Fiesty but Moored

Saturday of the 2^nd Week of Eastertide

Acts 6:1-7

Saint Catherine of Siena

Easter and Acts…worth looking forward to;)

Sometimes with great enthusiasm comes a kind of dislodging.  In all the excitement I might not realize that I have come unmoored and before long there is nothing to hang on to...nothing to feed the enthusiasm.  I think that is what Gamaliel was referring to yesterday when he suggested that if this Jesus-Thing is not of God it will burn out…the community will be scattered not to re-gather. Not enough fuel.

And today I am reminded that the nature of that fuel is caring for the vulnerable.  It is a reminding.  It hasn’t been forgotten.  Just overcome by over-excitement! 

St Catherine was drawn out of the secluded life with a burning love of God and neighbor…moored and on fire!  And the Church was and is blessed by her feistiness.

That I may be both moored and feisty!

St. Catherine pray for us.

(an aside:  I had the most romantic meal of my life in Sienna…the only downside was that it was with my sister!  So I can’t think about St Catherine without thinking about Sienna, and my sister Celeste and that meal, on that terrace, and with those waiters.  It was a feisty but slightly unmoored time;)

Heschel on Time & Rest

Easter Day 7

Psalm 62:2

Only in God is my soul at rest

All week it has been time and rest that have been on my mind.  Big time, fast time, slow time, God's time…chronological time.  And it takes rest to think about time!  

Who better than Rabbi Heschel to offer a word about time and about rest:

The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space.  Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time.  It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world....

The seventh day is like a palace in time with a kingdom for all.  It is not a date but and atmosphere....

[A legend says:] "Angels have six wings, one for each day of the week, with which they chant their song; but they remain silent on the Sabbath, for it is the Sabbath which chants a hymn to God."  It is the Sabbath that inspires all the creatures to sing praise to the Lord.*

Moving from results to creation...that sounds like moving from looking back to looking ahead…maybe from analyzing to dreaming? 

Just rest Cindy.

*Abraham Heschel, from The Sabbath, It's Meaning for Modern Man, 1951, as quoted in An Easter Sourcebook: The Fifty Days, p25, Edited by Gabe Huck, Gail Ramshaw, and Gordon Lathrop...which I am loving as my 50 day prayer companion;)

S L O W T I M E

Easter Thursday

Martin Buber

I spent ALL day yesterday with a few dear friends.

Such a luxury.

But then again…not really.

I only think of it as a luxury because I have forgotten

I have forgotten that it takes slow time 

to build and sustain life giving relationships. 

Why do I keep thinking that a luxury?

Why? 

What are all those tasks that I have allowed to supplant this one?

I am, I think, suffering from a kind anemia of what sustains joy

And at the same time…polycythemia

(what you get when you google ‘the opposite of anemia’)

of what in fact pick-pockets joy

What is UP with that?

Martin Buber reminds me of this on Easter - Day 5:

After the maggid’s death, 

his disciples came together 

and talked about the things he had done.  

When it was Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s turn, 

he asked them: 

“Do you know why our master 

went to the pond every day at dawn 

and stayed there for a little while 

before coming home again?”* 

They did not know why.

Rabbi Zalman continued: 

“He was learning the song 

with which the frogs praise God.  

It takes a very long time to learn that song.”

slow time 

There is such a thing.

*As referenced in Easter, A Sourcebook, edited by Gabe Huck, Gail Ramshaw, Gordon Lathrop, p18, from ‘Tales of the Hasidim, The Early Masters’ by Martin Buber, translated by Olga Marx Perzweig, 1947

Easter Days cont...

Easter Tuesday

From the office of Readings

Lord God, you brought us healing through the Easter mysteries.

Continue to be bountiful to your people;

lead us to the perfect freedom,

by which the joy that gladdens our way on earth will be fulfilled in heaven.

It is in freedom...

freedom is the ecosystem

the pre-existing condition

conducive to that gladdening joy taking up residence

Joy that gladdens is not a promise of a life without suffering

rather it is a life imbued with the promise that whatever comes our way

will not be wasted

will not stop where it is...in death or pain...forever

Joy that gladdens our way

I love that

Easter Days

Easter Monday:  Acts 2:14, 22-23

Peter, full of fervor "You who are Jews, indeed all of you staying in Jerusalem.  Let this be known to you and listen to my words."  And what he wanted the people to hear was that death could not hold the Christ.  Why do you look for the living among the dead? It can't hold me.  And it can't hold the People of God, and it can't hold the world.  

As I hear this from Peter, and as I listen even now to what sounds new and still unrealized, I believe it is so.  

Give me Peters fervor.  

Give me speak worth listening to 

and deeds worth imitating.