Holy Saturday: The Space Between

Christine Valters Paintner writes of Holy Saturday as "The Space Between."

She starts off her article like this:

Don't surrender your loneliness so quickly.

Let it cut more deep.
Let it ferment and season you as few human
Or even divine ingredients can.
Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice so tender,
My need of God
Absolutely clear. ~ Hafiz

"Holy Week invites us into a world full of betrayal, abandonment, mockery, violence, and ultimately death. The Triduum, those three sacred days which constitute one unfolding liturgy, call us to experience communion, loss, and the border spaces of unknowing. Holy Saturday is an invitation to make a conscious passage through the liminal realm of in-between.

"I love the wide space of Holy Saturday that lingers between the suffering and death of Jesus on Friday and the vigil Saturday night proclaiming the return of the Easter fire. For me, Holy Saturday evokes much about the human condition—the ways we are called to let go of things or people, identities or securities and then wonder what will rise up out of the ashes of our lives. The suffering that we experience because of pain or grief or great sorrow and we don't know if we will ever grasp joy again. Much of our lives rest in that space between loss and hope. Our lives are full of Holy Saturday experiences.

"In their book The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan write:

Easter completes the archetypal pattern at the center of the Christian life: death and resurrection, crucifixion and vindication. Both parts of this pattern are essential: death and resurrection, crucifixion and vindication. When one is emphasized over the other distortion is the result. The two must be affirmed equally.

"Before we rush to resurrection we must dwell fully in the space of unknowing, of holding death and life in tension with each other, to experience that liminal place so that we become familiar with its landscape and one day might accompany others who find themselves there and similarly disoriented. The wisdom of the Triduum is that we must be fully present to both the starkness of Friday and to the Saturday space between, before we can really experience the resurrection. We must know the terrible experience of loss wrought again and again in our world so that when the promise of new life dawns we can let it enter into us fully in the space carved by loss. As the great poet of Hafiz reminds us, we must let our loneliness "cut more deep" and "season" us, so that we are reminded of our absolute dependence on the Source of all."

Go HERE to read the rest of her piece on Holy Saturday, with these suggestions to try today:

"Much of our lives are spent in Holy Saturday places but we spend so much energy resisting, longing for resolution and closure. Our practice this day is to really enter into the liminal zone, to be present to it with every cell of our being.

"Make some time on Holy Saturday to sit with all of the paradoxes of life. Bring yourself as fully present as you can to the discomfort of the experience. Rest in the space of waiting and unknowing and resist trying to come up with neat answers or resolutions. Imagine yourself on a wild border or standing on a threshold, knowing that you cannot fully embrace what is on the other side until you have let this place shape and form your heart. When you notice your attention drifting or your mind starting to analyze, return to your breath and the present moment. Allow yourself to feel whatever arises in this space. Honor the mystery."

Praying at Gethsemane

Gethsemane
by Mary Oliver

The grass never sleeps.
Or the roses.
Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.

Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.

The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet,
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,
and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.

Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybe
the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move,
maybe,
the lake far away, where once he walked as on a
blue pavement,
lay still and waited, wild awake.

Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
must be a part of the story.
 

 

Title:	Praying at Gethsemane
Notes:	Dr. He Qi is a professor at the Nanjing Union Theological Seminary and a tutor for master candidate students in the Philosophy Department of Nanjing University. He is also a member of the China Art Association and a council member of the Asian Christian Art Association.
Date:	2001
Artist:	He Qi
Material:	Other
Country:	China

ABC's to Live!

By Connie (Mamma) Winger

And I especially like Y: YEARN FOR GOD!

God Fills All Things

God is not only in heaven, but everywhere,
and God fills all things.
God communicates according to the particular conditions of
God's listeners, desiring to lead them all up little by little.
— St John Chrysostom, Homily 27 on John 3, 4th c CE

Mary, Mother of Our Tribe

By Ruth Councell in ECVA Exhibit

Just getting back to the computer today, I was cheered by seeing these different artists' renderings of Mary at the Episcopal Church Visual Arts "Mary, Mother of Our Tribe."

