Practice Resurrection: Wage peace

Sea of Galilee
Sister Mary Corita Kent
source

Wage peace

Wage peace with your breath.
Breathe in firemen and rubble,
breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.

Breathe in terrorists
and breathe out sleeping children and freshly mown fields.

Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.
Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.

Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud.
Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.

Make soup.
Play music, memorize the words for thank you in three languages.
Learn to knit, and make a hat.
Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
imagine grief
as the outbreath of beauty
or the gesture of fish.

Swim for the other side.
Wage peace.
Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious:
Have a cup of tea and rejoice.
Act as if armistice has already arrived.

Celebrate today.

Judyth Hill
"Wage Peace," written on September 11, 2001

via Topology magazine

------------------------------------------------

Today's Readings: 

Acts 9:1-6, (7-20) •

 

Psalm 30 • 

Revelation 5:11-14 • 

John 21:1-19

Practice Resurrection: Be believing!

Caravaggio

Be believing*

(John 20:19-30)

Later on
that day / the dark room
was enough
to concoct buttoned down,
in our minds.

While we lingered bolted-in,
shut-up / You
breezed past barricade as One
hole-pocked / exhaled
absolution, a hot gust
peace be with you;
materialized new --
as Yourself / awake & alive
after the woman's claim
you spoke her name.

afraid / our fingers
traced your split side
'til we inhaled
Your closer breathing,
our truer air.

*I wrote this poem a few years ago, inspired by the form Luci Shaw used in her poem Ascending.

------------------------------------------------

What do you need help believing to be true about the resurrected Christ?  What fears are hindering you from receiving his offer of peace?

Practice Resurrection: Reintroduce yourself

The Resurrection: Reunion of Families
Stanley Spencer
source

Reintroduced

The resurrection is a moment in which human beings are reintroduced to each other across the gulf of mutual resentment and blame; a new human community becomes possible.

Rowan Williams
The Dwelling of the Light

via Topology magazine

------------------------------------------------

What relationships in your life are separated now by "mutual resentment and blame"? Where could the reality of resurrection bridge the gap and allow you to reintroduce yourself?

Practice Resurrection: Embrace life!

Planting Out
Joy Williams
source

Embrace of life

The practice of resurrection is not an attack on the world of death; it is a nonviolent embrace of life in the county of death.  It is an open invitation to live eternity in time.

Eugene Peterson
Practice Resurrection
via Topology magazine

------------------------------------------------

What is in front of you this week welcoming you to embrace life?

Practice Resurrection: Celebrate!

Harriet Tubman series (Panel #4)
Jacob Lawrence
source

So, says Jesus, it's time to celebrate! It's happening! Not perhaps, in the way you thought it would, not yet on a national scale, but it's happening all right.... Resurrection, the ultimate hope of new life for Israel, is happening under your noses, and you can't see it. But for those of us who can -- well, we're having a party, the same party that the angels are having in heaven... This, it seems, is part at least of what it means that God's kingdom is coming "on earth as in heaven." The heavenly celebrations at the signs of renewal, the first flickers of a dawn that will soon flood the whole sky, are to be matched by the motley mob around Jesus here and there, in Matthew's house and Zacchaeus' house, in this tavern and that, with Mary Magdalene and her friends and anyone else who cares to join in. This is what it looks like when God's in charge. This is how the campaign gets under way. 

N.T. Wright , Simply Jesus  

via Topology magazine

------------------------------------------------

How do you plan to celebrate the fact that "resurrection is happening under our noses" today?

Lent daybook, 39: my life is spent with sorrow

My Lent daybook for these 40 days of prayer. Join me, won't you? (see previous Lent daybook 2016 posts here)

.....

look

Black Crucifixion
Fritz Eichenberg, 1963
source

.....

read

Psalm 31:9-16

9 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;
    my eye is wasted from grief;
    my soul and my body also.
10 For my life is spent with sorrow,
    and my years with sighing;
my strength fails because of my iniquity,
    and my bones waste away.

