As I walk around my house, I see intimations of spring. While some blooms are opening wide, most prick the landscape with hints of a color to come. From far away, the dogwoods look dead and empty. Up close, I see the edge of a glory soon to come. Last fall, I cut back four rose bushes that I had allowed to grow without trimming over several years. These bushes had lost all shape, and I considered digging them up. Instead, I tried cutting them almost to the ground with the hopes they might start life again. Today, as I walked to the mailbox, I saw these stubs full of tiny leaves and ready to explode again.

I am always learning how to see.

I tend toward distraction or even abstraction. I easily lose my eyes to see the vital world alive all around me. Sometimes, some days, the grace of God awakens me afresh to wonder of being alive. “At the back of our brains, so to speak, there was a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence,” writes G.K. Chesterton. “The object of the artistic and spiritual life was to dig for the submerged sunrise of wonder, so that a man sitting in his chair might suddenly understand that he was actually alive and be happy.”

In one sense, Lent helps us to see and hear the wonder of being alive afresh. It is a time of restriction that prepares for a time of expansion. Consider the Van Gogh painting “The Potato Eaters.”

He restricts the subject to a small meal of potatoes and coffee. He restricts the brilliant colors found in his other painting. He restricts light. We gaze upon a darkened room with a small family sharing a small meal. Through restricting various elements, Van Gogh focuses our attention and in so doing, expands our ability to see. This tiny, insignificant moments opens up our eyes and hearts to simple intimacy, shared communion. The faces convey a certain kindness, a gentle love.

Lent also restricts, also focuses the mind and heart upon the way of the cross, upon the path toward faith. In one sense, Lent is a time of returning to the beginning of our faith. It is a return to baptism. The early church baptized new converts at Easter vigil. In preparation, the converts went through a season of catechism, of training in the way of Christian faith.

Yesterday, the church remembered St. Cyril of Jerusalem. This church father is specifically remembered for his catechesis. Jaroslav Pelikan says that catechism was so popular that many who had already been baptized would attend the training throughout the season leading up to Easter. In this sense, the whole church returned to the beginning of faith.[1] The church was relearning the way of Christ, the way of faith, the grace and mercy of God.

This year, the whole world has been immersed in a place of restriction. The coronavirus has limited travel, impacted our economy, reduced our social connection. In this place of restriction, our hearts could open wide to the gift of God in Christ. We might learn to see and hear and speak in new ways. Though we face the same level of unknowing, we also face the possibility of knowing again, of seeing again, of hearing again.

Joseph Ratzinger says that baptism was also known as “enlightenment.” “When, in the baptismal liturgy,” he writes, “the sign of the cross is given to the person being baptized, the following words are pronounced: “I sign you with the sign of the cross, that you may know that Jesus loves you.—I mark your eyes with the sign of the cross, that you may see what Jesus does.—I mark your ears with the sign of the cross, that you may hear what Jesus says.—I mark your mouth with the sign of the cross, that you may reply to Jesus’ call.—I mark your hands with the sign of the cross, that you may do good as Jesus does.”^[2]

May this be a time of moving toward enlightenment, toward the source of all life and hope. In our imposed and chosen restrictions, may we turn and trust the goodness of God again. May we learn to enjoy the small gifts of breath, of sleep, of spouse, of children. May we actually see the world near us with new eyes and in so doing, behold the grace of God that sustains creation moment by moment, day by day, year by year.

[1] See Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) (Volume 1), University of Chicago (1975).

^[2] Joseph Ratzinger and Peter Seewald, God and the World: Believing and Living in Our Time: A Conversation with Peter Seewald, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002), 398–399.

Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah
6  Surely a man goes about as a shadow!
Ps 39:5–6.

Just a moment, just a twinkling of an eye, and I’ll be gone. Forgotten. A mere breath. A shadow.

At first, I feel completely insignificant. A speck of nothingness before the vastness. I feel that empty sinking feeling of gazing into the galaxies beyond number, containing billions and even trillions of stars in each galaxy. In light of the immeasurable creation, I am less than a blink.

With the Psalmist I acknowledge, the utter evanescence of my existence. The Psalmist beholds the glory of God and the vapor of human life together. Instead of despair, he finds hope.

And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in you. Ps 39:7.

This little prayer, prayed ages ago is still ringing, singing in my ears.

Oh what cause for joy! I am so minuscule, so minor, so fleeting, and yet, I am here. In His good pleasure, He did create me. He sang His life into me and my heart still pounds with the dance.

The God beyond measure gathers me, you, and all His people up in His love, His grace, His utterly surprising creation.

Yes, we are frail and fading, but we are here in this blink, this breath, this shadowed moment. So we rejoice, we rest in Him.

We hope. We trust that He remembers us and will remember us and will remember us and will continue remembering us as we rise, in just a moment, to the fullness of His glory.

Sliding Shadow image by Annalisa Antonini (used by permission by Creative Commons).

Through this lenten pilgrimage I’ve been thinking about “pressing into this world.’ I used to think of the words “press in” as a spiritual intensity of pressing into the things of God, the things of the Spirit, the supernatural. The Scripture reveals God pressing into to His own creation. In the pain and struggle of our world, we want to escape the flesh and rest in a spiritual state. But God is often calling us into the middle of struggle, pain and brokeness. Even though we want to run away. This little meditation is a poor attempt at reflecting on the movement of God into the corruption of His beloved creation. 