There are 40 pieces of art, each of which you may see more closely by clicking on them. They are unique and lovely. Catherine, a blogger I met at Come to the Table, linked this site on Facebook.

Here is another:

by Posey Krakowski (quilt)

By Chuck Kirchner (photo taken in Peru)

Go and look at "Mary, Mother of Our Tribe!"

Mary and Jesus

Ever since having my own children, nursing and loving them intensely, I have wanted to find art showing Jesus' parents holding him as a baby, instead of sticking him in the itchy manger all by himself. I look for nativity scenes with him being held, which are rare.

Today I found a link to early Christian art showing Jesus as a babe being breastfed (and obviously held) by his mother. That was the most natural way to raise a child 2000 ago, just as it is now.

Madonna and Child (Madonna Litta)
by Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519

 

 

IF you want to look at more paintings of Mary and baby Jesus, go here.

The Shape of Color

The Shape of Color by Diane Walker who blogs at Contemplative Photography:

The shape of night,
the shape of day,
the shape of color,
the shape of us.  
What holds all this?
Who made this miraculous mold
and then too, cast everything.
Imagine the form
that poured all forms,
and then try to conceive the Being 
that whittled out the Holy Spirit
from a single thought
that took over the Inconceivable.
What can entwine all this in its arms?
What a container that must be!

-- Hafiz

I'd rather read!

By Andrea Josephs

But I look more like this:

From Finland, found here.

And I found both of these charming pictures on Pinterest! You can find my Pinterest page here.

Yearning for God

Diane Walker's Lenten art is another way to say "Yearning for God."

Praying Through Lent

From Contemplative Photography

Diane Walker is daily posting her art with prayers like this one for Lent. She is truly gifted. Please visit her here.

This is also posted today at the RevGals' prayer blog A Place for Prayer. Prayers are posted there daily, so please visit here, too!

Always a Beginner

By Paul Bommer

I am reminded that many spiritual masters, including Thomas Merton, remind us that we are always beginners. That helped me to make my commitment for Lent--to meditate for 20 minutes upon rising each morning.

That had been a regular discipline for the past few years, even while I visited my daughter MJ in Spain. However, the trip to Russia in November where I injured my right shoulder brought forth a disruption from that schedule that seemed difficult for me to circumvent. During all that time of pain, I would have assumed that I would pray more than usual, but did not do so. There were times of pleas for aid and thanksgiving, but little time was spent in silent prayer.

Our priest reminded us on Ash Wednesday that our Lenten discipline is to pray Psalm 51:10:

Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.

These 40 days are to commit that prayer into our lives. One step for me is to sit in silence with God every morning on awaking.

Today was the third day of doing this. I found that I awoke, yearning to pray. Remember the old adage? The more one prays, the more one will want to!

Friday Five: Emptiness

Emptiness by Bluesrose

Sally brings today's RevGals Friday Five:

I have been pondering this Friday Five over and over in my mind, but I am coming up with nothing, so I am wondering; what do you do when you feel empty of all creativity and unable to make/do anything? This is a completely open question, the only rule is name 5 things that fill/ inspire you:

1.Meditate, be in silence--even for a minute! There was a cute cartoon on FB about just taking a moment of meditation! So I'll put it here:

2. Talk to a good friend. For some unknown reason, I find it hard to call people even though I like talking to them once the conversation gets started.

3. Go for a walk.

4. Go to the Psalter. When I can't sit or pray, I can always pray/read a Psalm. I remember when I was clinically depressed in the 1990's and couldn't seem to pray, I would read Psalms, especially the laments.

5. Write a note or card to someone. Write in a journal.

Mother and Child

Statue at The Hermitage
Saint Petersburg, Russia

Merry Christmas!

Church of the Resurrection and Spilled Blood
Saint Petersburg, Russia

Mary

At Cathedral of the Resurrection and Spilled Blood
Saint Petersburg, Russia

All the pictures in this cathedral are mosaics, but to my untrained eye, they looked like paintings.

Moscow, Russia

Painting on the wall of the Russian United Methodist Seminary in Moscow.

