“I want you to gather up the pain and grief of this community:  the mining disaster half a century ago when over 80 men lost their lives; the other mining disaster — the pit closures — of 20 or 30 years ago, when nearly twenty times that number lost their jobs and the family and social sorrows, whatever they may be.  I want you to write down, some time over the next two or three days, just a sentence or two, or maybe just a word or two, about the particular griefs this community has had to bear in recent years.  And over the course of the week, we’ll gather them up, we’ll put them in a basket here somewhere, and when we get to Good Friday, we’ll bring them to the cross and leave them there.

Because, you see, that is the only way we can really and truly deal with them.  We come, like the crowds on Palm Sunday, with all kinds of hopes and frustrations, with sorrows and fears, and we have that glimmer of hope that maybe Jesus will be able to do something about it all…

…scribble something down…and we’ll keep them here and fold them into the story on Good Friday itself.  I have no idea what God will do with them.  But I do know that, when you bring things to the foot of the cross, the music of Jesus’ death transforms them in ways we can’t predict or explain.”

I’m posting these words because I know so many people who are dealing with profound grief from incomprehensible stories.  Even those of us who are not wrestling with deep suffering have hard stories in our past.  As we approach the ending of Lent, I wonder…what griefs of the past would you or I like to write down and place at the foot of the Cross?  I wonder how seeing these griefs anew in the light of Jesus’ death and resurrection might transform us?

In the introduction, he writes,

“…part of the problem may be in the difficulty of moving forwards when all the symbols and local culture are pointing back.  As with an individual who has lost someone they love, part of the point of the process of grief, painful and horrible though it is, is to enable the person eventually to look about them, draw a deep breath, and make some new starts.

This isn’t just a matter of ‘moving on,’ in the fashionable jargon.  It’s a matter of looking the past in the face, owning up to the grief which we often hide, and so laying a more solid foundation for what may be to come.  I decided therefore that it was worth spending some time in facing the multiple bereavements of Easington Colliery and in weaving them together with the story of all stories, the story of Jesus on his way to the cross.  As I say more than once in what follows, I have no blueprint for what might or should happen next.  If God is at work he wil do what he will do, and his purposes are always full of surprises.  But I am convinced that when we bring our griefs and sorrows within the story of God’s own grief and sorrow, and allow them to be held there, God is able to bring healing to us and new possibilities to our lives.  That is, of course, what Good Friday and Easter are all about.”

Wright’s words are so helpful in that they acknowledge that we do not know the exact path grief will take.  Furthermore, we are often plodding one day at a time through this uncertainty of grief, asking those ‘how long’ and ‘why’ questions.  And yet, there is one thing we can do — keep laying our griefs and sorrows at the feet of the One who knows grief and sorrow more deeply than we can ever imagine.  And in that, let us be prepared, no — expectant — of God’s meeting us with a resurrection surprise!

1. Why is St. Patrick a “gospel-hero”?
2. What color was originally associated with St. Patrick’s Day (and why was it changed?)
3. What is the significance of the Shamrock?
4. Where did the phrase “wearing of the green” come from?
5. What role does St. Patrick’s day play in the calendar of the Catholic church?
6. What city dyes its river green to celebrate St. Paddy’s Day?
7. If St. Patrick were alive, how much green beer would he drink in Savannah today?

Have a great St. Patrick’s Day, and “the luck o’ the Irish to ya!”

If you want to read an interesting article on St. Patrick and bringing the gospel, check this out:  http://communityofjesus.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/evangelizing-like-st-patrick/

“Sometimes, when I see some of the worst characters in the street, I feel as if my heart must burst forth in tears of gratitude that God has never let me act as they have done! I have thought, if God had left me alone, and had not touched me by His grace, what a great sinner I should have been! I should have run to the utmost lengths of sin, dived into the very depths of evil, nor should I have stopped at any vice or folly, if God had not restrained me. I feel that I should have been a very king of sinners, if God had let me alone. I cannot understand the reason why I am saved, except upon the ground that God would have it so. I cannot, if I look ever so earnestly, discover any kind of reason in myself why I should be a partaker of Divine grace. If I am not at this moment without Christ, it is only because Christ Jesus would have His will with me, and that will was that I should be with Him where He is, and should share His glory. I can put the crown nowhere but upon the head of Him whose mighty grace has saved me from going down into the pit. Looking back on my past life, I can see that the dawning of it all was of God; of God effectively. I took no torch with which to light the sun, but the sun enlightened me. I did not commence my spiritual life—no, I rather kicked, and struggled against the things of the Spirit: when He drew me, for a time I did not run after Him: there was a natural hatred in my soul of everything holy and good. Wooings were lost upon me—warnings were cast to the wind—thunders were despised; and as for the whispers of His love, they were rejected as being less than nothing and vanity. But, sure I am, I can say now, speaking on behalf of myself, “He only is my salvation.” It was He who turned my heart, and brought me down on my knees before Him. I can in very deed, say with Doddridge and Toplady—

“Grace taught my soul to pray,
And made my eyes o’erflow;”

and coming to this moment, I can add—

“‘Tis grace has kept me to this day,
And will not let me go.”"