11 Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach,
    especially to my neighbors,
and an object of dread to my acquaintances;
    those who see me in the street flee from me.
12 I have been forgotten like one who is dead;
    I have become like a broken vessel.
13 For I hear the whispering of many—
    terror on every side!—
as they scheme together against me,
    as they plot to take my life.

14 But I trust in you, O Lord;
    I say, “You are my God.”
15 My times are in your hand;
    rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors!
16 Make your face shine on your servant;
    save me in your steadfast love!

all readings for the day: Psalm 31:9-16; Leviticus 23:1-8; Luke 22:1-13

.....

pray

• Sisters and brothers,
  as Jesus, in the days before his passion,
  offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears,
  let us pray for those who suffer, those who are in need,
  and those who seek reconciliation.
  
  Include prayers here for your family, friends, neighborhood and the world.  
  
  God of compassion,
  you know our faults and yet you promised to forgive.
  Keep us in your presence and give us your wisdom.
  Open our hearts to gladness,
  call dry bones to dance,
  and restore to us the joy of your salvation. Amen. (source)

.....
listen

Fix Me, Jesus by American Spiritual Ensemble

( I invite you to listen with me to my ever-evolving Lent playlist & Lent Spirituals playlist )

.....

do

Using the guide below, take time today to examine your heart and look for meaningful ways to put your faith into practice.

#1 Prayer of Self Examination

Search me, O God, and know my heart!

Try me and know my thoughts!

And see if there be any grievous way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting! (Psalm 139:23-24)

Take a moment to quiet your heart and reflect upon the past week. Look especially for ways to express gratitude and thanksgiving to God for his goodness and love, as well as genuine sorrow over your own sin and brokenness. Close this time of prayer by expressing your hope in the power of the Holy Spirit who is faithful to forgive, cleanse, and transform you into his likeness (2 Cor. 3:18). (source)

......

(see all Lent daybook posts from 2015 here)

Lent daybook, 38: my steadfast love shall not depart from you

My Lent daybook for these 40 days of prayer. Join me, won't you? (see previous Lent daybook 2016 posts here)

.....

look

Jesus Washes the Disciples' Feet
Unknown Ethiopian Artist
source

.....

read

Isaiah 54:9-10 (MSG)

“This is like the days of Noah to me:
    as I swore that the waters of Noah
    should no more go over the earth,
so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you,
    and will not rebuke you.
 For the mountains may depart
    and the hills be removed,
but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,
    and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,”
    says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

all readings for the day: Psalm 31:9-16; Isaiah 54:9-10; Hebrews 2:10-18

.....

pray

God of the covenant,in the glory of the cross your Son embraced the power of death and broke its hold over your people. In this time of repentance, draw all people to yourself, that we who confess Jesus as Lord may put aside the deeds of death and accept the life of your kingdom. Amen. (source)

.....
listen

Draw Nigh by The Welcome Wagon

( I invite you to listen with me to my ever-evolving Lent playlist & Lent Spirituals playlist )

.....

do

Today, fast criticism. From the clerk moving slowly to the homeless vet on the streets, consider carefully that Jesus knows them by name. Today, seek to know more, assume less, and air prayers for Jesus' "least of these" boldly in the presence of your shared Father God. (source: 40 Days of Decrease)

......

(see all Lent daybook posts from 2015 here)

Lent daybook, 36: he will be shamefully treated

My Lent daybook for these 40 days of prayer. Join me, won't you? (see previous Lent daybook 2016 posts here)

.....

look

Ecce Homo
Georges Rouault
source

.....

read

Luke 18:31-34

And taking the twelve, he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.

all readings for the day:  Psalm 20; Habakkuk 3:2-15; Luke 18:31-34

.....

pray

source

.....
listen

O Sacred Head Now Wounded by Fernando Ortega

( I invite you to listen with me to my ever-evolving Lent playlist & Lent Spirituals playlist )

.....

do

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY, summer 2015
Christ Crowned With Thorns by Antonella da Messina

Set aside time today to reflect on how you can intentionally keep yourself centered on God's abundant and extravagant grace and mercy so that you can experience His deep and abiding love for you. (source)

......

(see all Lent daybook posts from 2015 here)