Moon's Eye View, All Around in the Dark

"Moon's Eye View, All Around in the Dark"
"Arise, all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be of waters or of tears. Say firmly . . . Our husbands will not come to us reeking of carnage for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: Disarm! Disarm!" (Julia Ward Howe, Mothers Day Proclamation)

All mothers' grief is the same, no matter how children suffer and die; so when mothers, others, say "no" to grief by any cause, world rocks with works of resurrection, culminating in "death of death itself."

"They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in morning. We shall remember them . . ." ("For the Fallen," WW I)

Jesus, onliving by powers of memory, created these weeks of appearances, utterances; withholding nothing now; getting out of our way, making room for us to reenact in midst of whole world, his, and even greater works than his --
Do not hold onto me, just let me go! Let me set you free, even from me.

What an unusal leader! "Running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments," and doing it even through us! Forgiveness, healing of nations, death of death itself. We shall remember them . . .

* * * * *

Knowing "God," going through Jesus; knowing "Jesus," going through us?

Where there is selfishness, where there is greed, let us be Jesus. Where there are undue privilege, unfair power, let us be Jesus. Where there are arrogance, ignorance, among authorities, let us be Jesus. Where there is indifference toward grossly impoverished, let us be Jesus.

Where there are abused, exploited, women, children, let us be Jesus. Where walls divide, conquer us from, immigrants, imprisoned, occupied, detained, let us be Jesus. In other words, where there are sin and death, let us be Jesus. If not us, who? If not here, where? If not now, when? When . . .

"Well, maybe like Casy says, a fella ain't got a soul of his own, but on'y a piece of a big one -- and then -- Then what, Tom? Then it don't matter! Then I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be ever'where, wherever you look. Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever they's a cop beatin' up a guy,

I'll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an' -- I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build -- why, I'll be there! See? God, I'm talkin' like Casy. Comes of thinkin' of him so much. Seems like I can see him sometimes. I don' un'erstan', Ma said, I don' really know. "Me neither," said Tom. (John Steinbeck)

* * * * *

Us neither. We don't know. We live by faith. We don't understand, we don't know, we trust, we risk, in memory, in power, of Jesus, of Casy, of all the Jesuses, Spirit and spirits, all around us in every dark.

What if we are the extent Jesus has to show for his life, to leave to his work? Our failures his only plans, A through Z? Whole being, whole doing, on us? Not to be found "up there" anymore, but forever "on the way down?" To rise again only in and through us?

For we who have leapt to the Moon, snapped the photos, need no return trips, believing what we already have glimpsed for ourselves: Earth loving, shaping, nurturing for hundreds of billions of years! Nothing, no one, beyond Earth's urgings -- no escapees!

How blue, how small, how round, how fragile, how free-floating, how misty, mysterious, how only home; nothing inherent to separate us, nothing to bomb about ever again . . . Moon's eye view of Jesus' Ascension: Everything under the sun looking new? Surely a new world possible; new apprehending the used world we are . . . .

Going the Distance, the Ends of the Earth

"Going the Distance, the Ends of the Earth"

How few of us staying creatable courses . . . Jubilee Distances! 50th Day Resurrections! Pointing even to Ways far surpassing our own! How all the species are levelled at last! Finding Common Ground -- Common Life, Common Wealth, Common Hope, Common Good -- without vertical ranking, scaling of kinds, one over another; none higher, lower, superior, inferior, holy, unholy, closer to, further from, Source, Resources -- Salvations! Liberations!

Every form of life now has exactly the same amount of evolutionary history beneath it! Every person, every people, every nation! 192, and counting! How many more may our grandchildren come, we hope, to count? To countenance?

Every species equally evolved since origins of life! Diversity arranged across single plain of equivalence. From simple to complex, from E.coli to leader of Free World -- each species -- each individual -- at precisely the same level! (Ibid)

Love is the Consummate Leveler, Evolution the Consummate Love.
Beleveled, Beloved, Vine Branches, Vine . . . .

* * * * *

"Ends of the Earth" not only to do with points on a globe, or minerals we go there to take; more so doing with peoples, cultures, differences -- to be loved as there are so many of them! Spirit forever bringing World home. "Ends of the Earth" unfulfilled futures of One Who Creates it all, opening in, and among, us whatever it takes to get over ourselves.

Wherever we are, God is, first blowing, then opening, minds to whatever is new; what Jesus, for instance, means by "Power" we are to "receive from on high" -- rudely disturbing our reveries of powerless bliss! Purities of pretense! Preserving ourselves "above" messy mixings, Church and State passions -- Some way in Conscience to bypass the Cross? Who are we, after all, to be powerful? Power not yet another worst nightmare to us? Who want it so easy to be "left behind?" Skipping price Jesus still pays for his politics!

Carry me on in the City, Seat of their Powers, Scene of their Crime, clothed only with your Power! Sung to "Jamaican Farewell" --

It was the Holy Spirit's Day, sing joyful alleluia!

A frightened people met to pray, sing joyful alleluia!

With rushing sound, with heavenly flame,

on them the Holy Spirit came!

In city streets they praised Christ's name,

sing joyful alleluia!

(Parish of the Holy Covenant)

"On Easter Sunday prophecy rises from the grave, eternal, triumphant, unfinished, unrelenting! Not about end of anything! About beginning Prophetic Reign of God! But it cannot happen unless we ourselves leave the site of the tomb . . . go to streets and hovels and powerful of our own time . . . and say a prophetic word!" (Joan Chittister) And say a prophetic word . . . .

Older the Family Tree, Sweeter the Yield

"Older the Family Tree, Sweeter the Yield"

Earth of Whom we sing "Joy to the World!" Jesus self-expressing Vine to our Branches! Inheriting from all ancestors of every species! Borrowing against all grandchildren whose ancestors we would become -- more changeable, less chargeable, species.

Doing habitat restoration, Muir Woods, giant redwood falling across pedestrian path, volunteers moving not tree but path, trusting life, the reminding remainder. We promise you, mast in our midst, we will not move you but path ourselves through you.

Whose glory lies in the dirt, at the roots, robustness of strong separate trees relying on "whom they grow next to," neighbor-roots tangling with own:
"A forest's resilience reflects diversity . . . an interwoven fabric of roots," so that, even as "own individual memories slip behind, we will be part of the whole."

How do we pass on our lives, our works? "Where does the next generation come from? Redwood trees don't usually spring individual seeds; they spring from the roots of older trees." "We, too spring from roots of those who precede us."
(Gary Gunderson)

"Evolutionary Equivalence!"

Species, creatures, lives fully revealing Jesus' image, "Branches and Vine," "Big Picture," beyond every frivolous ranking, scaling, lording, laddering, one over all others -- Leaving just one species room at the top? WITH OUR RECORD??

Imagine instead! Healthy tree cut thoroughly through at its fullest point; creating a Leveling Plane, like Sheet of Glass, the Present Moment, placed over the cut. Everything visible down through the glass current Genealogical History, all Life thus far on Earth. Base of the tree single trunk grounded in Life's Origins, three and a half billion years! Growth of Creation gigantic "V" shape, inverted pyramid; no longer many at bottom, one at top; rather, one at bottom, many at top -- from Life's Origins to Uninterruptible Fullness?

Many no longer yielding to one; rather, one branching into so many, each uniquely in part, in place of the whole. Branches diverging from base of the "V," all our Ancestral Species! Branches ascendant, descendant, daughters and sons of species, evolving into own genuses, countlessly splitting off new limbs of Life -- Most of whom, like lower branches, "timing out" far short of glassed present.

