Holy Saturday (The Welcoming)

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Paschal Triduum: A Personal Journey

Holy Saturday (Interlude)

 

The Welcoming

God is like a welcoming mother

     Holding creation close.

God is like a welcoming mother

     Holding creation close.

Am I too old to come back?

Could I retrace those steps?

God is like a welcoming mother

     Holding creation close.

Am I too old to come back?

She hears the question

Because God is more than a welcoming mother.

Is it too late?
She hears the question

Because God is more than a welcoming mother.

God is a vibrant woman

     Ready to return.

She hears the question

Because God is a vibrant woman

     Ready to return.

In the silence of our despair

As we question the world around us

God is like a vibrant woman

     Ready to return.

She bends down like a welcoming mother

     Holding creation close.

She moves like a vibrant woman

     Ready to return.

                                                     ~ CK

*     *     *

"…how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings…"

                                                                                                                              (Matthew 23:37)

"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!" (Isaiah 49:15)

"But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother." (Psalm 132:2)

"When Israel was a child, I loved him... I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks, I bent down to them and fed them... How can I give you up, Ephraim?  How can I hand you over, O Israel? .... my compassion grows warm and tender." (Hosea 11:1,4,8)

"For wisdom is more mobile than any motion; because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things. She is a breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty."
                                                                                                                                  (Wisdom 7:24)

 "Lo, the winter is past,

The rain is over and gone.

The flowers appear on the earth;

The time of singing has come."

(Song of Solomon 2:11,12)

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Photo: A view from Chung Shan (Middle Mountain) near Guangzhou, China (formerly known as Canton)

Credit: Charles Kinnaird

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Good Friday (Keeping Silent)

<Holy Thursday                                                                                                                  Holy Saturday >

Paschal Triduum: A Personal Journey

Good Friday

Keeping Silent
(A Song of Mark)

Now we remember.

He told us to say nothing

But how could we keep quiet?

“Tell no one.”

But we blurted it out

In our ignorance.

Our demons shouted

And he ordered silence

But our silence could not be kept.

Now as the darkness creeps in

And hope is taken

Like a poor migrant

Bound on an outward caravan,

No one can speak

No song can be heard

None dare say what we thought we knew.

The time for singing has passed;
Gone are the days of glad shouts
And hopeful chatter.

We, once lively pilgrims – all of us –

Turn each to our own indefinite way

Where no one gives voice to what was heard,

No one tells of what was seen.
When an empty tomb offers no consolation

In our grief, we finally honor his admonition,

“Tell no one.” 

We keep silent.

                                                                                                              ~ CK

*     *     *

“Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.” (Mark 16:8)

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Photo: "Dead Tree and Pacific"
Credit: Brocken Inaglory
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons


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Holy Thursday (Everything Ends this Night)

< Palm Sunday                                                                                                                Good Friday >

Paschal Triduum: A Personal Journey

Holy Thursday

 

Everything Ends this Night

We walked the green hills of Bethsaida

And sailed the blue waters of Galilee.

On the dusty roads of Samaria

We saw hope dawn in the hearts of our daughters.

In villages temporarily calmed by Roman peace

And guided by Greek insight

A rabbi unfolded scenes of a father’s love.

We saw before us

A living litany

Of new life

When lame limbs walked

Fevered brows cooled

Deaf ears heard

And eyes saw for the first time.

Our eyes saw for the first time

Our limbs moved with grace

Our fevered minds became lucid

And music filled our ears.

But everything ends this night.

The altar is laid bare.

Joy becomes sorrow

Hope withers before the emperor’s army.

Peace fades in the wake of ecclesiastical edict.

The last light goes out.

It's all over now.
Everything ends this night.

                                                 ~ CK

*     *     *

"In that hour Jesus said to the crowd, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I sat in the temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me”… Then all the disciples deserted him and fled." (Matthew 26: 55, 56)

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Photo: Church altar stripped for Maundy Thursday

           St. Paul's, Bow Common


< Palm Sunday                                                                                                                  Good Friday >

Monday Music: Can't Find My Way Home (Acoustic)

Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, Ric Grech, and Ginger Baker made up the English group Blind Faith, which was short-lived but highly influential. "Can't Find My Way Home," appeared on the group's one album (self-titled, "Blind Faith"). Here, Steve Winwood performs an acoustic version of the song.

