Fair Haven

The whole landscape, unified by the church (my heart) and its heavenward spire, seemed to say: this is the meaning of all created things: we have been made for no other purpose, than that men may use us in raising themselves to God, and in proclaiming the glory of God. We have been fashioned, in all our perfection, each according to his own nature, and all our natures ordered and harmonize together, that man’s reason and his love might fit in this one last element, this God-given key to the meaning of the whole. 

Oh, what a thing it is, to live in a place that is so constructed that you were forced, in spite of yourself, to be at least a virtual contemplative!  Where all day long your eyes must turn, again and again, to the House (my body) that hides the Sacramental Christ.

Thomas Merton, The Seven Story Mountain

 

My Trauma of an Ancient Event

Visiting my mom can be a traumatic event in my day.  Death's heinous grip has such a terrible hold on her body.  I once was so in love with her as only a three-year-old can love, completely.  No one was as beautiful as my mom.  And then I knew her as the most robust of humans, never tiring, ultimately organized, kept an immaculate home, raised four prodigals, got us dressed for Sunday, cleaned the baseboards of our modest homes, canned everything in the fall and filled her most precious gift, a 6-foot freezer.  And I knew her as utterly grief-stricken at how I turned out.  And then I knew her great relief at how I turned out.  And then I knew her orphaned, and then widowed, and then, and the last time I knew her as who she always was, I knew her alone in an empty home filled with 80 years of memorabilia.  Our trial trail is now over rocky and thorny ground.  She has become a translucent shell of herself.  She is almost, and absolutely still now.  Nothing who she was except the sapphire blue of her eyes swimming in confused and frightened whys.  She is as ancient as humans can become, a pajamaed shroud.  She is a reliquary of The Ancient of Days, a worn and weathered Edened oak, washed up on the shore of her end times—the cradle of her Holy Spirit.  She is my last mom, the House of the Lord for me.   The one I will know till her end.  She has no equal. 

 

No Heart Able To Write

I do not have the heart to write this morning, I am being pulled to other, more profound things.  I sit at Fair Haven as I will now do until my parting, thinking Christ, tall grass, death and love, and my lover’s softness.  Life often comes stark, no business to dull us, just me and life, great mysteries, and the greening, living earth.  I sat with the dying yesterday, held his warm hand as he talked resigning himself to his end.  I left Union yesterday, the beginning of the summer which will herald our separation forever.  The grass here is twelve inches, the river high, and the trees in full spring bloom.  Betty has just awakened to a reborn lover.  I am juxtaposed between endings and exuberant beginnings, a heart sincerely engaged with a body old.  Nature will not be bound.  Grass and clover and trees will grow, men will be resurrected from the dead and I have no heart to write.  Life is too meaningful to be lesser than with my words.    

Our seed.

   

"It is finished!"

SS Lesson John 19:17-30

EXPLAIN. Good morning, Father, my Wonderful Savior, and Holy Spirit. Jesus, Tetelestai, the Greek word You said at Your death, Your last utterance, “It is finished.”  I had never known this until this morning.  But it means more than it is finished.  It means it has always and will always be finished.  You have done it, the one thing you came to earth to do, and it is always done.  It means your sacrifice is good today for all who would call upon you for it.  It is never undone, You finished it once forever, to the uttermost.  Which gives us heir(ship) even throughout all eternity.  Your salvation is good forever, even to eternity.  Such a beautiful term but also such a renewed understanding of Your atonement.  It is eternal.  You will never lose us.  Nothing can ever separate us from you and your love—Tetelestai.  

APPLY. Holy Spirit you are always at work to give our salvation more and more meaning, to encourage us, teach us, comfort us, and renew our faith in Christ, daily if we will but show up.  So much of my living at the moment can so relate to this word, tetelestai.  My time here at Union is ending, it is finished and will always be finished.  My record is set, I have lived it for 27 years.  I do not know the exact number of days, but they were all lived and now the dye is slowly drying.  

RESPOND. Christ, without You, what?  I confess it is you, was you, only you.  My life here, is faulty at best, marred, messy, often wrong, but always me with You.  You never left me, even though I often went on without You.  I must now fall back onto you.  It was for You, because of You, and You alone.  I am grateful!!!  Thank YOU, my Great Tetelestai.       

 

How to Comprehend the Incomprehensible

Reading John's account of Christ's crucifixion, 19:17-30.  Thirteen verses from carrying the cross to “It is finished.”  Unless you stop and meditate on this it is just a short story about a man dying.

MY THOUGHTS IN PRAYER FORM

EXPLAIN. You became a human for this very purpose, to die at our hands because of our sins which, killing you, was the most heinous.  And we all participated in the act.  Each one did but it is personal in the end.  We must accept our guilt and your salvation for it.  There is no other way.  We must come to you repentant and accepting of your blood.  All of this doesn’t come out in a SS Lesson unless we meditate on the story and then Holy Spirit, you give us insight and softly and tenderly place us in the story.   

APPLY. Apply is an apt word. I have got to apply his blood to me daily.  I am forgiven eternally but I need forgiveness daily.  Jesus’s blood covered all my sins, but I must accept the fact that I am an ongoing sinner and need his redemption every moment of every day.  Not for salvation which is a one-time event, but for living in freedom and power this day.  His freedom and His power.  I must crucify myself in order that He might live in me, enabling, equipping, and empowering me to be His ambassador.  

RESPOND. Thank you, Dear Savior.  Thank You Holy Spirit for once again guiding me.  Thank you, Father, for the greatest sacrifice any loving father could make, offering the Son instead of yourself in His place.  This is incomprehensible to me.  What love! 

"I Can Only Imagine," what I cannot Imagine!!!

I have sat at a window for years.  Long views of nature.  I am living a very momentous event, my retiring.  It is profoundly meaningful, not sad but truly painful in its ecstasy.  I clearly see my life at TSD (Tennessee School for the Deaf) when I was just getting to know Betty and then clearly today and all the rest a long viewing of an Appalachian Range of glorious meaning.  And I have finished the greatest hike ever but am now turning across the plains to the Mighty Tennessee, a river of life.  I long to walk away to back roads, with a big window and my only job is to keep my eyes open, eat good food, a good piece of bread, and a bit of cheese.  Something profound is beckoning me.  I will go with an angel saint, my lover.  You don’t see us but even resting sweetly warming each other, we are dancing to a gentle and Holy Tune.  Bedraggled and beginning ancient, we go together with God, to the surest greatest adventure we can “…Only Imagine.”   

My retirement luncheon yesterday. 

Reliquary of Scraps

It is a slow blurring wrapping up a lifetime.  Lunches, last looks into student’s eyes, kind notes, hearty words, dinners, last grades turned in today, and the long walk aways keeps getting longer.  What has surprised me is how much must be done, put away, cataloged, packed, signed off, signed up, and what to do with this and that and this again.  So much routine is now changed to ending 32 years of routine. It is hard to end a 32-year routine, like digging up an old oak tree, doing a 10,000-piece white puzzle, scraps.  That’s the problem, so many scraps, of life, real life, laying around in the back of drawers, file cabinets, on the top shelf, corner of the closet, and odd-shaped unmarked boxes.  Stored scraps of my living. 32 years of collected relics.  One puts relics in reliquaries, and as I have held every scrap, every small bit I felt worthy of saving over these 32 years, I have felt myself the reliquary of a life, a polishing if you will, of a life I never earned nor imagined, a gift from the Grand Gift Giver.