With only one day to tour Moscow, we visited the Methodist Seminary in Moscow and toured the city on a bus on Nov. 3, 2011. Read about the seminary here.

This building is the Russian United Methodist Seminary.

This was right before a holiday (Unity Day) and so the traffic was quite congested. It turned out that Red Square was closed to the public, because groups were rehearsing for the upcoming military parade for the following Monday:

I later learned that:
"Thousands of Russian soldiers and military cadets marched across Red Square to mark the 70th anniversary of a historic World War II parade.The show honored the participants of the Nov. 7 1941 parade who then headed directly to the front to defend Moscow from the Nazi forces. The parade Monday involved about 6,000 people, many of them dressed in World War II-era uniforms."

Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Russia-marks-anniversary-of-1941-military-parade-2256020.php#ixzz1dp7k1Rfc

We took the metro (subway) to the train station where we met our bus and got our luggage. The artistry of the metro stations was amazing, with statues, mosaics, interesting ceilings. In the Revolution Square metro station, there are bronze statues depicting Soviet workers. One has a dog that is reputed to give you good luck if you rub its nose, which we all did:

Then we boarded a train from Moscow to Vologda, a trip that took us almost 8 hours. We slept in cars which had four bunk beds and arrived at 5:30 am the next day.

The Ground of Fruitful Vision

Let us pray:

O cosmic Birther of all radiance and vibration,

Soften the ground of our being and carve out
a space within us where your Presence can abide.

Fill us with your creativity

so that we may be empowered to bear the fruit of your mission.
Let each of our actions bear fruit in accordance with your desire.

Endow us with the wisdom to produce and share

what each being needs to grow and flourish.
Untie the tangled threads of destiny that bind us,

as we release others from the entanglement of past mistakes.

Do not let us be seduced by that which would divert us from our true purpose,

but illuminate the opportunities of the present moment.

For you are the ground and the fruitful vision,

the birth, power and fulfillment,

as all is gathered and made whole once again.

This is copied from A Place for Prayer, RevGalBlogPals' prayer site.

Teri wrote: A paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer, printed in this month's newsletter from my local hospital's spiritual care office.

I also found the prayer here along with the beautiful image above.

Help Me Learn

What I Have Learned So Far

Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don't think so.

All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of -- indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(New and Selected Poems Volume Two)

To subscribe to Panhala, send a blank email to Panhala-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Prayer for Desert Times

(From here)

The journeys of our lives are never fully charted.
There come, sometimes, to each of us, deserts to cross,
Barren stretches
Where the green edge on the horizon may be our destination,
Or an oasis on our way,
Or a mirage that beckons and will leave us lost.
When fear grips the heart, or despair bows the head,
May be we bend as heart and head lead us down
To touch the ground beneath our feet,
And scoop some sand into our hands,
And receive what the sand would teach us:
It holds the warmth of the sun
When the sun has left our sight,
As it holds the cool of the night when the stars have faded.
And hidden among its grains are tiny seeds, at rest and waiting.
Dormant, yet undefeated. Desert flowers.
They endure.
Moistened by our tears,
And by the rain that comes to end even the longest drought,
They send down roots, and they bloom.

Oh, may we believe in those seeds,
And the seeds within us.
May we remember in our dry seasons
That we, too, are desert flowers.

Amen.

- Margaret
Keip

From March 2, 2008.

Good Friday and Earth Day

I urge you to look at the Stations of the Cross, one by one, at Episcopal Relief and Development,
which highlight the Millenium Development Goals.

Although I cannot copy the images, this is what is written about the first MDG station of the cross:

1--Condemned

50,000 people are sentence to die each day
because of extreme poverty.

Lord, help us to find the way of the cross to be
the way of life and justice and peace.

Holy God
Holy and Mighty
Holy Immortal One
Have mercy upon us

Also, there is Stations of the Cross from Latin American 1492-1992 by Adolpho Perez Esquivel of Argentina (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, 1980), which highlights Liberation Theology.


Profoundly disturbing and moving images at both sites, which highlight the suffering and injustice in the world--as we contemplate both Good Friday and Earth Day today.