Monday Mixtape: Come, Union

Part of the difficulty in writing these past months is that every sentence I start to write is connected to so many crumpled up, tangled up threads of thought, feeling, learning.  You could maybe think of it as an emotional hairball.  I've decided to give myself permission to just pick at threads here for awhile.  Perhaps, over time a lovely pattern will emerge -- an aha! I can write out in essay form.  

This week I'm picking up the thread of our human need for companionship, company, communion.  As my friend Brett titled a new poem: Come, union.  In our lives right now this is almost as stark a need as our hunger for daily bread.  Not only in the obvious sense of moving away from deeply-loved friends and making new deeply-loved friends, but also in the way we're being welcomed into a new communion in an Anglican church rather than our previous evangelical non-denominational church.  Learning  in current devotional reading the Jesus who came to eat and drink with people.  The Jesus who invites us into the throneroom of our Father.  Who links us together in an invisible intercessory community.  The Jesus who knows us and Spirit who helps us know the each others God our Creator intended in the first place.

track 1:  visual art

Kitchen Maid with the Supper of Emmaus  Diego Velazquez, 1617-18
National Gallery of Dublin

I read about this painting in the final chapter of A Meal With Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community and Mission Around the Table by Tim Chester.  I'm hoping to write more about that book later this week.  I'm intrigued by this perspective of the post-Resurrection meal Jesus shared, incognito, with two disciples.  They did not know Him, but He certainly knew them.  He knew them so well, their hearts beat faster like a jumping flame.  Velazquez' image of the servant makes me think she, perhaps, recognized Messiah -- even though she is not invited to the table.  I plan to study this one for awhile.

track 2: mix tape

track 3: poem

My friend Brett wrote this poem for an upcoming service at Union Center Christian Church.  I'm sharing it with you here by his permission.  Before I even had the chance to read the poem, I was captivated by the title he chose.  He graciously allowed me to share not only the poem, but the title as my theme for this week.  Thank you, Brett!

Come, Union

Oh Lord, we need a table

Where all of us can come

Where the ground is all made even

and we are all made one

for life has struck and made us bleed

And we are drowning in our need

But I am stained by God's blood -- not my own

And it stains me whiter than I have ever known

So many orphans of your body

So much blood in the cup

Oh catch me, catch me quickly, Lord

I long to be caught up

Oh Lord, we need a table

That feeds us out the door

Where we are drawn together

And shown what we are for

For like this loaf, we are torn apart

And like this cup, poured out our heart

Our body is torn and riven our soul

Hang it on your broken frame and, Jesus, make us whole

Come, union, make us whole

So much thirst and hunger

So many given up

Oh send me and equip me, Lord

I long to be your cup

        -- Brett Alan Dewing