* * * * *

Does Jesus anticipate our way of seeing? Evolution as pruning of Vine? So many withering lineages, so many fossiling remains, vastly outnumbering few branches reaching the glass. Imagine! Branches that do reach! Songs of the Earth! Joys to the World!

"They encompass diversity of life on Earth as we know it. [Every one of our names here calling out our place in it now!] Here a parasitic worm! There a sponge! Farther along frogs, not too far from them, fishes, crocodiles and lizards! Antelopes, yeasts, bacteria, giant squids, oak trees, cormorants, algae, paramecia, locusts, moray eels, deer ticks and centipedes -- diversity almost beyond imagining!

Some of these life forms simple, microscopic specks, hardly more than a strand of DNA surrounded by a membrane. Others indescribably complex, vast conglomerations of special cells, pulsating organs, joined legs, moving fluids and bulging brains packed with millions of sparkling neurons. A few of them are human beings . . . ." (Kurt Schwenk)

A River Runs Through Us, Healing

"A River Runs Through Us, Healing"

"That's where I want to go. I want to go to that riverside. I want to go to the River of life . . . River of love . . . River of faith . . . River of hope . . . River of transformation -- Where you go to be changed. And you got to work at it -- that's right! . . . River of sanctifcation . . . Where all life's graces and blessings fall down on you like rain . . . River of resurrection . . . Where everybody gets a second chance -- But you got to work at it! . . . River of sexual healing -- and companionship . . . I want to find that River of joy and happiness.

"But you don't stumble on those things by accident. You got to search them out, seek after them. And that's why we're here night after night after night after night. 'Cause you can't get to those places by yourself. You got to have help! That's where I want to go tonight. And I want you to go with me -- Because I need to go with you -- That's why I'm here! (Bruce Springsteen)

* * * * *

"Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, through the middle of the street of the city." Right downtown! Inner city! River running through us!

"The River of Life, made of Jesus blood! That's the river you have to lay your pain in, in the River of Faith, in the River of Life, in the River of Love . . .

All the rivers come from that one River, and go back to it like it was the ocean sea and if you believe, you can lay your pain in that River and get rid of it . . . It's a River full of pain itself, pain itself, moving toward the kingdom of Christ, to be washed away . . ." (Flannery O'Connor)

"And the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations."

The healing of all the nations . . . .

Jesus recalling how hard it remains for us living out range of tensions -- his absence and presence, silence and whisper, going and coming again, tension destructive, tension creative; so sometimes we just want to jump down and up in worship, screaming to Jesus, Come back! We can't take, or give, this fragiling love of yours anymore!

Baptism, Watermark, River Runs Through Us - avoiding safe banks, "out where the bottom starts to slip away!" Breath-seizing panic, at times "like a reed in some underwater wind," not at all sure of our doing, our meaning to do, waters deep, demanding "as outer space!" As inner space!

Help us! Help us! Help us! To open our "eyes in dark water," facing our deepest, abidingest fears: "'You baptized yet?' Freda called from the cottonwoods as I walked slowly down from the river, falling to the red clay bank, exhausted. I raise my arm and wave my hand once, a signal, yes . . . ."

(Lorian Hemingway)

All in the Family, the Family in All

"All in the Family, the Family in All"

Churches our homes away from all homes, congregations our kinship, our homies, no more typically "Christian" than our "biblical" family --
one-parent, two-parent, three-parent, more! Nuclear, extended, biological, adoptive, foster, "family by affection" -- Genesis bequeathing the "fun" to dysfunctional families!

In Peter's dream, family "something like a large sheet coming down from heaven," all animals, beasts, reptiles, birds: What Creator makes clean, we dare not profane! All of us wrapped in one fabric, never knowing who we'll find under our sheets! "See how they love one another."

Night of 9/11, 7 year-old, often sung to sleep with "church songs;" mother, asked for special one to take away fears of the day; offering "Were You There?" No, not that one. Then "Lord of the Dance." Yes! That one! Eyes closing by ending of second verse: "Now I won't have any bad dreams;" sleeping all night, hand on the Hymnal.

Family made more out of love than biology: Same-gender-parent families; single-parent families; transracial-adoptive families; blended, group-home, foster-home families; grandparent-parent families; families of streets and shelters; "gangs," "platoons" -- no exhausting to ways our families can be! "Hannah presents her son to Eli in a stunning story of foster care; Moses is adopted; Ruth leaves her birth mother to become daughter to Naomi . . ."
(Carol Progue)

Lord of Dancing, teaching, taking new steps every day, Lord who is Love still shaping us every last one of our Singular Ancestor -- One Body, Many Parts; One Spirit, Many Congregations; One Household, Many Rooms; One Faith-Family, Many Members.

Many summonsed to separate from families, friends, homelands, households, behind and below: "The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and, in fact, will do greater works than these . . ."
"For we too are God's offspring!"

* * * * *

OK, OK, so this is how it was. It's Thursday night, right? We're all hanging around the corner, squatting down, listening to Jesus talk and ask questions as usual, right? I mean, these forty days since he died and rose, we were following what he said a lot better than before; stuck as we were in the center of our own attention, our tacit assurance it's all about us: going to worship, saying our prayers, studying scripture, "growing closer" (Whatever that means!), impressing by all our "holiest" hopes, insuring ourselves against "judgment" (Whenever that is!)

But once Jesus rose, revealing his wounds, expecting us to be providing him something to eat, offhandedly ordering us back to "scene of the crime" -- We began apprehending anyway: "God" of no other than this broken realm, none of us "holier" peoples, nations, than others; "insourced," baptism with water, "outsourced," with fire, with Spirit; making our ways among everyone everywhere.

No more heading off safely to "heaven" with him, nor waiting on some other "coming again," but resurrected with him to consummate crucifixion's commandable leadings; not to Earth-ending but "Ends of the Earth," creative intentions, cosmic designs -- looking more out than up, more saved than safe;

for why would Jesus quit on us now? Take any easy way out?

"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, ON EARTH!"

Willing to Lay Down, Not to Lie, OR How Deep in Sheep Lie the Wells of Our Souls?

"Willing to Lay Down, Not to Lie," OR,
"How Deep in Sheep Lie the Wells of Our Souls?!"

Idealism passed on as can be to us: "good shepherds" living in sheep, roaming through risky, rocky terrain, predators, robbers, flashfloods, landslides; a sling, a club. a rod, a staff, a flask of oil; gap in stonewall just wide enough to enter, each counted, inspected, treated, thanked; shepherd filling the gap through the night: harm coming only "over this dead body!" Rising again, calling forth by first name.

Faith people stand deep in sheep! Abel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rachel, Moses, David -- close-up, conversant with sheep! Herdable economics, nomadic way of life: staples of food, raw material, clothing, shelter; around sheep circling daily tasks, annual patterns; without whom communal survival far-fetched at best.

Jesus' compassion for sheep without shepherd: deserving best leadership, crook to scepter; but mired in agriculture, fixed settlement, cities; shepherding stained by culture and class: minimal, marginal, manual, migrant; romanticized remnant of "good old days;" awaiting arising of heart to be pastored again.

Good shepherds lead from behind and below.

* * * * *

Once students fill jars with small rocks, teacher brings out the pebbles; once students fill jars with pebbles, teacher brings out the sand; once students fill jars with sand, teacher brings out the water . . .

Beside the still waters, our cup overflows. How deep lie the wells of our souls.

