John 19:40-42

And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Gerard Manley Hopkins
“God’s Grandeur”

On this day of deepest darkness,
when the last lights off the black west have shuttered out
(for two days now),

on this day when our Lord lay in the earth,
even on this day,
God is present:

the Holy Spirit broods
like a mother hen
over our fallen world,

wings shining softly
in the inky blackness that precedes
Eternal Day.

an edited repost from the archives

But I, O hidden Lord of all things, boldly affirm my faith in you. In confessing you, I take my stand with you…If I make this avowal of faith, it must pierce the depths of my heart like a sword, I must bend my knee before you,…I must alter my life.

I have still to become a Christian.

–Karl Rahner, Prayers for Meditation

“I don’t get my allowance today because it’s Good Friday, right?” Jack asks me.

I look up from the pile of towels I’m folding. “No, you still get your allowance.”

“But it’s Good Friday.”

“Would you rather I wait and give it to you on Monday, after Easter?”

He says nothing. Then slowly, “Okay.”

I hesitate a moment, fold a washcloth, look at him again. “Or would you rather skip it altogether this week?”

He answers swift, sure. “I’d rather skip it altogether.”

I am silenced. He’s been saving for months for a Lego MindStorm, saving every penny he earns or finds. And today he is willingly forgoing his allowance.

I know what a huge sacrifice this is for him, my little Scrooge McDuck who weekly sits in his room and counts his money, bills and coins piled around him.

Jack’s willing and cheerful sacrifice convicts me. And I wonder: what am I forgoing this day? I was not even willing to give up my morning cup of tea, though I felt that small sacrifice might be good for me, might make me mindful me on this day of Christ’s enormous sacrifice, might call me to prayer for all those who daily live at the foot of the cross, in the place of suffering.

In confessing Jesus, I must take my stand with Him. And on this day He stands – hangs – in the place of suffering. I do not want to stand in that place. I have tasted suffering, the merest morsel of it, and it is bitter. But if I make my avowal of faith – and I do; oh, I do – it must mean something, cost something, require something. It must alter my life.

In his own small way, my son is allowing the mystery of the cross to cost him something. What is it costing me?

Karl Rahner’s words have ricocheted inside my mind throughout this season of Lent. They come, once more, to mind, and my heart hurts, feeling their truth. They are my words, too, in this dark season, on this dark day.

I have still to become a Christian.

Yesterday, we ate the bread and drank the wine, remembering Christ’s Last Supper.

Today we stand with the women at the foot of the cross, looking up at their dying Lord.

It is traditional on Good Friday to meditate on the words that Jesus spoke from the cross. Taken from all four Gospels, these “Seven Last Words,” as they’re called, are rich with meaning. I’ve included them here from the King James Version:

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)

“Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

“Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” (Luke 23:46)

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34)

“Woman, behold thy son! … Behold thy mother!” (John 19:26-27)

“I thirst.” (John 19:28)

“It is finished.” (John 19:30)

As I’ve thought this week about which of these words God might have me pray today as a breath prayer, the words that shimmer for me are “I thirst.” I do not feel particularly thirsty these days. But I am tired. The other night, when I mentioned this, Jack said drily, “Gee, Mama, I can’t imagine why you’re tired. You only have four kids.”

Yes. Four kids. Two babies. A lot of joy. A lot of work. I’m so much better than I was (for which I give daily thanks), but my margins are still thin. I’m still running pretty close to empty. So maybe it’s not so surprising that the thirst-word shimmers: I’m a little soul-parched.

So today, that is my breath prayer, my very small place of identification with Jesus in His agony, my recognition that the water that flowed from His side is the water I need. Living water for my thirsty soul.

I need the living water.

I thirst.

Perhaps you, too, might ponder and pray through these words today? As you read them, slowly, attentively, prayerfully, pay attention: which of them shimmers for you? Might you pray the word that shimmers as a breath prayer on this best and worst of days, a way to remember Christ and his suffering on our behalf?

This post is part of a Lenten series on spiritual practices that cultivate attentiveness to the presence of God.

While the people around me sang, I tried not to cry. My life is really good right now, as good as it’s ever been, so why I was crying I don’t know. But the ache in my chest was real, an ache of longing and sadness that could only be expressed in tears.

Since I couldn’t sing, I watched the choir. I saw a woman whose beloved dog was killed by a motorist last fall. I saw a man whose wife of two years is extremely ill with cancer. I saw his wife, her hands raised in praise. And I saw a man who was in a near-fatal bike crash two years ago, restored to life.

I saw two dozen other people who have heartbreak, sorrow, and difficulty of one stripe or another singing their hosannas to God. And all around me, too, still more broken people were singing, their hands raised, their voices lifted up in praise.