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Palm Sunday Reflection

                                                                                                                   Holy Thursday>       
Palm Sunday

On this day

We set ourselves apart

By walking with the crowd.

Joyful hosannas

Can turn on a dime

And someone goes to jail.

The solid backing of the people

Becomes moot when the masses disperse

Like ashes upon the water.

On this day

We set ourselves apart.

We are fine pilgrims

Loyal followers

And guardians of faith.

Marching with palm branches raised,

We echo the crowds of a distant past.

They celebrated the triumph of a new king,

And looked to the dawn of a new era.

But tides turn with Empire

And crowds move with the tide.

On this day

We set ourselves apart.

We remember the joy

We recall the loss.

Causes come and go,

Empires rise and fall.

The crowd remains

Ready to shout hosannas

Ready to disperse

Ready to offer the sacrificial lamb.

                                         ~ CK

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Picture: Christ's Entry into Jerusalem
             by Duccio di  Buoninsigna
             (tempera on wood)
             Public Domain


                                                                                                      Holy Thursday>                                                                                                       
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Saturday Haiku: Springtime Lake

morning breaks

beside the still lake

cherries bloom

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Image: "Lake Kawaguchi"
Artist: Tsuchiya Koitsu
Medium: Woodblock print



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Journey to Copenhagen

Pedestrian street in Copenhagen

Just yesterday, I learned of  a worldwide poetry event: "On the 21st of March, World Poetry Day, the National Poet of Belgium, Els Moors, invites all people worldwide to gather their most beautiful odes and elegies on their cities (/ countries / states / …) and make them public. In times of gentrification, mass tourism and worldwide migration we are craving for lonely flâneurs and notorious wanderers who want to lay bare the mysterious heart of their cities. Are you still in love with the city you were born in? Were you pushed on by love, or obliged to leave your hearth and home? Adopt your city by writing an urban elegy and take part in the writing of the most exotic Lonely Planet: The adopted cities."

You can go to their website at http://www.dichterdesvaderlands.be/nieuws/the-adopted-cities/ to enter your own poem about your own city, or your adopted city.

I decided to do a poem about my visit to Copenhagen, Denmark 35 years ago. I was fascinated by the city, but never wrote about it until yesterday when I heard about the National Poet of Belgium's invitation.

Journey to Copenhagen

Copenhagen.

The far point of my travels that summer.

Riding the train north from sunny Italy,

That last stretch through the night

As we entered Denmark

Chilled me to the bone.

Once acclimated to the northern clime

The grand city won my heart.

Solid and settled

With ancient memories –

Wholesome, strong and pagan –

And civilized.

It’s what people eventually do

When they get the routine down

Of living together

To enjoy the fruits of their labors.

I plotted out my course through the city.

Such wonderful fountains – especially that mighty bull

    with dramatic prays of water coming from his nostrils!

Elegant  dining,

Old buildings,

Stately churches,

And half-clad women in the park

Who were more acclimated to the weather than I.

A tour guide told us

Of the glorious palace,

How it burned down twice

Before its present majestic state.

He told how the crown

Brings in wealth from exports

Because no one else in the world

Knows how to make beer like the Danes.

The old world gaiety

Of Tivoli Gardens

With men singing in beer halls,

Hurdy-gurdy music down the street,

And vendors selling ice cream in fresh-made waffle cones.

I parted from the crowds

And made my way to the cemetery

Where I sat by Kierkegaard’s grave.

Under the old oak tree

Sitting on a cement bench

I read Philosophical Fragments

And recalled the commonality of tears

That connected us

And brought me to this far point

In my travels.

                                                          ~ CK

____________________________________

Photo Credits

Upper: "Strøget" - The Pedestrian Street in Copenhagen in the old Medieval part of the city
            From Copenhagen Portal.dk

Lower: The Gefion Fountain against background of St. Alban's Church. Copenhagen, Denmark,                       Northern Europe
             Credit: Mstyslav Chernov
             Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons



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Monday Music: Morning Has Broken

In 1971, Cat Stevens awakened the public to a beautiful hymn from The Presbyterian Hymnal. The hymn, first published in 1931, was written by Eleanor Farjeon and set to the Scottish Gaelic tune, "Bunessan." Stevens made the song popular, though he erroneously pronounced "re-creation" as "recreation." An understandable mistake since hymnals typically will hyphenate words to fit the notes. One could see it and not realize that it is the actual hyphenated word, re-creation. Nevertheless, it is still a timelessly beautiful song.