"One Underground River, many wells in: African wells, Taoist wells, Buddhist wells, Jewish wells, Goddess wells, Christian wells, Muslim wells, Aboriginal wells. Many wells but one river." "To go down a well is to practice tradition, but we would make grave mistake (idolatrous one) if we confused well itself with flowing waters . . . . Necessary to travel deeper . . . to go to the center, the cave." (Matthew Fox)

How deep lie the wells of our souls: "All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." (Julia of Norwich)

"We drink from our own wells. Spirituality is a community enterprise . . . passage of people through solitude, dangers of desert, carving out own way in . . . . From it we draw promise of resurrection." (Gustavo Gutierrez)

We drink from our own wells. We drink at our own risks. How deep lie the wells of our souls. And of our soul together.

* * * * *

Tom Joad with mother, end of The Grapes of Wrath, resurrecting Preacher Jim Casy -- "Lookie, Ma. I been all day an' all night hidin' alone. Guess who I been thinkin' about? Casy! . . . Says one time he went out in the wilderness to find his own soul, an' he foun' he didn' have no soul that was his'n. Says he foun' he jus' got a little piece of a great big soul . . . His little piece of a soul wasn' no good 'less it was with the rest, an' was whole. Funny how I remember. Didn' think I was even listenin.' But I know now a fella ain' got a soul of his own, but on'y a piece of a big one . . ." (John Steinbeck)

How deep lies the well of our soul together! Good shepherds proceed from the sheep, and dare not forget where we've come from; laying our own bodies down for night's rest in gaps of sheepfold, gate between sheep and world, steeped in sheep life and language; when several flocks mingle at hole, each separates, readily, hearing the voice of its shepherd.

Takes one to know one, we say -- let nothing human be alien to us! Never cutting selves off from any lost other; nor scape-sheeping many to greed of a few.

Don't "Do Something," Ask the Life Question!

"Don't 'Do Something,' Ask the Life Question!"

Getting down, getting down, getting all the way down! Roots of past, trunk of present, branches, buds of future; as low on food, on water chains as we can go; always whole worlds looming under our feet, waters meandering, lowest points reachable. Looking down to lift others up -- very young, old, weak, sick, homeless, poor -- we among species who sleep on the ground? Touching Earth to beat of her Heart, straining to hear Her cry -- for lost species of every age and description.

Humans alone with powers of "decreation." "Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing!"

"Like a tree, planted by the waters, we shall not be moved!"

Time out! "Count to twelve!" "Lets stop . . . let's not speak." Not harm! Not kill! But walk with one another -- "in the shade, Doing nothing." "Life is what it is about." "Perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death. Perhaps the earth can teach us when everything seems dead and later proves to be alive." (Pablo Neruda)

An Earth Christ! Showing up where we least expect any new life, any new hope, to be -- even right where we are! Sated where we are sated. Gospel of Christ as God Overflowing -- with fish, with wine, where there were none before. Resurrection simply: Faith changes the world! Beginning with us . . .

* * * * *

Jesus handing "times out" to Peter, to Paul? Times for self-searching? Self-sighting? Falling full-saddled from horse? Jumping full-cloaked from boat? Resurrection sure way of arresting attention!

I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart . . . trying to love the questions themselves as if locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language . . . Living the questions now. Perhaps then, someday for the future, you will gradually, even without noticing it, live your way into the answer. (Rainer Maria Rilke)

Reverberation of Resurrection, inliving, outliving us.

"We are Virginia Tech . . . embracing our mourning . . . child in Africa dying of AIDS . . . invisible child walking night away . . . Mexican child looking for fresh water . . . Appalachian infant killed in middle of night in his crib in home his father built with his own hands being run over by boulder because land was destabilized. "No one deserves a tragedy . . ." (Nikki Giovanni)

Long live this Hokie Nation.

Doters, doubters, deniers, deserters -- plus detectors of fresh-catch barbecuing as breakfast by lake: "There is no such thing as 'my' bread. All bread is ours and is given to me, to others through me, and to me through others." (Meister Eckhart)

Resurrection forever trans-othering.

Holy Ghost Dancing Us Whole

"Holy Ghost Dancing Us Whole"

Here he comes, there he ghosts again! Not Caspar the Friendly but Jesus the Holy! The Hungry! The Holy Ghost Dancing! Enchanted with ecstasy, emptied, exhausted, fainting and falling out, shaking and shouting; reviving to handkerchiefs, hand-fans, and smelling salts; partnering with Wounded Pasts.

"Ghost Dance, major inter-tribal cultural movement in later phases of military conquest, beginnings of reservation system, forced assimilation; helped peoples of various indigenous ethnicities craft identities . . ."

"The dead are to return . . . The white people will soon go away . . .

"All joined hands, and soon many collapsed, fell into trances. Now 'dead' and seeing their dear ones . . . a great encampment of all Dakotas who ever died, where all were related, thronging out with happy laughter to greet the newcomer . . .

"Waking to drab, wretched present after such glowing vision, little wonder they wailed as if their poor hearts would break in two with disillusionment. But at least they had seen! . . ." (David Raymond, citing 10-year-old at Pine Ridge, shortly before Wounded Knee)

* * * * *

How long have we claimed to "destroy in order to save" -- Villages? Villagers? Victims? The only forgivers "victors" have left!

"Listen for the stilled voice of the one Who is no longer there . . . For the silent step of the dead one's invisible feet . . . Whose spirit walks through walls" (Edith Lovejoy Pierce)

Through armed borders, barred gates, locked rooms, into our very rooms, our spaces of fear, hiding out against all "religious authorities;" reordering us from asking, "Why was Jesus crucified? Who was to blame?" to asking, "Who do we crucify now? What do we do to stop it?"

This Jesus, all Jews, bearing "shalom" by our open wounds; offering first forgiveness of "friends," of "followers;" breathing in them breathing on us --

Breath Again! Spirit! Creating Beginnings! Rehearsing Pentecost! Jubilee! 50th Day! "For any whose sins you forgive" (Begging your pardon? WE forgive?) "For any whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven. For any whose sins you do not release, they are not released." Exclamation Point!!

What power! Above, beyond, beneath, around every other. Spreading forgiveness, as much, as far back, as painfully as we can -- as all we have been forgiven? "Past growing longer, future shorter?" (Hopi elder) No more excuses, with us or for us! Messiah, we say, has come! Overcome! How now to live messianically? We -- Church of "It Has Not Happened Yet!"?

Holocaust never exclusively problem of those to whom it was done; nor now of those who did it to them; or whoever mobilizes rabid fears of the moment; BUT OUR PROBLEM! Easter incorporating all that we are in identity with Every Victimized One, rising to reoccupied Life, our consciousness of "Them," internally, externally, eternally -- Presente!

Ours not to be blamed, but to be resurrectors, too! As drama A Single Woman resurrects Jeanette Rankin! If not from death, at least to new life!

Who calls on us now for their resurrection? Their vision, voice, vote -- anew or again. Jesus and Jews alike, surviving, enduring, witnessing, living to tell about it. Who's still up to keep stories alive? Jesus is up! Jesus is all up to us!

Last Supper, First Breakfast, Slow Food

"Last Supper, First Breakfast, Slow Food"

Jesus always hungry enough to prove resurrection by asking us to feed him!
Surprises us how much he's riding on us! How else but us for him to be known?
Seen? Heard? Touched? Tasted? Felt very deeply at all?
Witnessing to his body, our own times and places: no more ghostly, illusive,
apparitional; no more appearance wanting substance; but able to say with him,
Look at our hands! Look at our feet, our sides! Touch our wounds!
Our suffering for how nearly we follow? Touch US and see -- If we are real!