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Just something the Lord put on my heart last night…

“There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from
within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire. IT DID NOT
BURN UP.” Exodus 3:2

I love fire. It’s awesome. You can do a lot with it…fire transforms,
purifies, and keeps things aflame. I love how God’s word references fire
in so many ways.

When fire touches and burns something, it can never return to what it
once was. It is forever transformed. The same is true once the eternal
flame of the Father touches our hearts. And once we invite the Living
God to transform our hearts, the Holy Spirit burns in our hearts daily
to keep us pure. But this is no ordinary fire, this is a flame
insusceptible to the “fire suppressants” of this world, and what a
reason to rejoice! What joy we can take in the flames of the everlasting
God!

“His word burns in my heart like a fire. It’s like a fire in my bones! I
am worn out trying to hold it in! I can’t do it!” Jeremiah 20:9

“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which
is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a
spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of
self-discipline.” 2 Timothy 1: 6-7

Let’s pray that the fire will burn so vibrant in our hearts that we
can’t hold it in! Let’s be his “servant flames of fire” fanned and
air-breathed by the wind of the angels! (Hebrews 1:7) Let’s pray for a
“ring of holy fire” of protection around our group…confidently going
forward and knowing that God will keep us safe. Let’s pray that fire of
the Holy Spirit will continue to transform, purify, and ignite our
hearts so that his warm presence may touch the cold and broken hearts of
this world through us!

He is so, so GOOD and FAITHFUL and his flame never ceases. The Olympic
torch ain’t got nothin’ on our God! Really looking forward to next week,
there is no limit to the transformational power of His eternal flame!
See ya’ll this afternoon.

Let the fire burn and His love flow,
KLT

“Who knows what he will say to me today or to you today or into the midst of what kind of unlikely moment he will choose to say it.  Not knowing is what makes today a holy mystery as every day is a holy mystery.  But I believe that there are some things that by and large God is always saying to each of us.  Each of us, for instance, carries around inside himself, I believe, a certain emptiness — a sense that something is missing, a restlessness, the deep feeling that somehow all is not right inside his skin….Part of the inner world of everyone is this sense of emptiness, unease, incompleteness, and I believe that this in itself is a word from God, that this is the sound that God’s voice makes in a world that has explained him away.”

“….Our days are full of nonsense, and yet not, because it is precisely into the nonsense of our days that God speaks to us words of great significance — not words that are written in the stars but words that are written into the raw stuff and nonsense of our days, which are not nonsense just because God speaks into the midst of them.  And that the words that he says, to each of us differently, are be brave…be merciful…feed my lambs…press on toward the goal.“

Frederick Buechner, Message in the Stars, The Magnificent Defeat

For reflection:

1.  Do you feel that emptiness, unease, and incompleteness that Buechner describes?  What do you think about the possibility that those feelings could actually be a “message from God”?

2.  Try paying attention to the “stuff and nonsense” of today.  Where, how, and what do you hear God saying to you?

In the short time I’ve been here at the Synergy conference, I’ve heard humbling stories of women living and loving so beautifully in God’s story of grace.  I am reminded of a day three years ago when my then-13-year-old daughter brought God’s surprising and funny funny grace into a moment of my anger and shame.  This excerpt from my story guide tells that story:

As we learn God’s story of grace, we are freed to live and love as God created and redeemed us to do.  Let me tell you another story to show you what I mean.

“Mom, please don’t cry!”  My thirteen-year-old daughter begged me to lift my head and   look at her.  I had collapsed over the steering wheel when I saw the blue lights of the second trooper in a matter of three weeks, realizing that despite my earnest efforts to watch my speed, I had again failed.  I was furious with myself, even though I knew that I had no malicious intent – I had driven over 3000 miles in the previous two months, carting kids around the Southeast to various camps and volleyball tournaments.  My chief method of coping with the draining and dreary hours on the road was to listen to sermons or lectures and sometimes as I did so I simply forgot to pay attention to how fast I was going.  But I knew it was no excuse and I dreaded the thought of telling my husband, even though I knew he would be understanding and forgiving.  So as the trooper sat in his car scrawling out an illegible ticket, I laid my head on the steering wheel and sobbed.

