Easter Babies

While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering

Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?

My first granddaughter arrives very soon! I am watching my daughter go through this last week or two and her presence evoked these two verses. Even though she has been through this twice and even though birth is almost unparalleled when it comes to wonder and mystery it is safe to say that ‘while in her joy,’ she wonders at times, fears at times, has those occasional doubts about how this joyous occasion is going to go. I feel the Easter emotion, too, joyful anticipation with a dash of anxiety.

I reassure myself that there is nothing more natural than childbirth. But when you look at the body of a woman in the 38^th week of pregnancy, while there is a unique beauty, the word natural doesn’t come to mind. And this business of people popping out of people – well that’s just wrong.

But, perhaps, it is fitting – this Easter baby thing. Right now our family lives in joyful anticipation with our dash of anxiety – like the disciples knowing the resurrection but still hiding in rooms with fear, troubled hearts, disbelief and wondering waiting for something – the arrival of something, something like Pentecost. It was the coming of the Holy Spirit that finally let joy have its way.

For us, it is still Easter joy and wonderings, anticipation and anxiety but one is coming who will finally after nine long months let joy have its way.

Even so, Come, little Bailey Cate

Easter Moments

‘Peace be with you.’ ²⁰After Jesus said this, he showed the disciples his hands and his side. John 20: 19-20

“Don’t let your wounds make you become someone you’re not” anonymous

Romeo, in response to Mercutio’s teasing, says, “He jest at scars that never felt a wound.” Real wounds are not funny, wounds hurt. Emotional wounds hurt the most. We are in the wonder of Easter. The liturgy has become alive and full of light. Spring sunshine has pushed away the winter darkness. It all seems to move so effortlessly and naturally – why is it so hard for us to follow.

We don’t say goodbye to the darkness near so easily. We live wounded lives and we share as much in the distribution as in the receiving. But we probably wouldn’t admit that. All we know is that we have our wounds and they are with us and they hurt. And the most painful wounds of all come from those whom we call lovers and friends for they are the only ones who have the power to really wound.

We are pretty comfortable with Lent. This life lived in space and time is not easy – even for those that have it easy. We are use to struggle and strife. We are far too familiar with guilt and coming up short in our relationships. When I do a class on the Psalms I talk about psalms of orientation (everything is going pretty well), psalms of disorientation (loss of control and chaos), and psalms of reorientation (new and reordered life rising out of the chaos.) I ask people to write a psalm in each of these modes. Everyone is all over the disorientation stage. They get that so well. The toughest to write are the psalms of reorientation – life resurrected and joy returned.

How can it really be Easter, new beginnings, and resurrection if we still have our wounds and our scars? Maybe the Easter life is a ‘both/and’ not an ‘either/or’ experience. Jesus still carried his scars and they were of the most painful kind. Not just the brutality of crucifixion but the emotional devastation of being deserted by friends, betrayed by his own people, and the incomprehensible turning away of his Father.

These wounds were so powerful that they followed him into resurrection, but they were not powerful enough to keep him from resurrection.  I think the most powerful decision for him was not to die but to forgive and not continue the unending cycle of violence. His hardest work was probably letting go of the anger, resentment, and desire for revenge.

Jesus did not let his wounds turn him into someone he wasn’t. So it can be for us. We can have an Easter experience if we are willing to let go of wounds. They happen – they always will while we are on this side of paradise. But their presence does not have the power to deny us an Easter joy unless we let them.  We can do what Jesus did and does, let the violence end with us. Into the situations of our lives our response can be Peace Be With You.

Last Suppers

It is Thursday afternoon and my attention turns more and more to the Agape Meal we will share tonight. The institution of the Last Supper is remember and celebrated in the Maundy Thursday experience. The Agape Meal is part of the ritual of the day for us but what is touching my spirit now is that performance of a ritual aside, I will be sharing a meal with people who with each new Maundy Thursday mean more and more to me. I can picture faces, smiles, eyes, everyone with their own unique presence.

I wonder what the atmosphere was at Jesus’ meal as he hosted a time of wine, bread, and fellowship knowing it would be his last meal. Last meals is not something we, thankfully, think much about. But in the quietness of this moment it fills my mind. Those sharing that meal with him, seemingly, with no idea that it was the last time they would look across the table at his smile, his eyes, and his remarkable presence. Did they have any idea that it was the last supper?