Cotton Patch Gospel: Risen Jesus, back in Atlanta, where he was lynched,
asking for cup of coffee and piece of pecan pie! Always asking something, or other, of us! No wonder he's called drunkard, glutton! Eats with anyone --
long as they fix it? Even that last night, before his arrest, instructing us in locating room, already set with everything needed for Passover Fest . . .

Then something specially sneaky and tricky: Calls bread his own body!
Cup his own blood! Persuading us from then on -- whenever, wherever, however, with whomever we eat -- he is there! Eating as usual! Would not miss a meal if his life depended on it -- so it does!

* * * * *

"If you can read the gospels without getting hungry, you're not paying attention! Jesus comes eating and drinking: So many feasts and feedings, table teachings and banquet parables, last suppers and Easter barbecues --

one gets the feeling the kingdom is convened as a gigantic floating pot luck,

the poor being seated first!" (Bill Wylie-Kellerman)

When in doubt, share a meal! When in death, share a meal!

Want to grow close to each other? Share a meal!

Want to celebrate stories and gifts of each other? Share a meal!

Want to settle differences with each other? Share a meal!

Want to become as family to each other? Share a meal, share a meal,

share a meal!

Easter so tempting to ancient triumphalism, against Jews of whom Jesus,

disciples, deep part; church sanctioning, sanctifying our holy violence;

standing back from, not with, slaughtered ones.

Remembrance, repentance, lead to resistance. Anne Frank "human face of the Holocaust," "hero because she was optimistic, patient, unselfish, strong.

For some . . . someone to look up to. For others . . . a victim of wrongdoing that will help to prevent the same tragedy from happening again. She died unjustly. If she had lived [like some saviors we could name] she could have been someone who was famous for life, not for her death." (Source unknown)

Unjust death making way for just life! Hey! I'm hungry! What have you got?

Somebody? Anybody? Everybody? Pieces of fish? Pieces of pie? Cups of coffee? Hey! It's me, Jesus, the Eat-ster! Let's eat, let's eat, let's eat!

Coming Out, Shouting Out, Wherever We Are

"Coming Out, Shouting Out, Wherever We Are"

It's Easter -- and nobody's where they're supposed to be!
Wherever we thought we could put them and keep them?
Women now running out shouting Good News to the men of us!
Gay people running out shouting Good News to the straight of us!
Poor people running to tell the rich! Young running to tell the old!
Murdered, even dismembered, running to tell their own murderers and
dismemberers! Bombed people running to tell their bombers!
Tortured to tell their torturers! New Orleans strutting to tell the rest of the nation!
Good News always the same: BE NOT AFRAID!
For Heaven's sake, Earth's sake, Don't be afraid.

* * * * *

Easter Radical Emigration, Cosmic Coming Out; Exodusing, Exodusting,

world-sweeping Movements of Migrants, begging to know --
How big is our World? Our Earth? Our Human Family?

How borderless is our Creation? "Setting earth upon its foundations?

Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen?"

"Though remaining immutable and without change, always completely in movement." "Completely outside creation, completely in every creature,

filling everything completely." "Completely outside everything, above

everything, yet not separated from the world . . ." (Symeon)

"Earth does not belong to the human; human beings belong to the Earth."

(Chief Seattle)

"Am I a U.S. citizen who happens to be a Christian?

Or a Christian who happens to be a U.S. citizen?" (Tom Fox)

"It's not the Church who will save the Immigrants,

it is the Immigrants who will save the Church." (Don Groody)

Birthright-boasting Jacob, camping family on border, at Jabbock, en route to be reconciled, wrestling night-long with border guard (Border God?), patrolling between right relations and us. "To cross over to freedom you have to show the bogus guards at the border that you have a mind of your own." (Bill Moyers)

Nosotros tambien tenemos un sueno!

Nothing like the first Day of Resurrection since seventh-day Rest from Creation?

Can't Keep a Good Body -- Down, Out, or Quiet!

"Can't Keep a Good Body - Down, Out, or Quiet!"

Nothing prepares us for horror of finding a body this morning like last ride into locked, loaded city; bread broken with a marked man; words choked from a criminal's cross.

Found bodies likely lead to more deaths.

In Balkans: "The victim's grave becomes blessed point of departure for next murder." So many wars start in our memory; "the death penalty lies in waiting in our hearts." (Jim Douglass)

"No Body" found this morning, no excuse to recycle vengeance forever; no excuse, either, to exculpate misguided guards, bribed to tell stories of theft by disciples -- in exchange for protection from their own Protector? Still quaking most, in our own boots, self-anointed investors in things as we are, still misguarding Jesus, seeing that nobody messes with him who stays safely dead!

Where were we for Jesus anyway? Crucified, harassed, humiliated, taunted, tortured, denied, deserted, dying on cross, all alone, without us! So confident we could follow him anywhere? How long do we take to shake it all out? We nobodies of the No Body of all? Resurrected in spite of ourselves!

* * * * *

"I am! Somebody! I am! Somebody! I may be old! I may be weak!

I may be poor! I may be in the street! I may be on welfare! But I am! SOMEBODY! Respect me! Protect me! Do not neglect or reject me!

I am! Somebody! My head can conceive it! My heart can believe it!

My hands can achieve it! I am! Somebody!" (Jesse Jackson)

"No Body" changing world of "nobodies." From nobody to somebody,

anybody to everybody! Nobody left "out of body!" Behind every locked door

a brother! Behind every nailed gate a sister! Come out, come out,

wherever we are! Until there is nobody here . . .

Perfect Love, Speaking Truth, Casting Out

"Perfect Love, Speaking Truth, Casting Out?"

Who's the more haunting, more hurting? Mother watching son die?
Son watching mother watching son die?

Hasidic Tale: One asking another, "Do you love me?" "Yes, I love you very much." "Do you know what causes me pain?" "How can I know what causes you pain?" "If you don't know what causes me pain, how can you then say you love me?"

Can the heart that breaks open contain the whole universe?

Elie Wiesel, haunted by self as small boy in Auschwitz, now asking,
"What have you done with my life?"
I tell him that I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation . . .

No one is as capable of gratitude as the one who has emerged from the kingdom of night. We know every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would be to betray them.
Our lives no longer belong to us alone . . . .

This is my body, broken for you. Do this, remembering me.

* * * * *

A favored congregant hands me an Easter card and says, "I hope it is not irreverent." "I hope it is," I return, "What's more irreverent than Easter?"

Talk about waking the dead! Not letting a sleeping church lie! Or at least not to claim lie as truth! If we cannot sleep in church, then where? In good conscience? No matter what else about my preaching, you will not get much sleep! I preach that "Chicago style," lately notorious.

So the card reads, "Today's Easter sermon is . . . Where in the hell have you been since Christmas?" Jesus passing through Hell these past few days -- descending deep into death, turning loose all manner of banished ones there -- Resurrection not missing a trick! Open to all, if to any; Jesus just first; not over till Death overcome.

Nobody has to ask, When's Christmas this year? But Easter, like resurrection, not staying put in any one person or place! Breaking out all over whenever it will! For a moment in planning actions last week, marking Fifth Year of This Fucking War, remote chance some might be risking arrest; even, by faith, ending up jailed this morning! George said he was preparing to fill in as preacher, beginning, "Well, it's Easter -- and nobody's where they're supposed to be!"

Needless to say, by a similar faith, like Jesus' own fair-weather friends and followers, by the end of the week we finked, fickled, faded, and fled.