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The My Lai Massacre: 50 Years Later

Helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson speaks with reporters at the Pentagon on Dec. 4, 1969, 

after testifying about the My Lai massacre in South Vietnam. (Associated Press)

Last Friday, the LA Times ran a story on the 5oth anniversary of the My Lai Massacre (March 16, 1968), “A forgotten hero stopped the My Lai massacre 50 years ago today.” It tells the story of helicopter pilot, Hugh Thompson, who courageously stopped the massacre and filed the initial complaint with the army.  The army then tried to cover it up, but journalist Seymour Hersch found out about it and reported it to the world. It would be over a year later, in November of 1969, when Hersh's report was filed to the press. 

Tragic Civilian Loses

All of us heard about the My Lai incident during the Vietnam War (note: we typically referred to this, if my memory serves correctly, as the My Lai Incident, not the My Lai Massacre). I was in junior high school at the time. I did not know this story, however, about the young soldier who stopped the massacre. Moreover, I was not aware that “Americans killing civilians in Vietnam was pervasive and systematic,” and that there had been “a My Lai a month.”

I do remember at the time that the adults were saying things like, “That's just the cost of war, especially over there with guerrilla warfare, where you can't tell who the enemy is.” I say, that is just one more big reason not to engage in war. There were 507 killed in My Lai that day, and who knows how many civilians were killed in those unreported from previous incidents (massacres).

The article highlights the tragic loses in the numbers of children who were killed:

Today there's a little museum in My Lai, where Thompson is honored, and which displays a list of the names and ages of people killed that day. Trent Angers, Thompson's biographer and friend, analyzed the list and found about 50 there who were 3 years old or younger. He found 69 between the ages of 4 and 7, and 91 between the ages of 8 and 12.

Our Tragic Wartime Bent

Tragically, our country has made war engagement much easier in the intervening years. We ended the draft, but that has only led to removing most of us further from the brunt of war. Since we no longer fear our sons and daughters being drafted into service, we have fewer qualms about sending other people’s sons and daughters to do the Empire’s bidding.

We have been laying waste to villages for years now over in the Middle East without ever officially declaring war. Our drones will decimate wedding parties in other countries in an attempt to kill a terrorist (it is still hard for us to tell who the enemy is).  Urban areas are being bombed in order to maintain control or regain control of countries.

We always seem to find the money and a good excuse to engage in military conflict. As a result, whole generations grow up knowing only wartime and destruction under the heavy arm of Empire as we seek to maintain oil supplies, and “national security” (read, protection of our corporations’ overseas interests).

We have yet to learn from the costs of war.

*   *   *

Monument to the victims of the My Lai Massacre
(Photo property of www.traveladventures.org)

*Read about one man's visit to the My Lai museum here.

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Saturday Haiku: The Cat Watches

cat watches

birds are taking flight

people sleep

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Image: "Revelers Returned from the Tori no Machi Festival at Asakusa"

Artist: Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858). 

Medium: Woodblock print

From the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 1857 (Japan) 

At The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

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A Nurturing God

Grace Episcopal Church in Woodlawn (photo from the church's website)

Last Sunday, I made a return visit to Grace Episcopal Church.  It is a parish that is Anglo-Catholic in its liturgy and is committed to its ministry to the needy with a daily soup kitchen, food pantry, and other means of relief for the poor and the marginalized.  On cold winter nights, the church opens its parish hall to provide a warming station, giving the homeless and the needy a safe warm place to sleep.  

We are in the middle of Lent.  Many churches observe the fourth Sunday of Lent as Mothering Sunday.  Mothering Sunday is traditionally a time for people to go back to the parish where they were baptized to honor their mother church.  I wasn’t thinking of Mothering Sunday as I entered that sacred space.  It was simply a time for me to attune myself to Grace in its worship and ministry.