And I wept. I wept for the beauty of it, for the sacrifice of praise on the lips of people whose lives are hard. I wept for the hope they hold on to: that though they wade into that river, Christ has been through it first and goes through it with them; that they experience nothing—nothing—apart from His love and His presence.

Today is Maundy Thursday, the day Jesus waded into the river. And He is there yet, holding us up, helping us through, giving His life for ours.

a repost from the archives

I am not one of those people.

I am not artsy or craftsy. I do not draw. Or sew. Or knit. Or decorate. Or anything. But I secretly wish I did. I secretly envy the beauty-makers.

So when Ann Voskamp created a family devotional for these last days of Lent, complete with classic works of art to hang on a Lenten tree, I decided that instead of just looking enviously at her little tree, I would actually try to make one of my own.

I cut branches from our spirea, tied them with twine, stabilized them in rocks in a flower pot, and set my little Lenten tree on the piano. I was shocked how good it looked.

Then I cut out the artwork from Ann’s devotional, and since we were fresh out of construction paper, Jane and I glued it onto colorful origami paper, and I taped ribbon to each piece of art so we could hang it from the branches of our tree. As we started to hang the artwork up, one piece each day, I was once again shocked at how pretty it was.

I had a surprising amount of fun bringing these branches inside and making something special for our family in these last days of Lent. I’m starting to realize that making a lovely life is mostly a matter of trying. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It won’t be, because I’m not.

But I shouldn’t let that stop me from enjoying the beauty I can create.

*****

For inspiration for your own Lenten tree, check out Ann Voskamp’s gorgeous (and intimidating) photos of hers.

You can also download her “Trail to the Tree” devotion book.

Today’s post is by Susan Forshey, PhD candidate in Practical Theology at Boston University, contemporary contemplative, amateur photographer, and my dear friend. She writes here about the ancient practice of lectio divina, a way of prayerfully reading Scripture – or life.

*****

Walking up the hill, I came to a corner cottage with a second lot as its backyard. I found myself frozen in wonder, standing on the sidewalk, looking at a mature garden, the product of years and tender care.

Little rock paths threaded through beds for flowers and edibles. A fruit tree stood sentinel near a rustic shed. Everywhere, I saw loving touches: stones walls, statues half-hidden, little areas to sit and ponder. Even in its newly budding state, the love that emanated from it was a physical presence. It called up in my heart a longing so sudden & fierce, I found tears spilling down my cheeks.

Why?

That’s a good question and one for which I didn’t have an answer, so I did what I often do when some experience takes me by surprise and requests an audience: I practiced lectio divina.

Lectio divina means “divine reading” and is an ancient monastic practice traditionally used to reflect upon small sections of scripture in company with the Holy Spirit.

The movements of lectio divina are: reading, meditating, praying, and contemplating. But rather than steps of a ladder, they dance together, swirling in and out, among and between. I think of them as the points of a tetrahedron, all connected and even simultaneously occurring.

Reading is simply reading. Over and over. Until something shifts and shimmers and you find you are mediating on it. At some point, you may ask God a question or God may ask you a question, and the dialogue of prayer begins. Contemplating is when the Holy Spirit pours out insight, the ah-ha moment, or a sense of joy, peace, or profound rest. To contemplate means to see with God, and since God is Love, to see with Love.

Any words, any situation, any work of art, anything, can become the text for reading. Life itself can be the entry point for practicing lectio divina, and I find it the best option when I have no idea what else to do or how to pray. It can be a way of seeing life with Love.

This past week, my experience of seeing the garden became my lectio text. I journaled about what happened, then I let the practice do its work: reading the experience, meditating on the parts that shimmered, and praying.

In meditating, I remembered that over a decade ago I had a little plot of earth behind my house where I planted wildflowers. It was the first time I’d tended a garden and I loved watching the shoots spring up and the riot of colors when they bloomed. Living in apartments for the past ten years, I’ve missed getting my hands in the soil and tending life.

While God and I talked about my desire for a real cottage and garden someday, we decided on a joy for now: some pots for my balcony, soil and wildflower seeds. Now I wait, in peace, for my own little garden to bloom.

*****

This post is part of a Lenten series on spiritual practices that cultivate attentiveness to the presence of God.

Many thanks to all who left comments in support of Seattle Public Library. Together, we raised $36. Not quite my goal, but close!

Also, my book (my baby) is out of print which means no publisher is going to take a risk on me, so my dreams of writing another book are just that – dreams. As in, dream on.

If my life had looked like this two years ago, I would have felt cheated, angry, and very, very sorry for myself.

But I don’t (most of the time, anyway). Sometime in the past couple of years, something shifted. I think it started with the examen.

Practicing the examen, I began to see that, even on the worst days, there were blessings, places God met me, things to be glad about or grateful for. And as the examen became more a part of my daily life, I began to notice those mercies not only as I reflected at the end of the day but sometimes in the moment, as they were given.

