Good Friday

He came with the disciples to the garden,

and yet he really came alone.

The time was almost here,

so close that it could be felt.

Death had been introduced in the upper room,

and it followed him to the garden.

If it is your will, Abba,

remove the yoke from me.

He was all man, now.

God made man was begging--

Not for his life--

but for some way

any way

to remove the cup--

the cross--

his Father's well-earned wrath

from being poured out.

He knew from the beginning that it was not to be,

but he was all man

and so he prayed.

He asked his friends,

those who had boasted about who would sit on which side,

to sit with him and pray.

They truly wanted to,

but sorrow overtook them

and they slept instead.

What would have happened had the angels not intervened,

bringing some manna of which we know not?

Death would have won.

If there is no cross, there is no salvation.

And so he prayed, he cried out, he sweated drops like blood,

but then he gave in.

"Not my will, but thine be done."

And he walked forward and faced it all.

Judas, the priests, the judges, the scourging, 

the ignominy of a death on a cross.

Death followed him,

whispering into his ear,

"What are you doing?

Do you really believe that this will help?

These people are doomed.

They're not your people,

They're my people.

Raised on high for all to see,

He continued his journey.

"Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

What? You want God to forgive them?  They just crucified God's son! Are you out of your mind?"

"Today you will be with me in paradise"

Paradise?  With you?  How sweet.  Have you forgotten that you will both be dead? You will both be mine! And believe me, I have big plans for you.

"This is your son.  This is your mother."

If you get down from there, think of all the suffering that you will spare her.  Is this really necessary?

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Finally, you understand.  You are not God.  You are not even a man.  You are nothing.  If you truly are God, as you said, save yourself!

Death tried to chuckle, 

but he could hear the rumble of every Jewish heart there.

What had been started continued,

unbidden,

as it came through years and years of worship.

For the first time, they heard the breaths inside the psalm.

For the first time, they realized that the pauses--

natural rests--

were the sounds of a man breathing

struggling

on a cross.

For the first time, Death felt doubt

Could he have misstepped?

No, this was his moment of victory, 

and he was determined to savor it.

"I am thirsty."

You will be more than that in a few short hours.

Oh, what I have planned for you…

But the bravado was wearing thin.

"It is finished."

Finished?  

What is? 

Your wonderful plan of salvation? 

But the chill that was creeping over him was not to be ignored.

"Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit."

No longer did Death try to make himself heard.

It was over.

God's Son was dead.

His heart had broken.

For what?

These mice?

Eager to begin the next chapter,

Death went back to Hell,

to wait.

He didn't have to wait long.

on forgiveness

"I don't care what you say! They hurt me, and I will never never forgive them!"  Those words, coming from the mouth of a 17-year-old Christian girl, shocked me.  I was teaching a course on Biblical concepts, and this was just a review of the Lord's prayer.  "…and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us".  The lesson taught that forgiveness isn't for the other person--forgiveness is for you.

Refusing to forgive is toxic.  We all know this, don't we?  Yet we grasp our hurt and anger to our hearts with eagle talons, refusing to even consider opening our hands and letting go of them through forgiveness.  "Why should I?" we ask. We don't want to be the weak one.  We don't want them to get away with it.  It seems to us that the horrible thing that was done to us will be compounded if we forgive the person that did it.  Added to that is the idea that we would have to actually go to our offender, not to confront but to forgive?  Unthinkable!

Forgiveness is hard.  It goes against everything we have come to accept as true.  We are a society that loves getting even, and we can't imagine giving up our hurt to the very person that hurt us.  But if you're thinking in that way, there is a major truth about forgiveness that you're not getting.

Forgiveness isn't for them.  It's for you.

The person that has hurt you has great power over you unless you choose to forgive them.  The evil that they did to you, the sin they visited upon you, is festering within.  Your eagle talons are poison tipped, and the more tightly you hold on to your hurt, the more poison you take into yourself.  Forgiveness is a means of turning the back into hands that are capable of loving acceptance.  When you forgive, you allow the hands to open and the hurt and pain and poison to go away, back to the pit from whence they came.