The Sacred Feminine

I found myself unusually moved at the close of the worship service with the post-Communion prayer. It was a prayer that called to mind the feminine aspects of God in a beautifully personal way.

In the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, used in Episcopal Churches across the U.S., there are two basic post-Communion prayers.  In my experience, those two prayers had been used interchangeably at the end of each service, giving thanks to God for feeding us with the sacraments, taking strength for going out into the world.  As in:

“...you have fed us with spiritual food

in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood.

Send us now into the world in peace…”

Or,

“…we thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food

of the most precious Body and Blood

of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ…”

  

They are both beautiful prayers acknowledging God’s love for us and our role of service to humanity as living witnesses to God's eternal kingdom.* Like so many things that we say repeatedly or by rote, we sometimes fail to fully appreciate the beauty  or the astounding impact of the prayers we pray in our sacred space during times of worship.

On this day, however, the post-Communion prayer had a definite impact upon me as I heard the words. It wonderfully reflected a maternal image of God.

Loving God,

as a mother feeds her children at the breast­­­­­

you feed us in this sacrament

with the food and drink of eternal life:

help us who have tasted your goodness

to grow in grace within

the household of faith;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The shift in that prayer got my attention and opened my heart in a new way. Knowing that there are maternal images of God in scripture that are often overlooked, I was thankful to have that loving and nurturing image brought forth in our time of worship.  In fact, I was so moved that I wanted to know where the prayer came from.

A Gift from the Anglican Communion

I asked the rector of Grace Church, Rev. Robyn Arnold, about the source of the post Communion prayer used that day.  She told me that it was from The Book of Common Worship, which is used by The Church of England.  I wondered if I had been blessed by this prayer because I just happened to show up on Mothering Sunday. Rev. Arnold told me, for my further enlightenment, that while it is especially appropriate for Mothering Sunday it works for any time the Church calendar or the scripture readings call to mind the nurturing qualities of God.

It is amazing what a shift toward the feminine can do for one's heart and psyche. I am reminded of such a shift that occurred for me years ago which I have written about before. That “shift” happened the first time I heard Bobby McFerrin,  also an Episcopalian, sing his version of Psalm 23. It was on a telecast with the Boston Pops Symphony Orchestra. He used  the feminine pronoun in reference to God, and that one change moved me to tears as I listened. 

At this half-way point in the Lenten season, I am thankful for my Anglican friends who can call to mind the feminine, nurturing aspects of a loving God.

_________________________

* Post-Communion prayers from the 1979 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer:

Eternal God, heavenly Father,

you have graciously accepted us as living members

of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ,

and you have fed us with spiritual food

in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood.

Send us now into the world in peace,

and grant us strength and courage

to love and serve you

with gladness and singleness of heart;

through Christ our Lord. Amen.

or the following

Almighty and everliving God,

we thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food

of the most precious Body and Blood

of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ;

and for assuring us in these holy mysteries

that we are living members of the Body of your Son,

and heirs of your eternal kingdom.

And now, Father, send us out

to do the work you have given us to do,

to love and serve you

as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord.

To him, to you, and to the Holy Spirit,

be honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.

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Monday Music: Celtic Legend - The Celtic Kingdom

Today's selections is longer than my usual Monday posts. It contains the entire album, The Celtic Kingdom, by Celtic Legend. When I happened upon this, I let it play on my computer while I did a few tasks around the house. My dog, Buddy, must have enjoyed it because he relaxed in the chair by the desk for the whole hour that the music played.

Scroll down to see the song titles.

Album tracks:

01 - Boru´s March

02 - Carolyn´s Welcome 

03 - Cucanandy 

04 - Dance de Bacio

 05 - Douce Dame Jolie 

06 - Fanny Power 

07 - Grensleeves 

08 - Kemp´s Jig 

09 - Now, I Needs Must Part 

10 - Queen of May 

11 - Road to Kaylee 

12 - Scarborough Fair



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Saturday Haiku: Reaching for the Moon

no hand may grasp it

who can deny the beauty

of the moon at night

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Image: "Monkey Reaching for Reflection of the Moon"
Artist: Ohara Koson, Japan (1877-1945)
Medium: Woodblock print
Public Domain

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