Then I heard Mary Elizabeth through my fury and self-pity and exhaustion, “Mom, I know – let’s pray!”  And since I certainly didn’t start praying, she did.  She asked God to be with me and to help me know it was just a mistake and to help me remember what a great trip we had had.  Somewhere in her prayer, I heard the voice of Jesus, whispering, “Come out and join the party.”  The officer offered me the ticket like a bill from the local diner and said cheerfully, “Have a blessed day, Ma’am!”  I resisted the urge to tell him exactly what would bless my day and maneuvered the car back onto the highway to drive the last 60 miles of the thousand mile round trip I had done in the last 24 hours.

Mary Elizabeth, tender nurturer that she is, persisted in her goal of cheering me up with more camp stories.  That morning she had been talking with a friend whose grandfather had died before camp.  M.E. noticed her friend was sad and asked her what was bothering her, and the friend told her going home made her remember how much she missed her grandfather.  Mary Elizabeth reported the consoling words she spoke to her friend, “That’s the way it is with losing someone to death, you are sad, then you forget for a while, then you may be sad again, and that’s okay.”

As she told me this story, she seemed to experience a sudden revelation and chirpily added, “But getting a speeding ticket isn’t the same as your grandfather dying!”  I couldn’t help but laugh, and I remembered the words I have spoken numerous times and heard repeated back to me, “This will make a really good story one day!”  Indeed, God was redeeming this story already, bringing beauty out of ugliness.  I would never choose the humiliation of being stopped by state troopers twice in one month, but I also wouldn’t trade the beauty of my thirteen-year-old daughter ministering to my heart.

Because I am attuned to God’s story of grace playing through all of my stories, I can hear the melody of redemption in this particular story.  Though it highlights my humiliation, I must remember and tell this story, because it reveals God’s redemption.  Like my friend, I was committed to a story I had written, one in which I played the righteous hero, the supermom driving my children all around the country, and everyone praised and lauded me for my tremendous efforts.  In this story, a state trooper should understand how I could fall into the trap of driving a little faster than the speed limit, and rather than giving me a ticket, he would bestow a special needs tag on my car that would allow me to drive as fast as I wanted without ever being stopped.

As you can see, my worst sin was not in speeding, but in my self-righteousness and self-pity.  In that state, I withdrew from my daughter, refusing to receive her offers of grace.  Thankfully, the story isn’t catalogued under the title “Elizabeth’s Stupid Sin” because God’s story of grace trumps my sin.  Indeed, the story unfolds in the good news of God’s pursuing love, incarnated in my daughter, who relentlessly hounded me with the sounds of heaven in encouraging me “to remember what a great trip we had” (and unspoken message: “Don’t ruin this memory for me, Mom!”). God did save me from ruining the story for my daughter, and this chapter will stand in our storybook on the page with other memories of God’s miraculous movement in our lives.

“We all want to be certain, we all want proof, but the kind of proof we tend to want — scientifically or philosophically demonstrable proof that would silence all doubts once and for all — would not in the long run, I think, answer the fearful depths of our need at all.  For what we need to know, of course, is not just that God exists, not just that beyond the steely brightness of the stars there is a cosmic intelligence of some kind that keeps the whole show going, but that there is a God right here in the thick of our day-by-day lives who may not be writing messages about himself in the stars but who in one way or another is trying to get messages through our blindness as we move around down here knee-deep in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the world.  It is not objective proof of God’s existence that we want but, whether we use religious language for it or not, the experience of God’s presence.  That is the miracle that we are really after.  And that is also, I think, the miracle that we really get.”

“Suppose, for instance, that God were to take the great, dim river of the Milky Way as we see it from down here flowing across the night sky and were to brighten it up a little and then rearrange it so that all of a sudden one night the world would step outside and look up at the heavens and see not the usual haphazard scattering of stars but, written out in letters light years tall, the sentence:  I REALLY EXIST, or GOD IS.  If I were going to try to write a story or a play about such an event, I would start, of course, with the first night that this great theological headline appeared there in the stars, with suns and moons to dot the i’s and the tails of the comets to cross the t’s.  And I would try to show some of the ways that I can imagine people might respond to it.  I would show some of them sinking to their knees, not because they are especially religious people but just because it might seem somehow the only natural thing to do under the circumstances.  They would perhaps do it without even thinking about it, just crumpling down on their knees there in the tall grass behind the garage….”

There’s more, much more.  As I was typing, I wondered where I would stop and realized I would want to quote the entire sermon.  And driving duties call, so I will leave you with this and the encouragement to read Buechner’s exhortation.  And a promise to quote a little more of it tomorrow.  Until then, think about whether or not it would change things for you if God did write such a message in the stars.  Oddly enough, sometimes He really does.  See yesterday’s blog if you don’t know what I mean:)