Over the Cliff*

The day he died we all went right over the cliff. Hearts in our throats, lungs screaming noiselessly for air. How could he be taken? He, who carried all our hopes in hands of power – a grip now broken asunder. Now we are left powerless, helpless, without him. The world has been ripped out from under our feet, and this is a freefall of deepest grief and confusion. He is not here, and all is lost, we are lost and flailing.

After the fall, the silence. The silence of empty air, empty promises. We are simply scattered ashes in the vacuum of his absence. Waiting for we know not what.

Has it been three hours? Three days? Three years?

Then, the echo of distant matter. The rumble of some new reality. Is this the bottom of the chasm? Is this death come to swallow us up too?

But what our blinded eyes struggle to see, our faces and fingers begin to feel. Water. Falling with us. The spray becomes a stream, and we are soaked but not submerged. We are landing, if such a term could be used, in a river running downward.

And suddenly, rising up from below us, a figure emerges, as if from an underground spring. We thought we left him at the top, but here he comes, racing up from the depths with the glint of triumph in his eyes, grabbing hold of these trembling hands with the grip of life, and he has caught us. The river explodes around us and for the first time since we fell we can fill our lungs because he is alive and that is the only air we can breathe. He is alive and those are the only words that matter.

The river carries us all with a rushing buoyancy, and we know that this descent has somehow saved us, because it somehow killed us, but he has brought us back to life.

  

*for Calvary Church

~lg

Sweet Friday

Good Friday morning and the ground is still frozen. The sun is out but the earth is slow to wake. Three holes pierce our giant maple, and the sap is running. The season was slow in coming. We’d all wished for warmer weather by now. But this latest dive into frosty nights has meant a resurgence in sap flow. Today the tree gushes blood, clear and sweet, pouring out its spring offering.  We gather the miracle water in buckets, bring it in and boil it up, till the house hangs heavy with the scent of maple.

Not everything is as we wish. Some days are colder than the calendar reads, and some winters are longer than our hearts can bear. But come to the tree, put your arms around its old rugged trunk, and you’ll hear the life rising within. Three holes pierce and water is turned to wine. Taste and see that the blood is sweet. Yes, the earth will turn and the seasons will shift and flowers will blossom from twisted thorns. The tree knows.

The syrup is thick and golden on our tongues. We give thanks for these frozen nights, these dripping wounds. We give thanks for the lifeblood of creation that makes this Friday Good.

~lg

This morning

Is it a woman’s weakness that makes me want to cling to you? The exaggerated emotion of one easily overwhelmed? Or is this love?

And what love is this that the life squeezed out before my eyes now stands here speaking my very name? This is joy and longing and bewilderment and how can this be? You are warmth, you are solidity, you are strength, and I never want to let this go. Too soon, too soon you untangle me and tell me to tell the others, and I cannot help but speak of what I have heard and seen. Yet I would make a garden just for you if this morning could be every morning.

I run with this news a fire in my bones, my mouth touched with coal, and I cry holy, holy, holy and hallelujah, and yes, your warmth still lingers on my fingertips, and yes, I am but a foolish woman, but you chose me and I will shame the wise with this bodily gospel, for I was never alive till today.


~lg

Letters to Arden - March 20, 2013

Dear Arden,

Today is the first day of spring! You wouldn’t know to look at it though – it’s a real snowstorm outside. All the world is wintery white, and so we are staying home and staying warm today. I know you’ve been waiting for spring, and that’s what makes March so hard! March can never make up its mind. But it will come, and it will be warm, and it will make you so happy! There’s nothing so amazing as seeing the world burst into life again.

Easter is coming soon too, and so for our little Bible story time this morning, I pulled out a simple picture book of the Easter story. You sat beside me on the couch, and Jack sat on the floor, absorbed in a basket of toys. I told you about the pictures – Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem, and all the people waving branches and shouting “Hosanna!” You looked at me sideways, like I was being silly, but Jack liked that part, and turned from his toys to wave his little hands back at us. I told you about the supper Jesus had with his friends, and how he went to a garden to pray. I told you about the mean men who took Jesus and made him carry a cross.

“That’s Jesus, Mommy,” you said, pointing to the man carrying the cross. And then we turned the page.

“Jesus died,” I said quietly. You looked at me, leaned closer and put your hand on my arm.

You know who Jesus is. We sing “Jesus Loves Me” almost every day. You know what died means. Our cat, Scratchy, died last fall and we buried her in the ground. You know somehow, instinctively, that these two things should not go together.

I said it again, and showed you the grave where they put Jesus’ body. You were quiet. You were sad. You were unsure. Oh, little girl, you wouldn’t know it to look at it, but the best part of the story is on its way.

We turned the page again, this time to a smiling, standing Jesus. “Jesus is alive again!” I said, and I didn’t have to pretend to be excited. And your face burst into life, and you looked at me with wonder in your eyes. I told you all about it, and then you wanted to go back to the part where he died, just so you could see it happen one more time.

“Where’s our Jesus, Mommy?” you asked at the end of the story. “He’s in heaven now,” I said. You paused a moment, then reassured me, “He will come to play in the sand here, in the summertime.” That seemed to settle the matter.

 One day, my love, it will make more sense. Right now I am happy that this story is being planted into who you are, and I know that “our Jesus” will make it grow till it turns your heart into warmest spring, and it will be amazing.

 

Love Mommy

 

 

breakfast

I’m still coming to terms with this resurrection thing. I don’t think it’s something you understand fully after a sunrise one morning, or even after a couple kind of freaky appearances. First I thought he was a gardener, then a ghost. Now Jesus has to call out, in the same words he’s used before, to meet me in the same empty boat. I am still a child with no fish. Only when the miracle happens again does the echo catch in my heart and reality dawn on me. It truly is him, standing on the shore, but I am so far away. I am not a strong swimmer, and most certainly cannot walk on water, but I throw myself into the sea, pummeling the waves and hoping he is not a mirage born of sleepless delusion. I make the hundred yards to the beach. He is still there, thank God, and in light of the past bizarre days, I have never been more grateful to see a little charcoal fire burning merrily where the sand has been dug away. I smell fish and bread and the familiar scent of Jesus as he lugs me up to dry warm sand. “Come and have breakfast,” he says, and these word remain as some of the most memorable and precious I have heard him say. Breakfast with Jesus. He gives me the bread and fish he’s cooked up, and it’s like we’re camping, two friends watching the sun over the lake. I need to be here awhile, to pick at fish bones and burn my fingertips on bread almost too hot to eat. I need to learn what he looks like all over again. I know breakfast doesn’t last forever, but I hope he’ll cook for me again.

~lg