Some people say that you need to confront your persecutor and say that you forgive them.  In fact, the peace is done in Catholic and other liturgical churches for precisely this reason.  (I believe that all churches should pass the sign of peace).  It enables the parishioner to seek out the person that he has wronged or the person that has wronged him and ask for or give pardon.  It normally happens before communion so that you can partake with a clean conscience.

I am not sure that I agree with these people in all cases.  For one thing, the obvious fact is that some people are no longer around to forgive.  They have moved or died or you have lost touch.  For another, there are some people whose souls are so dark that they will take your forgiveness as another excuse to wound you even more.  Such people should be left alone until that time that you are strong enough in yourself and in the Lord to meet with them.

Forgiveness can be accomplished simply by speaking to these people with God as your witness.  I have forgiven countless people in this way.  If it's not enough, God will definitely let you know.  But for the majority (especially those lost to us through time or place), this will allow the bitterness to dissipate and the healing to begin.

As for those few that God tells you  must be confronted, be alert.  There's a reason.  There was one person in particular that changed my life when I forgave them.  This person did me a wrong that had been with me for many years, and when I confronted, I was told that the person had regretted it their whole life. They had done it to me because it had been done to them, and it had been the biggest mistake that the person had ever made.  "I'm so sorry that I destroyed your life," I was told.  We finished the conversation, I hung up the phone, and then it dawned on me.  Nobody can destroy my life but me!  I  can choose to let what happened make me weak or make me strong.  I choose to let it make me strong!

I learned so much through that conversation.  First, I realized that the person needed my forgiveness as much as I needed to give it.  Secondly, the person was passing on a wrong that had been done.  Thirdly, the thought of an action controlling one's life had been in both our minds, and we both needed to get past it.  I hadn't realized that, and once I did, I felt chains slipping off.  The forgiveness, which had happened long before the conversation, changed somehow.  Instead of forgiving an action that still existed, it was as if the forgiving "face to face" erased the actions themselves.  I can truly say that I no longer feel bound by them, and I pray that the other person has achieved some of the same feeling, as well.

So if you feel that there are certain things in your life that you can't forgive--a parent's unfaithfulness that led to divorce, a rebuff from friends, a time of abuse or molestation--please try--just try--forgiveness.  What do you have to lose?

write what you know

I went to a day-long (if you consider 8:30-2:00 day long!!) training for Stephen Ministries today.  It was cloudy and rainy, grey skies, and inside the training was on grief, suicide, and depression.  I was fascinated by what I heard.  The women who led the training sessions had all experienced the things that they were talking about, and they spoke from the heart.  I was especially struck by the second woman, who spoke on suicide.

Her name was Vicki, and she was preceded by another very knowledgable woman who told us about mental health issues.  She was very interesting--at a professional level.  I was interested but not absorbed.  Then Vicki spoke.  This brave woman lost her 21-year-old son to suicide four years ago, and her story was riveting.  She very forthrightly spoke about the mistakes that she made, the signs that she missed, and the grief that she was still experiencing.  One thing that she said struck me to my very core.  It was by no means the meat of the lecture, but it was life-changing for me. Forgive the paraphrase--it didn't occur to me to write it down.  But it's fairly accurate.

"There are others around now who can also speak, and at first I thought I would pass the responsibility on to her,  (but) I have assimilated the experience within myself.  This is what I know.  This is what I do."

Yes.  Finally I understand my own calling.  For years I have hesitated to write overly much about grief, death, suffering, but they are who I am.  I have dealt with loss from before I can remember.  I am 55, and in that time I have experienced the hospitalization of my mother numerous times, her stroke, heart failure and eventual death.  I have dealt with depression and mental health issues in my own life and in the life of my family.  I lost my mother at 15, lost one child through miscarriage and another through premature birth and eventual death, lost all my uncles and aunts and some cousins.  My father died when I was 34 (not out of time for him--he was 81).  My niece died when she was 20 and I was around 26.  On and on it goes.  But the most powerful loss that I experienced was the death of my husband when I was 35.  I did not recover from that for many many years.  You might say that I never will recover--you don't "get well" from grief.  You learn to live with it and move on, but it never entirely goes away.  Nor would I want it to.  He was my husband, and I loved him.