Guess I hope no one goes to jail for this war, for ending or for starting it;

but even if we were to do so -- as Jesus' nonviolent resistance does to all powers, seated and afoot, in Jerusalem, in all the capital cities -- we would not begin to pay proximate price for all the war-wasted already -- military, civilian; "terrorist," "freedom-fighter;" combatant, noncombatant; Iraqi, American, other; very young, very old --

If promise of resurrection does not speak to them, how dare it speak to us?

Life on the Way Coming Down -- and Out!

"Life on the Way Coming Down -- and Out!

A Jesus who dies without killing, who lives with our dying, our dealings with this deadly world; not with some numbed, dulled diversion vested in churchly restraint, left in a box, dusted, shown off for a few holy days of a year, framed suitably.

A Jesus licentiously liberating! Leading from inside, locked side, out!
Trusting no defense, no pretense, no self-righteous pontification.
A Jesus who's guilty -- Blasphemy! Treason! -- guilty as charged!
Guilty as Hell he is raising, is rescuing, down, down, down to this day.

Down through the tomb's inward arch

He has shouldered out into Limbo

to gather them, dazed, from heartless slumber:

the merciful dead, the prophets,

the innocents just His own age and those

unnumbered others waiting here,

unaware, in an endless void He is ending . . .

That done. there must take place that struggle

no human presumes to picture:

living, dying, descending to rescue the just

from shadow, were lesser travails

than this: to break

through earth and stone of the faithless world

back to the cold sepulcher, tearstained

stifling shroud: to break from them

back into breath and heartbeat, and walk

the world again, closed into days and weeks again,

wounds of his anguish open, and Spirit

streaming through every cell of flesh

so that if mortal sight could bear

to perceive it, it would be seen

His mortal flesh was lit fro within, now,

and aching for home. He must return,

first, in divine patience, and know

hunger again, and

give to humble friends the joy

of giving Him food -- fish and a honeycomb.

(Denise Levertov)

Unpictured reportings, underground rumblings, trembling tribulations --

No cherished assignment, no gimme, no slam dunk, no easy sell!

* * * * *

Of course word was out about "The Third Day," extra troops ordered from and by Pilate; deep-sighings, head-shakings, as soldiers do; dead-weightings of those duped, deluding: more violence ends wars -- much less resurrections!

Death only guarantees death: "War is always about this betrayal . . .

young by old, idealists by cynics, finally soldiers by politicians.

Those who pay price, however, crumpled up and thrown away.

We do not see them. We do not hear them. They are doomed,

like wandering spirits . . ." (Chris Hedges)

Who breaks Caesar's Seal breaks Caesar.

Breaking with Law, breaking with Past, with everything been and believed;

breaking with bread, breaking with body, breaking out, breaking open,

breaking often, Easter the mending of One "Gone for Broke!"

Reaching to Friday, Jesus up "saving us." Launching from Sunday, we up

"saving Jesus!" Keeping Jesus alive in everyday loves, against interests in

keeping him dead; always-anointing, love breaking fears, long before

tombs empty, Jesus appears.

Laughing Fits to Be Tied

"Laughing Fits to Be Tied"

Eugene O'Neill retelling, Lazarus Laughed:
Curtain rising, Lazarus rising, stumbling out of pitched dark, into bright light,
unbound, laughing, rejoicing, embracing all -- starting with Jesus!
Seeing whole world again like the first time, caressing Earth, relishing sky,
trees, people, chanting repeatedly, "yes, yes, yes!"

When asked what death is like, "There is no death, really. There is only life.
There is only God! There is only incredible joy!"

Death less an abyss than a portal:
"Grave is empty as doorway is empty. There is nothing to fear." WHAT?!
What good is death if not to fear it?

Everyone notices differences in him, gone back to daily routines, ecstasy, ease to his being. His home, "House of Laughter," recklessly rollicking, lifting life, raising work, of whole village, performing no longer by threat but enticement,
exalted by all -- save the Romans!

Death Dealers! Power Brokers! Union Busters! Emperor Caligula:
"Crosses and corpses are so educational!" Still clinging to death sentences, executions; alleged deterrents to violence in primed-time perpetuity.

Lazarus making us nothing but trouble, never stops laughing, partying, asserting: "There is nothing you can do to me! There is no death! There is only life!" Arrested, taken away before "Higher Powers," even to Rome, face-to-face with Emperor.

"Either stop this infernal laughter," his holiness pleads, "or I'll have you put to death!" Lazarus laughs. AND LAUGHS!

Who's the more powerful now? "Be not afraid." Perfect Love for This World,
easings out deadly violence and fear, Jesus living again to attest:
Most crushing sufferings, most strangling wailings, leading to death, serving Life! "What is" breaking out into "All That can be!" Glimpses of grace, rumors of resurrection, stone to stone, tomb to tomb -- from Peter alone, to twelve, to five hundred, to James, to all the apostles, even to you, even, even to me . . .

All the King's Forces, All the King's Friends

"All the King's Forces, All the King's Friends"

"God stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at
the cross and marched them naked through the streets." Imagine that! From Paul! Was ever a self-shortened emperor clothed for long?

"Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom

"Appoint me President of the Senate

Appoint me Director of the Budget

Appoint me Attorney General of the Republic"

"Remember the crown of thorns

"Make me Chilean Counsel in Stockholm

Appoint me Superintendent of Railroads

Appoint me Commander-in-Chief of the Army

I'll take anything at all . . .

Head of the Highway Department

Supervisor of Gardens and Parks . . .

Put me in as Director of the Zoo."

"Blessed be the Name of the Father

And of the Son And of the Holy Spirit

"Put me in as Ambassador to any place . . .

If it comes down to it

Put me in as Superintendent of the Graveyards!"

(Nicanor Para)

Now there's a title for Easter morning! Who wants to be Superintendent of Graveyards on the Day of Resurrection?! Cosmic breach of Graveyard Security!

Foreboding Death of Death itself!

Life by appointment, places of witness, every size serving all.

Chicago politics: "Don't talk to nobody nobody sent!"

Doesn't "Somebody" have to answer for this?

Jesus, when you come into your kingdom, just give us the best deal we're likely to get. Powers, deadly to Jesus, choosing Barabbas, confessing to Pilate,

"No king but Caesar!" Deadly to us even now? Would we just as soon Jesus stayed dead? Risk risings to no new occasions? Leave us to somnamulate on?

Watermarked

"Watermarked"

24 year-old son drowned in car wreckage --
"God dead-set against all unnatural deaths. Christ spent inordinate time
delivering people from paralysis, insanity, leprosy, muteness . . . One thing should never be said when someone dies -- 'It is the will of God.' Never do we
know enough to say that!

"When waves closed over the sinking car, God's heart was the first to break."
"Like God herself, Scripture is not around for anyone's protection, just for everyone's unending support. (William Sloan Coffin)

What does it mean to wonder if each death is, sufficiently, for us all?
To imagine a world where every last death called a natural one?

Easter, baptisms, stubborn refusals, no giving up on any least one.
Paul: "Going under the water was burial of your old life. Coming out of it was resurrection, God raising you from the dead as God did Christ . . .
Think of it! All sins forgiven! The slate wiped clean! That old arrest warrant cancelled and nailed to Christ's cross." (God's wall?)

Walls in the Way, Ways in the Wall

"Walls in the Way, Ways in the Wall"

From walls in way to ways amid walls, lovers refusing to death to be kept apart --- "No, leave the wall! Remember, you must always leave the wall." "Without hurt the heart is hollow." (The Fantasticks) Wall-defined, defiant, lovers daring to go up against, and over!

