“Whereas the Genesis story begins in a garden paradise and ends in our present garden world of pain and suffering, the Easter story begins in the garden of pain and suffering and ends in a garden of wholeness and flourishing, a new paradise in which we are once more able to walk intimately with our God and find abundant provision.”
As a kid growing up in church, I experienced the Sunday morning matinee of miseries. My woes included a hard and unforgiving church pew, unbearably tight Mary Jane shoes, and a droning sermon that I never quite understood. After the service, I would take flight, turning my patent leather atrocities into streamlined track shoes as I raced for the church’s playground. But my vigilant mother always swooped in and steered me toward the line in the narthex.
“I began to wonder whether eyes and ears might not have a wisdom of their own.” – Joanna Field
“Thankfully, we do not all have the same gifts and, our Christian mission aside, we do not all have the same vocational calls. Not everyone is called to be on the front line of advocacy; not everyone is called to sit and listen deeply to traumatic events in others’ lives; not everyone is called to rouse the spirit with music and song; not everyone is called to gather groups together.”
“Names transform; the Name-Giver does this
Transcended are circumstance, experience
Soul-name is reborn; renamed by God”
The process of repentance draws us back
against our will,
wanting cheer, not sadness –
But like the cartoon spectre,
it waits and knows
surrender to memory will come.
““I neither seek nor wish for anything but you, my Lord Jesus”. With these words, Margaret of Cortona, answered the Lord’s question, “’What is your wish, poverella?’” (little poor one)
The causes of mental illness range from biological to environmental and everything in between. My own anxiety issues are biological, it is literally a part of my DNA and because of the wonders of modern medicine my illness is in check, at least most of the time. There was a time when I refused to acknowledge that I was struggling, but with time accepted it and asked for help.
“Today, I sacrificed a one of my precious masks for the sake of Ash Wednesday. Normally I burn a stack of palm crosses and fronds from the previous year’s Palm Sunday celebration just as many churches do.”
But hope is not fragile,
or pretty,
or fine.
Hope is a weed,
a clinging vine.