So what does all this mean?  Well, what it does not mean is that I go around with a cloud over my head all day every day.  Most days, especially now, are pretty good.  I can live from day to day with joy, because I understand that God is on the throne and I will see my loved ones again.  But it also means that I am different than many of you.  I come from a different place.  And I would not trade places.

When I lost little Tommy, I started going to a support group, "Sharing Parents".  This group was a godsend, not just for me, but for my entire family.  We all went, starting with Tommy's death and going through Val's.  One meeting in particular stood out for me.  We spoke of infant loss in general, with the speaker talking about doing funeral services for babies that were so young--miscarriages, really--that there was nothing to put in the coffin.  The speaker went on to say that the parents have been forever changed, but they would never go back.  It's the difference between being a virgin and getting married--you will never have the innocence again, but you would never want to go back to that naivete.

That's me.  I have learned many lessons in my life, and I don't regret a single one.  Not a single one.  If it were possible, yes, I would prefer to have my husband and son with me, but I don't regret the experience.  God became real to me in the pain.  I felt this from an early age, and it has just increased over time.  It was especially true in times of greatest need. For example, one day I was admitted to the hospital and it was determined that I needed to go in for gall bladder surgery.  Nobody was able to come and be with me, and I was very alone and very scared.  I keenly felt the loss of my husband.  As the gurney came to carry me to surgery, I called out for God to be with me, and I felt his presence beside me, holding my hand as I went down the hallway.  As I waited, it turned out that there was a complicating factor and I didn't get the surgery after all, but that sensation didn't go away.  It stayed with me as long as I needed a friend, and then it eventually dissipated.  Years later, my sister and my daughter were both at my side for my corneal transplant.  I was happy because they were with me, but of course, they can't go with me into surgery.  I was expecting God's hand to be there as I went down the hallway, and I was disappointed that I didn't feel it.  I questioned it as I went, and I heard God's voice, "I will be there for you when you need it."  Down we went to the operating room.  I saw the door open, the blinding lights of the room--and there was God's hand, right at the moment of my need.

When I moved from Bakersfield to Tucson, this relationship suffered.  For the first time since my youth, I was hurt and angry with God.  I moved because I knew it was the right thing to do, but there was no human companionship, either at church, at school, or in my community.  I realize now that I was very depressed and unable to reach out, but that was not something I could have helped at the time.  I'm grateful for my son, David's, presence.  But I've never felt so alone.

Slowly, gently, God took my hand once again.  As the years passed, I realized that there was one person that I needed to get reacquainted with--myself.  Through trial and error, with many steps backward and even more steps forward, I have been brought back to myself.  I'm thankful for that.  And as I've become more driven to write, I keep thinking, 'You have to write what you know.'  And what I know is pain and loss.  So I will not be afraid to write about pain and loss.

That doesn't mean that I will stop writing about other things.  God has given me a brain, and quite an analytical one at that.  I enjoy dissecting things.  I enjoy the idea of lectio divina, reading through scripture many times, with different intent each time.  I love exploring ideas.  All these things are fun for me, and I will definitely blog about them.

But I do believe that my first published works will probably deal with loss, with pain, with grief, with emotional trauma.  Write what you know.  But why write about this doom-and-gloom stuff?  Not to be maudlin, not to sink into the pit of despair.  No, to paraphrase the verse, I suffered and I was comforted.  And now I hope to write (and minister) to those who are suffering so that they can receive that same comfort that God gave me.

Going back to my training, when we finished and were preparing to go outside, one of the trainees remarked that the sun had come out.  We walked out of the building into the still-wet street, and the sun was breaking through the clouds.  I see both my writing and my ministry as that:  staying with others and sharing the walk through the rain and darkness until the sun finally comes out and it is once again possible for them to walk alone.  That's my goal. And I think it's a good one.