiers - I know that they, too, suffer things we cannot imagine.
Before he died, did he pray for those who were killing him? Was he afraid? Was he confident? Did he sense Christ present with him? I am not suggesting unreasonable expectations for him, but just reflecting more on what I would do - what would I think, or do, or be in this situation?
As Christians prepare for Palm Sunday and Holy Week in the Western Christian churches, I think it is important to reflect on the lives of the martyrs of the faith - those who, unlike most US Christians, really do put their life in harm's way, and not by going out on impossible missions, but by their daily living - driving to work.
In the midst of Lent, we remain a resurrection people, and so can pray for God's mercy with hope and continue our journey in confidence that God's power to make all things new is infinitely more creative than the destructive forces we face in our own lives.
Too many phrases stuck out to me this week in the readings for a single blog, so I'll probably write on another one sooner or later (I am behind a few days anyway, having been in Santa Barbara for a fabulous retreat/training!).
Tonight, at the diocesan conversation "Building the Beloved Community," Bishop Marc Andrus delivered the homily, in which he shared the story about fifty schools identified by the apartheid gov't in South Africa, years ago, as trouble-making - they were the schools that formed and lifted up those who spent their lives working for justice in South Africa, who eventually helped bring about the end of apartheid there.
In the Gospel of John (chp. 4), there is the story of the "woman at the well." The gospel writer introduces this story by telling us that Jesus was tired out by his journey.
I believe in the immutability of God, but I believe also very firmly in the fully human and fully divine dual natures of Jesus. When a particular passage of scripture points out the divinity of Christ, I am renewed in confidence of the Grace that craks open rocks and calls forth living water. When a particular passage points out the humanity of Christ, I am struck anew by the intimacy God brings to us, with which God infuses us, and the way God journeys with us in our pilgrimage on earth.
I love this image: God is tired out by the journey. God, in God's fullness, however specifically incarnate, immutably unimaginabe in strength, has walked with us, so longed for us and loved us, so poured out God's self for us, so fully present to our own experience of this pilgrim-life, that God, too, is tired out with us.
And yet, able to continue again, day after day, to strike rocks to pour out water for us, to harvest banquet food for us, to be crucified again each day for us.
And to resurrect.
This painting of the Woman at the Well, by Michael Parchment, is available for purchase at:
http://www.aviscacaribbeanart.com/Artists/Jamaican_Gallery/Michael_Parchment/michael_parchment.htm
As I contemplate the readings for this coming Sunday, the phrase of the woman to Jesus stuck out to me. Walking in Spain, in the heat of mid-day, I often started to worry when my water bottle began to empty. Desperately, my eyes became more focused on looking for signs that said "potable" more than I was concerned with following the correct path on the pilgrimage.
How delighted I was when a woman would come out of her home, as though this were her daily vigil - helping pilgrims who looked like they would die if they didn't find a fountain in ten minutes. They would always point me towards some hidden fountain I had missed, as if placed there by them so that it could only be found by their angelic apparition and guidance.
I can't imagine myself saying, "Woman, I have water like you've never had!" Now, of course we can't give this water like Jesus, so it is hard to imagine. But it ought not be so, because if I am living into my baptismal covenant, I carry that water with me, just as sure as I've been spurged. So Christ's evangelical imperative is to share this living water, to let it flow out from Christ to us and onward in a chain of creative life, like a tiered fountain of potable water for life's holy pilgrims.
Last Friday, at our healing service, the homilist preached about memory being the location of being real. In a way, it is like the fox in The Little Prince, the being made real in the memory between the fox and the prince.
