Lenten Grace — Wilderness Waiting

photo by Josh Scholten

This is the wilderness time,
when every path is obscure
and thorns have grown around the words of hope.

This is the time of stone, not bread,
when even the sunrise feels uncertain
and everything tastes of bitterness.

This is the time of ashes and dust,
when darkness clothes our dreams
and no star shines a guiding light.

This is the time of treading life,
waiting for the swells to subside and for the chaos to clear.

Be the wings of our strength, O God,
in this time of wilderness waiting.
– Keri Wehlander from “600 Blessings and Prayers from around the world” compiled by Geoffrey Duncan

Advent Sings: How Can I Be Sure?

photo by Josh Scholten

And he [John] will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this?
Luke 1: 17-18

If God’s incomprehensibility does not grip us in a word, if it does not draw us into his superluminous darkness, if it does not call us out of the little house of our homely, close-hugged truths..we have misunderstood the words of Christianity. 
~Karl Rahner

Zechariah asks:
How can I be sure?
How can I trust this is true even when it doesn’t make sense in my every day world?
How can I trust God to accomplish this?

These are not the questions to be asked; he was struck mute, speechless until immersed in the reality of impossibility and then he sang loudly with praise.

Instead, we are to ask, like Mary:
How can this be?
How am I worthy?
How am I to be confident within incomprehensibility and calm in the midst of mystery?
How am I to be different as a result?

It is when we are most naked, at our emptiest, that we are clothed and filled with God’s glory.
We do not need to be sure.
We just need to be.
Changed.

photo by Josh Scholten

Half Fledged

photo by Emily Gibson, just outside our front door

Sometimes, hard-trying, it seems I cannot pray–
For doubt, and pain, and anger, and all strife.
Yet some poor half-fledged prayer-bird from the nest
May fall, flit, fly, perch–crouch in the bowery breast
Of the large, nation-healing tree of life;–
Moveless there sit through all the burning day,
And on my heart at night a fresh leaf cooling lay.
~George MacDonald from Diary of an Old Soul

There can be no response but to bow in earnest prayer, waiting for the hatch of a healing peace among the diverse peoples and opinions of our nation.   Our lives are half-fledged, not yet fully delivered nor understood, doubt burning into our flesh like thorns on fire.  We have become an angry and hurting nation– those who won and those who lost.  The gloating bloats who we are, beyond recognition.

May our prayers rise like a dove from hearts in turmoil,  once again to soar on the wings of eagles.

Peace, come quickly.
Be no longer moveless.
Move us to higher ground.
Plow deep our hearts.

photo of “firethorn” bush (pyracanthus) by Emily Gibson

Unruffled Calm

photo by Josh Scholten

Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts: the sight of the deep-blue sky, and the clustering stars above seem to impart a quiet to the mind.
Jonathan Edwards

During times like the last couple weeks,  nature has certainly been less than calm (wildfires, windstorms, drought, overbearing heat, flooding).  Anxiety and worry seems an appropriate response in the face of such tragedy.

We have been spared in our part of the world, dealing only with unseasonably cool and wet weather, disrupting the growing season and hay harvest.  Our anxieties, ever present nevertheless,  are quite little compared to those elsewhere who have lost family members, their homes and all their belongings.

Even with that point of view, anxiety and doubt can take root like a weed in a garden patch– overwhelming, crowding out and impairing plants trying to be fruitful.  The result is nothing of value grows–only unchecked proliferation of more weeds.

I need reminding to keep my anxiousness winnowed out.  I don’t need a large scale natural disaster as impetus.  I simply need to look up at the sky to know: I am not God and never will be.  My worry helps no one, changes nothing,  only hinders me from being fruitful.

Reaching for the unruffled calm overawes, imparting quiet to the mind, taking a deep breath and knowing He is in control.