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Sharing: A spiritual practice for Easter people in Eastertide

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Guest commentary by Lee Hinson-Hasty Resources for Eastertide starting with Acts 4:32-35 It’s true that Christians have traditionally taken on Lenten practices in preparation for baptism and remembrance of baptism on Easter. Some of those disciplines continue after Easter for many of us — like New Year’s resolutions that stick (if we’re lucky!). What if we also had 50 days of Eastertide practices and disciplines in preparation for Pentecost, the birth of the movement we call the church? My first nominee would be sharing as any have need. As I was finishing college, one of my mentors and former director of Christian education, Joan Miles, gave me Robert Fulghum’s blockbuster 1989 book, “All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” The message was clear, as I started adult life on my own, not to forget what mattered. That started with learning to share. Readings from the Acts of the Apostles regularly show up in the Revised Common Lectionary in the Sundays after … [Read more...]

Tagged With: Eastertide

Woodwork

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It’s about the blood — joining boards at angles, edges are negotiations, prone to pinch, and nails pierce like talking points, splinters burn like lightning beneath the skin — red stains in the palms of hands. It’s about the blood — a lifetime of little cuts saw-blade nicks chisel slips on turning lathes scrapes from roughened surfaces in rapid motion, currency to pay for chalices and tables, for chair legs in church parlors, and for crosses. Always crosses. It’s about the blood smeared on every lintel, doorpost, pulpit, pew — forensic faithfulness: a wound for every wonder. Impassive as a judge’s smile, the paschal lamb has nothing more to say after the planer’s blade has smoothed the ragged faces of the cross, and with every hammer-blow the blood sinks deeper in the heartwood unseen and silent, until all that’s left is argument, quid pro quo. Leave the dead behind in the night when angels pass, and head for parted water. But it’s about the … [Read more...]

Tagged With: Holy Week

Polishing the silver

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It has become an annual lenten ritual, pulling out rags and the pink paste that smells of wintergreen to polish my baptismal bowl. It’s a sterling silver original (design from 1655) - made small for a child perfectly round and simple. A trinity of circles form a sturdy handle on one side for little hands to grab. M.A.A. is engraved there, echoes of an earlier identity, and on the bottom in a fine, worn script: March 26, 1950. There are dents and scratches on it now, the evidence of one toddler’s long-ago enthusiasms or carelessness. But its 12-month bronzed-over patina shines up nicely as I rub it to a clean clear silver brightness - the toll of a year’s journey made lovely in God’s sight, an acceptable offering of my gratitude for faults redeemed, fears relieved, graces given in this year past. When we’ve been there ten thousand years bright shining… Remember your baptism and be thankful. I do. And I am. Marney Ault Wasserman, now happily … [Read more...]

Tagged With: Lent

Holy Week, March Madness-style

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Guest commentary by Gerald Little March Madness is here. College basketball fans, coaches and players cheer, coach and strive to lead their team to a national championship as at no other time.   Upsets abound as favored teams lose to teams who were never given a chance to win.   The winners play on in the tournament while the losers pack their bags and go home. March Madness mirrors life.   Life too is a contest where the participants play for keeps. Happiness, sadness, health, sickness, love, hate, prosperity and want all comprise the court of play. At some point the winners and the losers are declared. There are many surprises as to who they are. Moreover we cannot replay this game of life.   We are given one shot at it and we have to play our best. Two thousand years ago there was surprise entry in this contest of life. God entered the Son, Jesus of Nazareth. He in turn assembled a team of walk-ons: the 12. They would play in the Tournament of Life like no other. The … [Read more...]

Tagged With: Holy Week

Via Crucis: Praying for peace in Honduras

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Guest commentary by Lora Burge Representing PC(USA) World Mission and Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, I recently spent a week in Honduras as part of an emergency delegation of ecumenical faith leaders.  We went to be present during the national strike leading up to the January 26th presidential inauguration and, more specifically, to accompany Fr. Ismael Moreno and human rights organizations in the city of El Progreso.  Fr. Moreno, known and “Padre Melo,” and a number of others within the organizations have received death threats, been watched and persecuted in other ways by security forces for their social justice work. The current Honduran political crisis has been developing since June of 2009 when there was a military coup that removed then president Manuel Zelaya.  The country has experienced weakened democratic processes, increasing human rights violations and ongoing militarization in the intervening years.  This past November saw a presidential election that was both … [Read more...]

Space to grieve, room to trust: Following the Spirit into God’s future

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Guest commentary by Heath Rada Sometimes life confronts us with situations where there seem to be no “right” choices. It is at such times we are called to faithfulness in new and often challenging ways. There are many ways I feel that such a conflict of values and priorities is at work in our nation today. The rules are changing, the foundations are shaken, the expected is no longer assured. And I must remind myself that it is not I who is in control. Likewise, our denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is in a similar situation. So many basics on which we have lived our “decent and orderly” lives are being hurled aside and turned upside down. And it is painful. As the moderator of the 221st General Assembly of the PC(USA) I was asked by many, “Do you think our church is dying?”   These caring folk would quote statistics from their local congregations or presbyteries or from Pew polls and other religious groups whose data proved (to them) that the church is dying.   … [Read more...]

Tagged With: GA223

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