I remember going to Cate’s family farm for an annual family reunion, it was a time of wine, bread, and fellowship. Cousin’s gathered as they do every year. But this year, there was a cousin for who this would be her last supper and we all knew it. She had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. We did what was always done at these gatherings. We shared food, wine, and fellowship; but then at the end, one by one we went over to Clara and said our goodbyes. She waited, standing under a tree in the front yard. I will always have that image of this young woman standing there. I took my turn; I was new to the family and barely knew her. I walked up and tried to say words that one would speak to a person dying something I had never done before. I remember her face, her eyes – her presence under that tree gracefully receiving one family member after another.

I watched her wait as one after another got the courage up to speak with her. I’ve wondered through the years, how hard was it for her to stand there? To be the one that would not break bread again with those she loved? With all those gathered in the yard, that place under the tree must have been the loneliest place one could imagine.

Through this last year we had a couple in our church whose five year old granddaughter was diagnosed with cancer. Throughout the terrifying months of treatment I wonder what the family meals were like. As these two grandparents looked across the table at a smile and dancing eyes and wondered about last meals. I can only guess at the depth of feeling at those meals. Thanks be to God, the treatment worked.

But on this day, maybe we should remember that a day will come when we will host the meal. We will look, like Jesus did, around the table of those we have come to love the most. We will look at their smiles, eyes and presence and know that we are the designated host – the one who will not eat or drink again until his kingdom comes. How will we handle ourselves at that meal?

Tonight, we will remember the Lord of Hosts, who in his last hours shared a meal with those he loved and then did a remarkable thing – he took the bread and showed it to them and said this is me and he took the wine and said it again. Eat, drink, love and never take it for granted and believe what the bread and wine shows you, I will always be with you even unto the end of time.

May the wonder of this night teach us the wonder of meals and give us the grace to be the host and preside over a meal and let love be the last word.

“You think this is just another day in your life. It’s not just another day; it’s the one day that is given to you today. It’s given to you; it’s a gift. It’s the only gift that you have right now, and the only appropriate response is gratefulness. If you do nothing else but to cultivate that response to the great gift that this unique day is, if you learn to respond as if it were the first day of your life and very last day, then you will have spent this day very well.” David Steidl-Rast

The constant exercise is changing my awareness. I’m more aware of my body. I am aware of muscles I thought had long since taken early retirement. My awareness of my body and posture stays with me long after the exercise. Besides the daily practice reminding me to exercise now my body is reminding me. The habit has gone on long enough that my body is getting somewhat addicted.

As I head toward Easter, I can see how I could live into a ‘new way of being’ so to speak. I have a different consciousness now than I had before. I know the challenge will be will I keep it up or let it slip away. But for now, I can see resurrection a possibility of change: “Behold I make all things new!!” The verse does not say he makes all new things, he makes all things (already existing) new.

This feeling of my disciplines and my body both reminding me to practice is interesting and intriguing. I am anxious in this coming fifty days of Easter to choose some spiritual exercises and seeing if my spiritual awareness can rise to a new level.

This time of remembering to breathing and stretching along with the lifting does center me in the moment. It removes me from the tyranny of the urgent and gives me the gift of awareness, the gift of the present moment. And as the quote states so well above, even in the midst of the daily annoyances I can be aware of something more and be grateful.

Paschal Iron

The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.’^* Matthew 21:44

When I started this Lenten journey of taking on yoga and weight lifting it was to see in the physical realm how physical exercise affects transformation. In this case, what transformation would my body experience, I wanted to see what analogies would arise that would give light to the transformational effects of spiritual practices (exercises).

Gyms remind me of churches. They are spaces set apart for a particular use – transformation. They use all the same tools as churches. On their walls are the pictures of their saints, men and women with huge muscles, toned curves and not enough body fat to keep them warm under 70 degrees. The music played is always energetic, to help motivate and focus members in their act of worship, pushing and pulling iron. They have their way of life that supports their life. The commandments of diet and discipline are always present.

There will not be transformation for a member that does not take the iron on its own terms. The bench press and dumbbells make no apology for not being prettier. They make no apology for being the same every visit. The iron could care less about entertaining or if the member is bored. They just sit there extending an open invitation – Come and Change!

Living, dying, and rising is the paschal mystery. Christ lived on one level of existence; he died, and was raised to another dimension of existence. All things are filled with the paschal mystery. New muscles come into a gym to die. Muscles being torn down and rebuilt is how it works. The new muscles are traumatized, broken down, and overwhelmed. There is no body building without the paschal mystery.