"I was a judge at the Terlinga Chili Cookoff . . . It was '83 or some year right around there when we held The Fence climbing contest. See, people talked
about building The Fence back the, too! The Fence along the Mexican border. To keep Them out!

"At the time the proposal was quite specific -- a 17-foot fence with barbwire
at the top. So a test fence was built at Terlinga, and the First-Ever Terlinga Memorial Over, Under, or Through Mexican Fence Climbing Contest took place. Prize: A case of Lone Star beer. Winning time: 30 seconds.

"I tell this story to make the one single point about the border and immigration we know to be true: No fence will work. They will come anyway.
Over, under, or through." (Molly Ivins)

Who is any less "documented" to do what he does than Jesus?
Less beholden to ossified borders? Even between Death and Life?
"Undocumented" now, to us, Missionaries! Nonviolent Systemic Miscegenators! Against who authorities betting, this week as always,
on Crosses and Tombs, like Fences and Walls, capstoned, Rome-armed and guarded; but proving no match, whatever is needed, to keep lovers together,
loving alive.

Finding the Courage to Lose the Control

"Finding the Courage to Lose the Control"

Crucifixion? Resurrection? Which daunts us more?
We learn to do death pretty well. It seems in control wherever we look.
Crucifixion the Movie gets our attention. But resurrection? Barely an aberration! Life? New Way of Living? Away from Death? Scary!
Good Friday leaves us silenced. Easter Sunday leaves us speechless!
"News" source literally incredible! Beyond belief! Bereft of previous reference!

Stone builders rejecting emerging the cornerstone!
Seed surreptitiously disappearing bringing forth first of all fruits!

Dug from dregs, dispensed, disposed; nightmaring those in power,
giddily gone to bed, him done and dead; rudely awakened, him up and
multiplying! As many of him as those able to see! First here, then there,
this unsuspecting, those most unlikely, embarrassing ones --
witnesses least admissible under the Law.

Graveyard! Garden! Road to Emmaus! Tightly-locked room! Fished-out lakefront! Jesus busting out everywhere! Completely at loose and at large!
Jack out of box, cat out of bag, genie of bottle! Life out of Egypt, tomb, bondage, death! Out of all banks, breaking all banks, out of control,
in a whole other world!

Jesus now riding "excitement of rise: unexpectedness, always, of change it makes." "An irresistible sense of adventure in difference . . .
Once connection with shore is broken, journey has begun!" (Wendell Berry)

* * * * *

Courage of women, approaching the tomb --

"Every mother whose Marine has come home has experienced sense of the resurrection . . . When we set eyes on them again, we count each of their fingers, like when they were newborns . . ." (Phyllis Osborne, mother)
Every mother's child coming home? . . .

Scared no longer to Death but to Life, Ghosts of Undying Love, coming in dark,

exploring the ever-unlighted before; armed only with oils, of fears, of doubts, of losses, of pains, griefs, disbeliefs; memories already fast-fading, with tomb-like finality; "closure," we say, solacing, soothing, scrapbooking, scrubbing up after.

"Jesus' resurrected body teaches that bodies matter . . . Jesus insists on his body: 'Look at my hands and my feet. See that it is I myself. Touch and see.'"

(Stephanie Paulsell) Touch giving sight to sore eyes, reviving, restoring whole view, dislodging all stones sealing tombs.

Dressed Down, Crossed Up

"Dressed Down, Crossed Up" "He went out carrying his cross." Don't want to disturb us -- or do I? -- but somebody somewhere is making more crosses right now. More nuclear missiles, automatic weapons, electric chairs, lethal injections, means of establishing all executions, churched and stated, marketplaced sanctions, systems, of violence, of death. Crosses not simply appearing, serenely selected, like coffins, for self-immolation. Crosses hand-rendered, designed, constructed, assembled. Jesus carrying only the crossbar! And falling. After scourging. Uphill to garbage dump. Where trunk of the cross once and always in place. Someone not cutting a cross for us even now? What does it look like? What form does it take? What will it say? Where on Jesus' is written, "The King of the Jews?" What charges leveled on us? What threat of us worthy to sentence to death? Threat to what system? Complex of systems? What organized power against the people are you and I possibly seen as opposing?

Following Jesus confronting perpetual posing, Who are our Romans? What our imperial context? Policy of Deterrence? Destruction? "Why do we kill people who are killing people to show that killing people is wrong? What a foolish notion!" (Holly Near)

Crosses all over us all all the time; two others booked at same moment as Jesus; unoverestimable, Passover (National?) Liberation Front, carnage to wrap up by Sabbath . . . Not to be too Jesus-centric: Jesus but one among some 250,000! Making Third Day reporting all that more perplexing! Resurrection of such anonymity? Ignominy? Commonplace brutalization?

"Is it nothing to us, all we who pass by?"

* * * * *

"I am thirsty." Guards, soldiers around him soaking sponge in bitter wine,

attaching it to stalk of hyssop; could have been using for anesthetic, for deadening dumbfounding pain.

Vinegar, hyssop usual props by the cross? Crucified's own family, friends, if any, administering as permitted? Some sign of shared fellow-feeling somewhere this day? Like "No More Deaths?" Haphazard hydration, randomly left, just as randomly found, midst of mind-frying, hunting-down, lip-sealing deserts?

We are such watery beings. I am acquainted with anesthetics -- accompanying me through pains I need to get "better." Hope it's occurring to Jesus his pain's worth enduring for something better finding way out of it? Yet what if he wants to just get it over.

Do with me what you will, this is the offering up of my life, for better, for worse, the best I could do with what, and with whom, you gave me, and time.

About noon. Sunlight completely annulled. World, as much as one can be aware of it, plunged into post-nuclear darkness: "A darkness more enduring than that on a long-ago Passover would come across the world, after a more ominous quaking of earth and disintegration of rocks. From innumerable parched lips would come some echo of the cry, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'" (anonymous)
Three crosses, three hours, three days, "three persons of God" -- and counting.

Our Souls and Our Soles

"Our Souls and Our Soles" Such wayward wannabe followers, lucky to keep even single command! "Love one another!" Be willing washers of feet! Like "guest workers," we call them, risking everything, crossing our lines, crossing themselves, into the hearts of our lives. Heroes of Boundless, Borderless Futures, standing on corners long before dawn, with ten percent chance of working, for whatever they may be offered, whatever "wage" may or may not be paid, globalized, made repayable: "Home." In the noisy argument over what to do with illegal immigrants, the common assumption is that America has done a great deal for them already. The question now is what more should we give them? Should we give them a green card? Grant them amnesty? Or stop all this generosity and send them packing? No one speaks of what illegal immigrants have done for us. It occurs to me I have not heard two relevant words spoken. If you allow me I will speak them. Thank you. Thank you for turning on the sprinklers. Thank you for cleaning the swimming pool and scrambling the eggs and doing the dishes. Thank you for making the bed. Thank you for getting the children up and ready for school. Thank you for caring for our dying parents. Thank you for plucking dead chickens. Thank you for bending your bodies over our fields. Thank you for breathing chemicals and absorbing chemicals into your bodies. Thank you for the lettuce, and the spinach, and the artichokes, and the asparagus, and the cauliflower, the broccoli, the beans, the tomatoes and the garlic. Thank you for the apricots and the peaches, and the apples, and the melons, and the plums, the almonds, the grapes. Thank you for the willow trees, and the roses and the winter lawn. Thank you for scraping, and painting, and roofing, and cleaning out the asbestos and the mold. Thank you for your stoicism and your eager hands. Thank you for all the young men on rooftops in the sun. Thank you for cleaning the toilets and the showers, and the restaurant kitchens, and the schools, and the office buildings, the airports and the malls. Thank you for washing the car. Thank you for washing all the cars. Thank you for your parents, who died young and had nothing to bequeath to their children but the memory of work. Thank you for giving us your youth. Thank you for the commemorative altars. Thank you for the food, the beer, the tragic polka. "Gracious." (Richard Rodriguez) Thank you, Jesus. Amen.

