Job 14:1-14
"Holy" Saturday - Years A, B, C
Will we live again? Will release come? These questions are as deep and unanswerable as the “why” questions of life. We never know.
We wait in the unknowing. All we have to hang on to is an expectation that steadfast love is accessible, even while we don’t know. So we cast about asking, “Are you a taste of steadfast love?” ... “Is this a new recognition of steadfast love?”
We wait in the unknowing. We fret and fear. We hardly hope.
Yet, we wait in the unknowing. We go one more day. We go one more step. We take one more action for what we understand to be wholeness for ourselves and others.
We wait, unknowing.
We wait in the unknowing. All we have to hang on to is an expectation that steadfast love is accessible, even while we don’t know. So we cast about asking, “Are you a taste of steadfast love?” ... “Is this a new recognition of steadfast love?”
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
Will we live again? Will release come? These questions are as deep and unanswerable as the "why" questions of life. We never know.
We wait in the unknowing. All we have to hang on to is an expectation that steadfast love is accessible, even while we don't know. So we cast about asking, "are you a taste of steadfast love?", "is this a new recognition of steadfast love?"
We wait in the unknowing. We fret and fear. We hardly hope.
Yet, we wait in the unknowing. We go one more day. We go one more step. We take one more action for what we understand to be wholeness for ourselves and others.
We wait, unknowing.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/march2005.html
Job 14:1-14 or Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24
Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16
I Peter 4:1-8
Matthew 27:57-66 or John 19:38-42
Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing, a live thing out of a dead thing? Certainly not a magician. Certainly not positive thinking or prosperity theology. Certainly not an acculturated church. Certainly not individual faith.
It is important at some point to give up hope, to have dead be dead. This day we don't even wait. We go through motions. We become the walking dead.
Yesterday was bad enough. Today is badder yet. Tomorrow will be worser than anything. The end of all things is near. I wouldn't believe a proclamation of good news if it were yelled in my face.
Peter with his "disciplined prayers" and "constant love covering a multitude of sins" can go hang himself with Judas. If there is a next generation, they might listen to that but, today, it's most unreal.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html
Time to get out paper and pencil (or fountain pen—my latest is an inexpensive Hero from China though I usually use a Blue Lamy Safari 1.1 italic nib with Noodler’s English Rose with Black Swan ink).
Down an edge of the paper write the following understandings with enough space to allow for a couple of sentences between.
a flower grows only to die
in the dark shadows are absent
dirt is dirt
we die; we expire
there is no awakening the dead
Now the tough part that should take at least 15 minutes. Reflect and write where you are experiencing these realities. Does the same response show up as a refrain in each setting? Is there a different experience for each? Where do you have several examples clamoring for attention? Where is there only silence?
Attend to your losses, your silences, until you can only sit numb. To do less is to say this Paschal Triduum is fluff, of no consequence, was maybe helpful to someone a long time ago, but not worth attending to today. No numbing loss; no surprise for you at hope’s return.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/04/job-141-14-saturday.html