The journey of weight lifting reminds me of the spiritual journey in another way. When someone new comes in and starts to lift and he stands besides some guy who has been lifting for years with the body to prove it. If they race to see who can build the most muscle over the next three months it is not even a contest. The new guy will blow him away. His muscles are not use to the new life. They will grow quickly over the first three months. There will be obvious rewards for the effort. It will be an exciting time. If the long term member looks only at outward results he will become discouraged.

For the long term member, his muscles are ‘gospel hardened.’ They know what is coming and know how to adapt and avoid transformation. This weight lifter will have to trick his muscles, change up his routine keeping his muscles off guard. But on another level his muscles have gone to another level, it is not about quantity but quality. His continued transformation happens but at an unseen level, at least for awhile. That lifter will have to trust the process and believe in it. He will have to trust that an unseen level transformation is going on.

When we encounter Christianity in one of its many incarnations the beginning phase is exciting and is filled with fast growth as we learned about this new experience. It is exciting and compelling. But a time will come when we will be invited to ‘lift in faith’ so to speak. The obvious transformation that comes with this new spiritual life will give way to the deeper less obvious transformations. We, also, become ‘gospel hardened’ we learned how to deflect transformation in the areas of our lives where we need it the most but are not willing to embrace it.

The gym and the church invite us not to give up but to keep lifting and believing by faith not by sight. The good news is that transformation does happen. We will move ‘from faith to faith’ as St. Paul puts it.

Falling against Iron, falling against Christ – it is the way to new life.

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. John 12: 24

To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour. William Blake

“I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don’t notice it.” Shug

“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say– `Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

Thunder or Angels!?!?  This Sunday begins Holy Week. Lent is almost over. It has been thirty-four days since Lent began and this last Sunday we heard the words of John saying that when God spoke over Jesus some heard thunder and others angels. I wonder what made the difference. In the passage before this one quoted, John says that while at the religious festival some Greeks came to the door and wanted to see Jesus. In my mind’s eye, I see Jesus socializing and enjoying himself when Andrew and Phillip tap him on the shoulder and tell him about the visitors. Jesus’ response is a complete change of mood, something monumental has just happened. Now he knows that the hour has come and the time of his death was at hand. Andrew and Phillip heard thunder, a simple request for an introduction, Jesus heard something else.

I wonder sometimes if we get so busy in our everyday life that God’s voice just gets written off as thunder. The entrance of Holy week lies five days ahead. It is the remembrance of the Paschal Mystery, Jesus dying and rising. The week is a dramatic experience that takes us through to unimaginable joy. It is a week of angels speaking but for others thunder will be the order of the day.

Last night the thunder started first low and then rose to manic proportions. The thunder proclaimed KU won! They would move on to the final four. I wondered how the angels’ voices of Holy Week would fare against the thunder of Final Four week. Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled we won. It’s just that I watch these two worlds begin to collide and it has caused me to wonder.

It reminds me of the daily distractions and busyness that cause us all to hear thunder instead of angels. When my children were young, in the midst of my struggles dealing with work and life, did I hear the voices of my children trying to connect with me or did I just hear thunder? Do I hear now, the voice of my wife? To these questions, I hope I can answer that a descent amount of the time I did and do. I have no illusions of batting a 1000%.

Maybe when it comes to thunder and angels, the answer lies not in the either/or but the both/and. Lent reminds us that thunder and the angel’s voice was the same phenomena. There will be much thunder if KU continues to win. But is not that thunder also and angelic voice telling us to celebrate and enjoy the gift and wonder of life, the joy of friends and thrill of being drawn into something that we can only ride along and not control the outcome? A roller coaster ride reminding us that we are alive and that life is good! Oh how we need those moments. If we quiet our hearts and listen maybe much of what we think of as noisy thunder is the voice of God trying to get through telling us to wake up, the Kingdom is all around you!

Perhaps what turns roll of thunder into the voices of angels is our being in the moment. That things like basketball games, children’s laughter, a dinner with friends can fill us with an appreciation and gratitude for life. To notice that life is happening might be all we need to turn thunder into something angelic. If we could cultivate that awareness this would be a productive Lent.