* * * * *

Feet up close and personal for me, the aching and paining of many, and why we choose no messing around with the feet of another, nor anyone messing with ours! Why in the World would Jesus choose to do THIS on that night? And ask us to do so, following him? "Gospel accounts do not report any of the disciples as believers!" Judas' betrayal, of course, Peter's denial, Thomas' doubt! But none of us, even, especially, Jesus' own family -- NONE understanding his words, comprehending his wisdom, loving his teaching, recognizing his works, acknowledging his authority, welcoming his vocation -- much less verifiable traces of any belief in this Jesus as Lord, Liberator, All of Creation!

Call us "variously enthralled, mystified, bemused, apprehensive, confounded," but cost-cuttingly call us, at all costs, and all his disciples, "steadfast in our disbelief!" (William Stringfellow)

* * * * *

Is that not the sharp snag in the side of this week? Everything human about us screaming out against irreversible, irretrievable irrevocability of tragedy all can see coming and none can stop?

Jacob-like, Jonah-like, Job-like wrestlings with faiths as last furious resorts?

Cancer in family and friends, addiction in children and neighbors; greed in corporations and captive officials; poverty, ignorance, neglect, abuse in home and community; violence, vengeance, weapons, wars, occupation, oppression in mindset and world -- helpless at times to see and believe, much less to name, know, protest, organize -- even imagine alternative to?

Jesus till now rather mystical with us, cryptic, enigmatic, riddled, parabled --

"Whoever has ears let them hear," intensely instructing us not to tell others, not to make public, who he is, what he does; but now going for broke, betting his all on us, as he is gone for and bet on himself? Accepting anointment, arranging arrest.

Ideas overcoming our problems not likely to issue from those who create them.

Changes in how to do "power" led best by those with littlest of it. Our culture as numb to suffering as we are drunk with succeeding. "Take this cup from me." "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Surrounded me with forsakers?

"We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel." Those who do Jesus best those who know Jesus least!

* * * * *

Good Friday, Way of the Cross, in Haiti --

"I saw the roads and fields had worked their way into their soles -- a tough layer of dead skin and dirt that becomes a leathery shoe itself.

Some feet had sores, others had scars. Bare feet, flattened from running the rocky paths, had been stuffed into plastic sandals: two dollars a pair, three colors, four styles, split, dirty, too small.

"Heels hung over here, there callused toes stuck out of the edges. Sometimes the shoes were too big. A little girl's feet stopped midway into the pumps that mission-minded from United States discarded into relief barrel.

Guess I see the ministry here as caring for the homelier feet of this world."

(Rebecca Dudley)

Stripped to the waist, knelt like a slave, muddied the basin, soaped layers of grime.

* * * * *

All this inspiring Paul to imagine the Body of Christ? Attending less to beautiful, thoughtful, prayerful parts of us; more to lowest, basest, sorest, dirtiest., hardest? Parts without which, without whom, we are pretty much stuck where we are!

Ponder the plucky persistence of those moving by canes, and walkers, and chairs, requiring elevators; Jesus clearly perceiving, when feet hurt, whole body bamboozled, discombobulated! Feel the point where our "souls" touch the Earth! How we stay "grounded," we say.

In Jesus, in Gandhi, in Day, in King, no moment, no part, no place, no person, no people, no project of us too low, too demeaning to share in together!

"Just plain ordinary tired feet. Jesus cared about feet. He didn't ignore the head, the heart, the soul . . . spectacular things like that. but I'm especially glad that He cared about feet! Not too many 'messiahs' ever did that!

"You can wax eloquently and beautifully abstract about people's heads, hearts, and souls. But it's hard to be removed from human need when you're kneeling on the floor washing one another's feet.

"Dusty roads are scarce and very few sandals are worn these days, but feet trapped in leather are just as tired, and just as ignored. There still aren't many 'messiahs' around who care about feet. Not many at all." ("Feet," 90 year-old nun whose name we don't know)

Living the Questions, Dying the Answers

"Living the Questions, Dying the Answers" "In order that he might fulfill your will and make for you a people, he extended his hands when he suffered, so that he might liberate the suffering ones who hoped in him who was handed over by his own will to suffering, that he might destroy death, and break the chains of the devil, and trample hell, and direct the saints, and fix the boundaries, and manifest resurrection!" (Fragmentary Early Church Communion Prayer) "Power is very elusive. It is here today and gone tomorrow. But it's being able to gather people around, very specifically on the issues -- people who are directly affected by the problem . . . Bringing them all together naturally creates power; that's the basis for it. But because the world doesn't stand still, what's power today is not power tomorrow." (Cesar Chavez) With Jesus is always tomorrow, manana. What we ourselves read in a book, we may not remember long; what someone else reads to us, we remember a little while longer; what someone acts out and we see, we remember still longer; what we act out for ourselves, doing very things we want to learn, we may remember a very long time! That's all Jesus hopes for this night, with disciples' such hard times remembering; making things up as he goes along; giving Self to them each way he can; showing, sharing us how to do him for others. "The only way to leave a good death is to live a good life. Live a good one, full of curiosity and generosity, and compassion, and there's no need [isn't there?] at the close of day to rage against the dying of the light." (William Sloan Coffin)

* * * * *

Jesus never witnessing faith so much as in faithless soldier seeking a daughter's healing: "As one who lives under authority, I know all you have to do is say the word, and the healing will be done."

So are we, under authority, under order, under discipline, under command -- Love! Prepare! Commune! Wash! Go forth! Accepting One Source, questioning others; Passion Authority accepting, questioning all --

"Whom do you seek?" (Twice!)

"Shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given me?"

"Why do you ask me?" "Why do you strike me?"

"Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?"

"Are you not also one of this man's disciples?" "Are you not one of his disciples?" "Did I not see you in the garden with him?"

"Is that how you answer the high priest?"

"Are you the King of the Jews?"

"Am I a Jew?" "So you are a king?" "What is truth?" "Where are you from?"

"Will you not speak to me?" Do you not know that I have power to release you and power to crucify you?" "Will you have me release for you the King of the Jews?" "Shall I crucify your king?" "We have no king but Caesar!"

That settles it!

Treating high Powers of State as our gods! Asking no more questions. Proceeding to foregone conclusions. Church to be called "Community of Open Questions?" Yet thinking we know all the answers, dismissing the questions, some closing selves off against others, inevitably disillusioning all.

No answers made to last the world's lifetime.

"What's the buzz? Tell me what's happening? What's the buzz?" "Should I bring him down, should I scream and shout, should I speak of love, let my feelings out? . . . What's it all about?" "Could we start again please? Could we start again?" ("Jesus Christ Superstar")

Fit to Be Tied -- Untie Us!