And the more I noticed, well, the more I noticed. It was like a snowball rolling down hill: the pile of blessings just kept growing.

The thing was, that pile had always been there; I just hadn’t seen it. My gaze was elsewhere (mostly on me and what I wanted that I didn’t have), and so I missed it. For more than 30 years I missed the grace upon grace that God had showered upon me, poured into my life.

The examen started the noticing with gratitude. Then, in December 2009, my friend Susan took the dare to list one thousand things she’s grateful for. And as you know, where Susan goes, I am swift to follow. So last January, I started my own list, a gift list, as Ann Voskamp writes, “not of gifts I want but of gifts I already have.”

I cannot tell you how transformative that list has been. Since I started it last January, I have written down over 1600 blessings, gifts I already have. And those are just the ones I’ve recorded on paper.

This list has filled me: how much I have been given! It has humbled me: who am I to receive such riches? It has changed me: the glass of my life is no longer half empty; it never was.

This list has pointed me again and again to the God of all good things. It has corrected my faulty vision: I am no longer myopic and moping. I can now see my life for what it is: a gift of grace full of gifts of grace from the God of grace.

So I continue to count the gifts:

1606. Pink camellia petals scattered over green grass

1607. Rafts of yellow daffodils in yard, planting strips, traffic circles

1608. Bare branches and trunks of birch trees, bright white against a gray sky

1609. Birdsong

1610. Grape hyacinth

1611. Pink blossoms on trees, lining both sides of the street

1612. Chickadees flitting from branch to branch of the fig tree and camellia bushes outside the dining room window.

1613. Doug “reading” Kim and Carrots from Babybug to all four kids and turning it into a zombie story, complete with chainsaws.

1614. Jack’s laughter

1615. Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts, beautiful and inspiring

1616. Ben’s striped hoodie

1617. Jane’s dimples

1618. Baby lungs, even when they cry

1619. Nursery volunteers at church

1620. Afternoon tea with toast

*****

For inspiration to start your own gift list, check out Ann Voskamp’s Gratitude Community or her beautiful book, One Thousand Gifts.

This post is part of a Lenten series on spiritual practices that cultivate attentiveness to the presence of God.

And if you haven’t yet said thank you for libraries, please leave a comment. Every comment on the I Love Libraries post is worth a dollar to the Seattle Public Library.

The babies are finally sleeping, and I’ve somehow managed to get dinner made and onto the table. Every day, this feels like a bit of a miracle.

We gather around the table, Jack, Jane, Doug, and I.

I light the match and hand it to Jane. She lights the candle. It’s Lent, so the candle is purple (the liturgical color for repentance), and I say, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.”

Then we all chorus together, “And renew a right spirit within me.”

We hold hands around the table and Jane says grace. After her “amen,” we pass the food and start eating.

“Highlight, lowlight!” Jane says. “Dada first.”

We go around the table and each of us shares the highlight of our day – and the lowlight.

What we’re doing is actually a centuries-old Christian practice called the examen, modified slightly so the kids can understand. We’ve been doing it for a couple of years now. When guests come, we invite them to join us.

The purpose of the examen is to cultivate awareness of God’s presence with us. By reflecting on the day, we have a chance to see where we sensed God’s presence – and where we didn’t.

One of the traditional ways of asking the two examen questions is, Where did I sense God most today? Where did I sense God least? But many people (myself included) often don’t have a “sense” of God…at least till they’ve been practicing the examen for awhile.

So I find it more helpful to ask, For what am I most grateful today? For what am I least grateful? That’s what we ask our kids when they get stuck and can’t think of a “highlight” or a “lowlight.”

Our nightly practice of the examen around our dinner table helps Doug and me to recognize the gifts in our lives and to be more aware of God’s presence with us. It also helps our kids reflect on their lives, to be grateful, and to notice what they like and don’t like, which helps them discover who they are.

The examen also creates a rich tradition for our family of listening and being heard, which is, I hope, helping all of us learn how to hear and speak not just to one another but to God as well.

*****

For a lovely introduction to the examen, take a look at Sleeping With Bread: Holding What Gives You Life by Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn,  and Matthew Linn.

And here’s a brief sketch of practicing the examen with children.

This post is part of a Lenten series on spiritual practices that cultivate attentiveness to the presence of God.

In those days before Google and Wikipedia, it took a bit of searching my college library’s stacks before I was confident I had learned the words to this ancient Christian breath prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”

A breath prayer is just what it sounds like, a prayer that you pray in rhythm with your breathing. The purpose of a breath prayer is to enable us to heed St. Paul’s oft-repeated injunction to pray without ceasing.

This particular prayer emerged from the desert tradition. In the third century, Christians began to go into the deserts of Egypt and Palestine in order to devote themselves to ceaseless communion with God. To this end, they experimented with different forms of prayer.