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

Benjamin Disraeli (maybe)

There is a story from the Desert Fathers about a hermit who spent 20 years in the desert seeking God and the spiritual path. He became curious about his progress. He asks God to reveal to him how far he had come. God told him to get up in the middle of the night and go to a nearby town and go to a particular house and wait across the street and watch what happens for the day.

The hermit arrives at the appointed time and the appointed place and watches. Before the sun rises, two sisters, who are young widows, rise before dawn and start cooking and preparing for the day. Throughout the day, they take care of their children and their mothers-in-law and also bake food to sell in the town as well as crafts they have made to support the family. At the end of the day, they cook for the family and long after everyone has gone to bed the two sisters clean up and prepare for the next day. Throughout the day they did not have breaks or time for formal prayer, or self-care moments. God told the hermit, who had given his life to prayer and reflection, that his spirituality had yet to come as far as the two young widows. It must have been a sobering blow to the hermit. He must have wondered if he had wasted his time.

This is not a story about how it is a waste of time to seek God in the desert or that overly busy people are more holy. Actually, in those times, there would have been many houses that would have fit the description, but God sent him to observe two particular women.

I recall this story more on the line of Benjamin Disraeli’s quote. In short, objective measuring instruments. Those ‘damn statistics’ moments. I bring it up because I am in the fourth week of my Lenten disciplines of weight training and yoga and I stepped on the scale and realized I had gained five pounds. I, immediately, had a vision. I was in running shorts and T-shirt coming off the desert headed for the river Jordan. It was the completion of a forty day non-stop endurance run. Coming into view, to greet me was Jesus. But he looked different. He had on a ball cap and sweat shirt with a whistle hanging around his neck.

“Welcome back, good and faithful runner, how do you feel?” “Good!” I reply. “Great!” says Jesus, “I need to take some vitals real quick just to make sure you are not dehydrated and what not. Come over here and step on this scale, please….Mr. Zimmermann, would you care to tell me and the team how you managed to run for forty days in an average temperature of 120 degrees and gain five pounds??” “Hmmm……………..no.” Then it happens, I see him reach for the whistle. I can’t recall the tradition of the whistle in the New Testament, but I’m sure this is not a good thing. I know about the Gabriel’s trumpet thing, when divine beings blow on things something big is about to go down. The whistle sounds and the words, not found in scripture, are uttered, “Another lap!” I wake from my vision.

It is so easy to fool ourselves about our progress. Denial and rationalization flourish as we convince ourselves about how we are doing. We need objective measurements, as irritating as they are. It is one of the reasons for community. A community holds us accountable. Being faithful in worship and in the hearing of scripture hold up a plumb line by which to measure our real spiritual condition. On our own, we are no match against our justifications, rationalizations, and denials. Lent reminds us to hold onto being “poor in spirit,” open to correction and reality checks.

As for the news about the weight….well, as St. Benedict says, ‘Always we begin, again’

Acedia

And now, my beauties, something with poison in it, I think. With poison in it, but attractive to the eye, and soothing to the smell.  Poppies… Poppies. Poppies will put them to sleep. Sleeeeep. Now they’ll sleeeeep! The Wicked Witch

“I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ¹⁹And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry.” The Rich Fool

The Wizard of Oz has great parallels to the spiritual journey and the witch’s quote is perhaps the most important. Dorothy and her companions have bested all scary obstacles but there is one deadly one left, the urge to just stop and lay down. To slowly be overcome by weariness and just take our mind off the goal and journeys of our lives.

I’m in my ‘poppies’ phase in my Lenten journey. The practices are still foreign and difficult. I enjoy the community and fellowship, but ….”Poppies, Poppies”….it can be so tempting to just have ‘more important’ things to do and not be able to make it. It is so much easier to stay on the couch than to make the effort to go and stretch or lift. Things or people that block our paths can, if nothing else, ignite our ego and we rise to the challenge. But what about no challenge? Just feeling bored and fatigued and wanting to take ‘Thine ease?’ That feeling that there is nothing more one can do, anyway.

This unusual word, acedia, simply means tiredness of the soul, it was the scourge of the desert hermits and of monks. It is also known to afflict almost anyone. It can come to us in the form of a midlife crisis and other ways. We get tired of being positive and lose enthusiasm for things that are important to us. Monks can lose all desire to pray or study. They can turn resentful over the whole business of being a monk. Margaret Funk, a Benedictine nun, describes it this way: “In the psalms, acedia is referred to as the “noonday devil.” Thoughts of the monk in this time are, “What’s the use? My work, my prayers, and my relationships go on as normal, but I receive no satisfaction. Time goes slowly. I am tempted to give up the religious life, interior vigilance, the spiritual journey. Prayer is worthless and, also, the study of the Bible, often I try to get others to depart from the monastery or from their spiritual journeys, or, at least, come with me to another monastery, something new.” Funk says that monks can become possessed by a bad mood. Acedia can fill the monk with disgust with monastic life.

