Day 3
There may be more later, but first this: prayers and thoughts for S, her daughter and her family.
I so hungered for a sermon at yesterday's service: so many starting points seemed at the ready: the naked man in linen - wha? Caiaphus ripping his garment. Jesus' silence in the face of the accusers. His cry of abandonment on the cross. And, of course, Peter's denials.
Peter's story stepped up as I was contemplating this next to say. I mentioned Mary and Yemaya yesterday, my ongoing sense of their presence: if not ongoing, at least I feel like I can quickly renew my connection once I call them to mind. God, I fudged: I do not really think at all of "God." The word has little resonance at all. Others' words can resound: Van Morrison's intonings of "Great, Great, Great Spirit" on Hymns to the Silence. Okay, this, yes: his "everything is made in God." That rings, especially the way he sings it.
Jesus? You might as well say serial denials, but never really much of any connection since mouthing words to schlep Youth for Christ in high school. I range from quiet respect to begrudged respect to indifference to mild to medium to spicy hostility.
Well, Palm Sunday is all his story, ain't it? And I think of how easily, how vociferously, Peter waylays him with his denials. What is about him that elicits such immediate denials of his place in our lives? Why so easy?
"Place in our lives": what another fudge, unless you count using him as a punching bag through the years. Though I did seem to be able to find some emotional purchase in the past when I experienced him as "brother." And I love the title Son of Man. Very beautiful.
What I am wanting to comment on, though, is that thread of peace that I felt as I walked through the rest of my day, after leaving Reconciliation. It felt engendered by my time among the others there, an energy imparted, an inner peace. I think of Christ's "two or three are gathered." It felt, dare I say, connected to him: and even as I write that, I have an immediate sense that I would deny what I just said in a second, crabwalk, walk away.
I don't know if it is important to say, but the return to Reconciliation is not a return to Christianity. Maybe, at some point, it will be precisely that, maybe - quite likely - not. The community, a loving community that seems to fit my body, that is what is calling. To be a part of something bigger. How big and whose big is still up for grabs.
But, I want to say: I am thankful for yesterday's peace, and all who set it in motion, all of us the Christs, the Marys, the Yemayas, within.
I so hungered for a sermon at yesterday's service: so many starting points seemed at the ready: the naked man in linen - wha? Caiaphus ripping his garment. Jesus' silence in the face of the accusers. His cry of abandonment on the cross. And, of course, Peter's denials.
Peter's story stepped up as I was contemplating this next to say. I mentioned Mary and Yemaya yesterday, my ongoing sense of their presence: if not ongoing, at least I feel like I can quickly renew my connection once I call them to mind. God, I fudged: I do not really think at all of "God." The word has little resonance at all. Others' words can resound: Van Morrison's intonings of "Great, Great, Great Spirit" on Hymns to the Silence. Okay, this, yes: his "everything is made in God." That rings, especially the way he sings it.
Jesus? You might as well say serial denials, but never really much of any connection since mouthing words to schlep Youth for Christ in high school. I range from quiet respect to begrudged respect to indifference to mild to medium to spicy hostility.
Well, Palm Sunday is all his story, ain't it? And I think of how easily, how vociferously, Peter waylays him with his denials. What is about him that elicits such immediate denials of his place in our lives? Why so easy?
"Place in our lives": what another fudge, unless you count using him as a punching bag through the years. Though I did seem to be able to find some emotional purchase in the past when I experienced him as "brother." And I love the title Son of Man. Very beautiful.
What I am wanting to comment on, though, is that thread of peace that I felt as I walked through the rest of my day, after leaving Reconciliation. It felt engendered by my time among the others there, an energy imparted, an inner peace. I think of Christ's "two or three are gathered." It felt, dare I say, connected to him: and even as I write that, I have an immediate sense that I would deny what I just said in a second, crabwalk, walk away.
I don't know if it is important to say, but the return to Reconciliation is not a return to Christianity. Maybe, at some point, it will be precisely that, maybe - quite likely - not. The community, a loving community that seems to fit my body, that is what is calling. To be a part of something bigger. How big and whose big is still up for grabs.
But, I want to say: I am thankful for yesterday's peace, and all who set it in motion, all of us the Christs, the Marys, the Yemayas, within.
posted by murat11 at 2:28 PM
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