They memorized Scripture, especially the Psalms, and prayed the words throughout the day. Since communion with God was the goal, they often simply repeated one verse over and over as a way of focusing all their attention on God. Over time, the words “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me” solidified into one of the most precious desert prayers to focus the pray-er on Christ.

I have been praying this prayer for about 15 years now. Sometimes I find I’m praying it and I wasn’t even aware of it. I sort of wake up to myself and realize the prayer is praying itself.

But if the goal of praying the Jesus Prayer is unceasing prayer, I am nowhere near it. In my life, the Jesus Prayer sort of looks like this:

Jack is crying because he doesn’t feel good. Ben is crying because he’s poopy. Luke is crying because he’s tired. Jane is crying because she wants me to read to her and for some reason – maybe because there are three other children wailing!?! – I just can’t right now sweetheart, okay?!? Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.

It’s ten in the morning, and I have not yet managed to get dressed. The kitchen looks like a category three storm has struck it. The bathroom smells like a puppy mill. The laundry baskets are overflowing. And the kitties have left a trail of muddy paw prints all over my white sheets. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.

I’m cleaning out the drawings and coloring pages Jane has shoved between the sideboard and the wall, an outside wall, mind you, in our 98-year-old, insulated-with-newspaper house, and I find black mold growing up said wall. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.

I fall into bed, grateful the day is finally over. I have cleaned up a lot of messes. I have grumbled and complained about it. I have yelled at my kids. I have been impatient and unkind. Just like last night and the night before that and the night before that, I want to do better tomorrow, truly I do. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.

I take heart, though: at least some of the time instead of swearing or screaming or dissolving into a blubbering mass of self-pity when circumstances conspire against me, I pray. It’s not unceasing communion with God, but it’s a start.

*****

For a brief introduction to practicing breath prayer, check out pages 120-121 of my book, The Circle of Seasons: Meeting God in the Church Year.

For a more in-depth look at breath prayer, see chapter 3 of Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life by Marjorie Thompson.

For a wise and well-written introduction to the Jesus Prayer, check out The Jesus Prayer: The Ancient Desert Prayer that Tunes the Heart to God by Frederica Matthewes-Green.

This post is part of a Lenten series on spiritual practices that help us attend to the presence of God. Click here to read the whole series.

This season of darkness is a time when Christians walk the road to Jerusalem and the cross with Jesus. Traditionally, this journey means that we fast from something in order create space in our lives to listen to God.

Each Friday during Lent, I will write about a spiritual practice that can help us begin to hear the voice of God in a world that is full of noise.

Today’s practice is the totally unglamorous discipline of memorization.

In a culture in which we have easy access to words, it is hard to see the reason to memorize anything. After all, we can just look it up on Google.

But, as Marilyn Chandler McEntyre writes in the most recent issue of Books and Culture, “We need words that will surface when it is time to speak peace to violence or truth to power. To memorize poems,” and, I would add, Scripture, “is to prepare for these moments, and to put away for a time of need provisions that will fuel our prayers and see us through.”

On Thanksgiving, my friend Susan showed me a little book she’d made with all the verses of Ephesians printed in it, six or eight verses to a page.

She said she was going to memorize it.

“The whole book?” I was incredulous.

“Well, yes,” she said. “That’s the plan.”

Now, I’m not one to let Susan do anything without my tagging along (well, except she did move to Boston and get a PhD, and I didn’t, but apart from that…), so I said, “Ooh, can I join you?”

And because Susan is magnanimous and kind (and, God bless her, she likes me), she said, “Sure.” She even made me a little book of my own and gave it to me the first week of Advent.

And so I started memorizing Ephesians. Slowly. As in one verse every day or two. But slow and steady accumulates: three months later, I’ve memorized the first two and a half chapters. I hope to bury its words so deep in my mind that they will still be there in ten years.

During Lent, I will continue to review the words of Ephesians that I’ve already memorized. But I am going to take a break from memorizing any new verses in order to focus my memory efforts on Psalm 51.

Psalm 51, called the Miserere (from the first word: miserere in Latin; have mercy in English), is a penitential psalm. It is prayed every day in Eastern churches. In the West, it is prayed every Friday during Morning Prayer. And it’s almost universally the psalm for Ash Wednesday. Its penitential focus makes it an appropriate psalm for Lent, which is a season of penitence and purification to prepare ourselves for Easter.

If you want to work the words of Scripture deep into your brain cells, I invite you to join me these next five weeks as I memorize the words of this psalm. I’ve created a template of the psalm and a cheat sheet of memorization aids to help you commit these words to memory.

When we’ve memorized something, we don’t say we know it by brain or by mind. We say we know it by heart. Ultimately, that’s where we want these words to lodge and live: in our hearts. And they can only live there when we truly, deeply, intimately know them.

Will you join me?