The parallels are easy to construct for those of us living in the everyday world with our jobs, relationships, and endeavors. Our energy can turn low and we are going through the motions. There are not obvious rewards for our efforts. It is difficult to detect, just a weariness or boredom. We can become lazy. It can manifest itself in cynicism because it is so much easier to be cynical than hopeful.

Spiritual directors tell monks suffering from this to rededicate themselves to work in every sense. “Work with your hands and be present to the work, don’t daydream your way through it. Keep to the spiritual practices. Don’t trust the rationalizations about your situations keep the company of true friends. Be aware and grateful for the blessings of your life.

I’m hanging in. Aside from the wise advice above, if I stop and notice there are changes in my body and the way I feel. It is having an effect whether I am doing it with an enthusiastic effort or if I’m just going through the motions. The wonderful thing about exercise is that it does not care about my mood. Do the work and transformation will happen whether I am rejoicing or whining.  So it is with the spiritual exercises, Thanks be to God!

The Joy of the Lord is my strength Nehemiah
8:10

We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same.–Carlos Castaneda

Resolve to keep happy and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.–Helen Keller

For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don’t enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are that you’re not going to be very happy. If someone bases his happiness or unhappiness on
major events like a great new job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn’t going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness. –Andy Rooney

Negative thoughts and emotions do more than bring our spirits down. They are hard on the body. The Bible tells us to guard our hearts one way to do this is to seek out joy and laughter in our everyday life. I’ve felt for years that comedians do a holy work. They remind us in the daily grind to value ourselves and take a moment for ourselves and laugh. One study showed that watching a funny movie can expand the lining of our blood vessels by 50% this allows for greater blood flow and reduces blood pressure.

Dr. Michael Miller reports that deep belly laughs are the best kind and laughing with friends is even better. Social laughter boosts pain relieving, feel good endorphins. This is why Girls Night Out or Guys Night Out is not just an activity in an already busy schedule. It is restorative and renewing. It, literally, can make us healthier. A group of people who just choose to make time for each other and gather with no specific agenda – sooner or later will start laughing. Andy Rooney is right. The simple everyday things are the stuff of our lives and the source of our joys.

This Lent let us not take them for granted.

Matt+

A person
standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and
conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken. Ecclesiastes 4:12

Spiritual practices are tricky. Sometimes, it’s not just the act of yoga or the weight lifting that is the transforming agent but the fact that I do it in community. Working out with my 20 year old partner lifts my spirits. I enjoy his youth and just being around him connects me with a wider human experience. Listening to what is important to him and getting a glimpse of his world view takes me outside myself. It is very possible to lift weights or do yoga alone but it is much better done in community Companions on the way inspire, cajole, argue, hold one accountable, and look out for one another.

Emile Durkheim did an interesting study in the late 19^th century concerning human freedom. His surprising conclusion was that if you want happiness live with constraints and obligations. He gathered data concerning suicide rates and found that people with fewer social constraints and obligations were more likely to kill themselves. He looked at the religious culture and found that Protestants who had the least religious requirements had higher suicide rates than the Catholics or Jews, the groups with the tightest social and religious obligations. These two groups had the lowest suicide rates. In short, people need social and religious obligations to provide meaning and purpose to their lives.

Years have proved Durkheim out. If you want to predict someone’s happiness or how long they will live you should find out about their social relationships. Again the body comes into play. People with strong relationships have stronger immune systems, longer lives, faster recovery from surgery and reduced rates of anxiety and depression. Studies show that even people who don’t want social interaction benefit from it.

There is no Lone Ranger spirituality in the Christian faith. The Christian faith is a social faith. We
were made for each other and our journeys through life are far deeper when they are shared. I am glad for my wife and other yoga practioners, along with my young friend in the weight lifting world who are my companions on the way in my Lenten journey of tearing my body asunder.

Matt+

(The information on Durkheim was taken from, The Happiness
Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, by Jonathan Haidt)