Monday, March 29th, 2021

“When sorrow comes” by A. Powell Davies

When sorrow comes, let us accept it simply, as a part of life.
Let the heart be open to pain; let it be stretched by it.
All the evidence we have says that this is the better way.
An open heart never grows bitter.
Or if it does, it cannot remain so.
In the desolate hour, there is an outcry; a clenching of the hands upon emptiness; a burning pain of bereavement; a weary ache of loss.
But anguish, like ecstasy, is not forever.
There comes a gentleness, a returning quietness, a restoring stillness.
This, too, is a door to life.

Here, also, is a deepening of meaning – and it can lead to dedication;
a going forward to the triumph of the soul, the conquering of the wilderness.
And in the process will come a deepening inward knowledge that in the final reckoning,
All is well.

Sunday, March 28th, 2021 (Palm Sunday)

“Passiontide” by Michael Coffey

And so the time comes to let you go again
like Mary at her weeping station
like Peter in his running shameful cry
like Mary Magdalene’s sad watchful eye
like the soldier’s gasping epiphany
like Joseph gently laying your body down and releasing you
into the tomb the darkness the empty unknown.

We would rather hang on to you friend
and let Simon take the cross as you slip out of line
catch a taxicab out of town
and escape into your suburban green lawn hideaway
where we drop by for a Sunday cookout and a Bud.
The mosquitoes would hover around us like angels
singing “holy, holy, holy” and smell our breath and sweat
and bite you and draw a blood drop
and we look at each other and we know now
as we hang our weeping heads
that nothing ever gets done in clinging comfort.

And so the time comes to let you go again
and let God do the divine metamorphosis
of every weeping, shameful, sad, gasping, gentle release
into the tomb of darkness where you meet us in emptiness
where when we let you go we let ourselves go also
as we fall into the earthy black of surrender
and wait, wait, wait for your next creation out of nothing
your unexpected goodness bleeding through
your resurrection of everything we released to you
even ourselves in our fear of you and your mysterious ways.

Saturday, March 27th, 2021

“Christ Has No Body” by St. Teresa of Avila

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Friday, March 26th, 2021

“The Place Where We Are Right” by Yehuda Amichai

From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.

The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.

But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.

Thursday, March 25th, 2021

“The calling of the disciples” by Lucille Clifton

some Jesus
has come on me

i throw down my nets
into the water he walks

i loose the fish
he feeds to cities

and everyone calls me
an old name

as i follow out
laughing like God’s fool
behind this Jesus

Wednesday, March 24th, 2021

“The Walk” by Ann Weems

Those of us who walk along this road
do so reluctantly.
Lent is not our favorite time of year.
We’d rather be more active—
planning and scurrying around.
All this is too contemplative to suit us.
Besides we don’t know what to do
with piousness and prayer.
Perhaps we’re afraid to have time to think,
for thoughts come unbidden.
Perhaps we’re afraid to face our future
knowing our past.
Give us the courage, O God,
to hear your word
and to read our living into it.
Give us the trust to know we’re forgiven,
and give us the faith
to take up our lives and walk

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2021

“Sympathy for Lazarus” by Michael Coffey

He didn’t ask to be a magic trick like some dead rabbit
pulled out of a stone hat with a hocus pocus incantation

he didn’t want to be resuscitated in full decrepit stink
for his mother to see him shambling down the cemetery road

he was resting in peace after taking the dark plunge once
no one should stomach it twice, that long black falling

so Jesus, when I die and I’m put down to earthen solace
or after my ashes are scattered into entropic chaos irreversible

do not force me to go through it again like brother Lazarus
raised to face more time in suffering and second death

let your tears be so you may let me go as we all must do
grieve your best friend fully and without recourse to power

raise me then beyond time to your un-nameable dimension
where decay has died with all fear of losing myself and you

has been buried in that old entombed world where I still walk
like Lazarus already dead yet alive and yet to die and rise