Resurrection question

resurrection – do we want it?

it’s only possible after death.

do i want to have to let things go, even experience grief, in order to somehow experience new life, risen-ness?

am I too attached to the order of things to let go enough, to let a new life come?  

am I really prepared to live through a ‘Lent-time’ or even a ‘crucifixion-time’ in my life, to make room for ‘resurrection’?

Easter poem

i thank You God for most this amazing day
By e e cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginably You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

enough said?

the naked soul of God

 A poem by William Stidger:

                           I saw God bare his soul one day

                           where all the earth might see

                           the stark and naked soul of him

                           on lonely Calvary.  

There was a crimson sky of blood

and overhead a storm;

when lightning slit the clouds 

and light engulfed his form. 

                           Beyond the storm a rainbow lent

                           a light to every clod

                           for on that cross mine eyes beheld

                           the naked soul of God.   

…a comment adapted from Tim Zingale’s Good Friday sermon, part 2, on suite 101.com:

….From the naked soul of God comes the greatest act of love humankind has ever experienced. For the power of God was shown not in glory, or power, or fame, or strength, or prosperity, or security, or wealth, or success, but in the bare soul of God hung on a cross that endured the pain, the brokenness, the humility, the reality of this world.

(areas changed in italics)

blue fish?

found these really cool video clips (and bought several!).

If you have 2 minutes 32 seconds to spare, have a squiz at this: 

http://www.bluefishtv.com/ProductDetails.aspx?cid=1005&id=1433&f=s3&cc=0&csc=0&ldr=1042&s=

Lent Balance

Hi! back after a long absence when…you guessed it… I forgot my password!

anyway….I last wrote at the end of Advent, and now it’s Lent –  who better to turn to for some words about fasting and balance than Desert Mother, Amma Syncletica (okay, I admit, I had to read up on her for an essay!). Here goes…a bit from my essay with a quote from Laura Swan, who wrote ‘The Forgotten Desert Mothers’….

 “Although the desert way was of sparse meals and fasting from most foods, Amma Syncletica understood that more was involved. Fasting may take the form of giving up something other than food, such as excessive commitments, overachieving, unhealthy attitudes, and old resentments. The desert ascetics began by fasting from food, possessions and social relationships. They then progressed to fasting from interior attachments, such as anger, jealousy, envy, or possessiveness. The desert ascetics understood that fasting creates the space in our bodies, minds, and spirits for God to be within us and new things to grow.” (Swan, 2001, pp. 44-45)

Looked at in this manner, ascetic discipline can be seen as a psychosocial and physical discipline. It relates to moderated, balanced living, and relates again to the concepts around simplicity and detachment. This appears to make it more challenging to the present day. The continually booming weight-loss industry, and diagnoses of addiction to food, drugs, sex, or exercise in Western countries, are testimony to the fact that many of us do not live in moderation and need some way to discipline ourselves. “

Back to blog then… I found this really challenging – to look at how we balance our lives and look at what we need to ‘fast’ from. It becomes then not just about food, or giving up chocolate for Lent (for example…though that always seems just wrong to me!!), but about committing, or re-committing, ourselves, to lives in balance with our priorities right, and prepared to ‘leave out’ or moderate anything which gets our balanced moderated lives in a mess.

‘food’ for thought?!