"Fit to Be Tied -- Untie Us!" Week less about Jesus, more about us, freed up to make of him whom, what we will, steadfastly undefending in his own behalf, unappealing to any authority higher than ours -- Where does Palm Sunday find us? In procession with him? Followers or disciples? Lining the roadway? Uncertain but hopeful? Waving, cheering? Peeking out behind lines? Cautiously curious? Conspicuously circumspect? Aloof from the mob, from the masses? In Party of Pharisees? Repulsed by rabble? Wary Sadducee loyalists? Fearful for own power? Angry zealots? Fiercely opposing all occupation? Ready for armed-robbered resistance? Resentful of harsh intrusion, gross interruption? Soldier, Temple Guard? Tired of endless "peacekeeping?" Tourists? Long lost among overwrought, overrun pilgrims? Wracking hearts for what's happening here? Here at all? Anywhere to be found? Sweaty Palm Sunday! Falsifying security, frazzling nerve, Day of the Circus, Week of the Cross, wherever it is we are headed, we cannot get there from here! Land and life of detours, false starts, quick stops, wrong turns, dead ends. Laughing to keep us from crying? Crying to keep us from laughing? Who IS this guy on the donkey? What does he think he's achieving? A king to be crowned with thorns? Army of children and kindred rejects? King of Fools? Fool of Kings?? Jesus less dying than living this week: "We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day every one of us needs to step outside and take some action to stop this war! Raise hell! Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous . . . We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, STOP IT NOW!" (Molly Ivins) Power works as we give it away. Remember? Children taught to bring forth perfect praise? Offenders not noisy children but nosy elders! Kids are reviving our most hackneyed hopes! Primed to receive the believed in our lives! Allowing good works to be just what they are! Clamoring with justice, with joy. for the world! Dispensing with every deference, every decorum, every propriety, every procedure! Jesus' hunch when to hold, when to fold, power -- more in this single nonviolent witness of dying than in all weapons, all wars, before or after. "We declare the war is over. It's over. It's over." (Phil Ochs)

* * * * *

Just a few women not Missing In Action, no doubt more attuned to the tragic, watching of children heading for death, unable to reach them, living through it best ways that we can -- like Cecil, first Sunday, pastor at Glide, razing all the nice crosses from all the clean walls, renailing them to our hearts.

Jesus sensing these are his last times? Betrayed, arrested by stark Thursday night? By Friday noon nailed to the tree?

Moment of his cosmic hush, entering Temple alone, emptied of every exigent enthrallment, exhausted, immersed, this stillest of moments -- no one to teach or preach with, argue with or debate, feed, heal, touch, or exorcise -- even to look at or listen to, eerily extant.

How does he see around in the dark? Himself? His parents? His siblings? His memories? Brought every year to the Passover Feast? Sickened by animal blood gush and flow? Losing self in vocation at twelve?

And what of the years in between? Up to temptation on heels of baptism? Bidden leap from this very Temple Top? Presuming on Papa's all-sparing protection? Wondering Who is protecting him now? So much about him we dare not know! Temple destroyed, replaced with his body? Temple-Determiners, both Church and State, wary of holding his fate in their hands?

Destined for Offering since Dedication? Simeon announcing Salvation in Arms? Anna's praise pulsing with Mary's pain? Recalling all those gone before him? Keeping full Jubilee Promise alive? Life abundant, life without any unequalized end? Life broken, poured out, by, for, each, all, equal taste of this Last and First Meal . . .

"As it was late, " Mark concludes, "Jesus retired to Bethany."

Not Even a Horse But an Ass

"Not Even a Horse but an Ass" Young Palestinian organizer, Arab-American Action League, Chicago: "I always wanted a job that begins the moment I wake up in the morning and ends only the moment I go to sleep at night." I always wanted a life like that, commencing the moment I'm born, consummating only the moment I die! Jesus, going the distance, no life-support systems for him, no extraordinary means, interventions to keep him from fullest possible embrace, wholeness of life, pain of remaining true to ourselves as we know us. Dr. King, also organizing, dangerous demos, peaceful parades, martyred in Memphis, murdered in faith, respecting life without illusion -- "I'd like to have a long life. Longevity has its place. But it really doesn't matter with me now. I have been to the mountaintop. I have looked out over the promised land. I may not get there with you. But we as a people will get to the promised land!"

* * * * *

Jesus transfiguring, confirming baptism, "Servant King," not so much, as worldly kings do, serving by ruling, deigning to reigning, control over others. Rather, ruling only by serving -- by justice, by joy, by food, by feet, by liberation, by love, by suffering, even by death -- Not serving death! No shortage of leaders do that. The opposite: Serving by death! Refusing to kill! Ungrasping of Cosmic Equality. Unsummonsing help on the cross, no earthly sword, no heavenly legion, laying down life for others, others no one else even knows, or cares, are there, anonymous, ignominious others, hailing him into the city this day, between whom he is to hang, dying.

How are we to choose a parade for marking our memories? How like this Poet, Teacher, Artist, Organizer? "Farcically, on a donkey," "lampooning the Davidic kingship by paradoxical reversal!" What kind of king, more committed to giving than taking of life, of lives? "The human being who has no place to lay his head is the same 'king' who has nothing and must borrow -- not even a horse -- an ass!" (Walter Wink)

* * * * *

Like Gandhi! Fellow Fanciful Feather-Ruffler! Leaving to note at his death: glasses, robe, book or two, walking stick, spinning wheel -- Outlandish, outlawish -- publicly practicing deep ease with ruckus, with children -- living justice, loving joy -- just as we taught -- and forgot!

Spectacles! Fools for Christ's sake! Even now from Wilderness Margins, from Serpentine Showdowns, disempowering Self -- Who could have been "Equal with God" -- urging others to be reempowered through him? "I love the sound of dried palms crunching." "Put my ashes on thick; I want other people to ask me what they mean!" (Mary Noer, confirmand)

Hail the Temptation of Triumphal Entry! "Precipitous Withdrawal"??

Come end of the week, who's remembered? What names? John Proctor, Crucibled One, clearly no "angel," clinging heroically, fragile dignity, decency, name only identity, better and worse -- "You will not use me. It is no part of my salvation that you should use me!" I have given you my soul; leave me my name!" (Arthur Miller) "Leaving our names," proffered proof we have been there, parts of the action -- Seeds of Subversified Memories? Re-minded, re-hearted, re-souled? Finished not even with Caiphas, Pilate, Judas, Peter, anointers, abandoners -- yet?

Easter Ain't Over Till It's Over -- if Then

We quarrel with bunnies and bonnets to keep Easter focused on whatever it was, supposedly, reportedly, happened to Jesus, happened to us, three days after he strangled and died while we panicked and fled. Why can't all those purists settle for One Fine Spring Day of lilies and butterflies? Because this day begins with visiting a bloody borrowed tomb "containing" our hope for this world. Easter is all about Pentecost, best-kept secretest "holy day" of them all, from Halloween to Valentine's! Forty days into Easter, as long as Lent was in waiting for it, Jesus ascends, clears out of the way he's been getting in, so we might stop looking wistfully up -- and look out! He orders us back to the scene of the crime, where we are so sure we are "wanted" next, preparing us to receive still-mysterious 50-day Pentecost, Jubilee, fulfillment of Easter, gift of the Holy Spirit, inside-out! THIS is Jesus returning! All the "coming again" we ever need or expect! Living and working through us, by no means only as "church" but more so as "people," Spirit-filled-to-overflowing Cosmic Body -- mending, extending, blending all over the Earth! Like a Pentecost Nation -- of 50 states? -- rejoining the world of all nations, United Nations, 50 nations at founding, now 192 -- and counting! Where all the world's known peoples gather, each hearing Spirit as if in their very own language -- leaving behind first "English Only" Babel at last . . . .

Your ideals are invisible clouds

so try not to suffocate the poor,

the peasants, with your sympathies.

They know that you're staring at them.

-- Jim Harrison, "Easter Morning"