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

The Word has become flesh and dwelt among us. He is here. The One in Whom and through Whom all things were created has come.

Behold Jesus in the midst of His people.

He Who Is before Abraham stands among us. The Son of God pours His Divinity into our humanity. He’s not a phantom. a spirit. a fading vision. He is God and He is Human and He is here with us.

Behold Jesus the Marvel of God become Man.

He walks our roads, eats our food, drinks our wine. He is Holiness in the middle of our earthiness. No one-not even priest or prophet– can stand in the unapproachable Holiness of Our Lord, and yet He is here. Eating, drinking, living in the midst of these less then holy ones. He Who dwells in the High and HolyPlace is living among the profane. He enters our problems, pains, and failures, abiding in the midst of broken people,

Behold Jesus pressing into the weakness of our lives.

In the middle of the day, the Light of the world penetrates our shadowed lives. Our secrets are not safe. Our darkness cannot overcome His Light.

Behold Jesus in the very midst of our shame.

His words and actions confound, confront and confuse. The powerful are threatened by this would be prophet. The Sadducees are scandalized. The Pharisees are furious.

Turn away from Jesus who challenges our tradition.

He gathers followers, incites the crowds, rejects the authority.

Turn away from Jesus who destabilizes our world and threatens our future.

He is captured in a garden in the middle of the night. Even while he’s tried for blasphemy he  disrespects the High Priest.

Turn away from Jesus who embarrasses his own disciples.

Peter cannot claim this lord but denies him, despises him, curses any connection with him.

Turn away from Jesus who is less desirable than the most despised.

Barabas is more worthy, more desired to be released than this, this blasphemer who brings shame to the nation.

Turn away from Jesus who is stripped, mocked, and hung.

Don’t look. Run away. He has no form that should make us desire him. This creature writhing, gasping, dying is the shame of all humanity.

Turn away from Jesus who darkens this creation.

The sun will not shine. He’s immersed everything on the earth, above the earth, and below the earth in darkness.

Turn away from Jesus who bears the blackness of all depravity.

God looks away as the utter corruption of all history hangs in the balance. Jesus exhales, expires, exclaims, “It is finished.”

Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.

Remind yourself, when you wake to a strangeness
of foreign lights through blowing trees
out the window of yet another hotel,
that home is only where you pretend you’re from.
What’s familiar sends you packing,
watching for “some lost place called home.”
You’re from wherever you go.

Rod Jellema

One morning you wake to a world that is unfamiliar. Suddenly you’re an alien. Rod Jellema captures this sense of unfamiliarity in his poem “Travel Advisory.” He starts out in a foreign hotel, among foreign people and the sense of strangeness we feel. He ends by reminding us that when we return, we are still not home.

you’re a citizen of never was a place.

Remember not to feel too much at home.

Abraham leaves Ur and never returns home.

He is searching for a city “whose designer and builder is God.” He dies en route. Abraham’s life is a sojourn through the unfamiliar.

Being in an unfamiliar place is uncomfortable. In the “Journey of the Magi,” T.S. Eliot’s wise man returns home from the nativity and encounters an “alien people clutching their alien gods.”

In an unfamiliar place, we may hear similar sounds and see similar sights, but we know we are not at home. Maybe the language is different. Maybe the customs are different. The roads are surely different.

All the familiar markers are gone. Unfamiliar places can be the ground of adventure, but they can also be the ground of disorientation. We may get lost. We may loose our sense of direction.

We may lose control.

When we step off the plane, we may step into an alien city. Then again, we may step into an alien city in our own hometown. A job loss, a job gain, a marriage, a divorce. One change ripples through our world, and suddenly the familiar haunts grow unfamiliar. We are lost.

In the land of the unfamiliar, our sense of control slips away. We may battle loneliness, a sense of isolation, even a sense of loss. Suddenly, we realize our vulnerability. Life is tenuous. We are so very thin.

God calls Abraham into a lifelong journey across an unfamiliar way.

We walk the same path. In Christ, we know the way, the truth and the life. And yet, we see so dimly. Our Savior saves us from ourselves by calling us into the way of trust and out of the way of control.

Our methods, systems, paradigms fall before the Lord of glory.

In this place of letting go, in this place of self-abandonment, in this place of unfamiliarity, we discover.

We discover the strangeness of grace. The odd refractions of God’s love, enclosing, surrounding, sustaining us.

We gain new eyes to see the world afresh. What seemed like security was slavery. What seemed like love was control. What seemed like success was a momentary glimmer of a fading star.

In the place of unfamiliarity, we become children again.

We learn new words.

We sing new songs.

We play new games.

Unfamiliarity may become a garden of innovation and creativity.

Abraham leaves the land Ur and gives birth to a new race, a new people, a new world. Thomas Cahill suggest that Abraham is the father of the Western world. Time and space  as we know change because Abraham walks away from the never-ending cycles of Ur and enters into a world of possibility, of newness, of a real future full of surprise.

If you woke up today and suddenly everything seemed unfamiliar. Don’t panic. The Lord of surprise may have called you out of comfort into a whole new world of possibility.

to be continued.