How Beauty Transforms Suffering

In the blog post I haven’t written yet, I talk about three ways I believe we are given to navigate suffering. Note here that I am not talking about answers to suffering, but about ways we are given to press in and through it.

 The first is that which God has given us through prayer – specifically the prayers of lament and protest – a language that reflects both our trust and faith in God and our struggle to understand why there is suffering in the world. We see lament in so much of the Old Testament. The people of Israel knew their God and had little problem expressing their pain and protest. “When we voice protest over the suffering and evil we encounter in life, we do more than just vent our rage. We engage in an ancient and profound form of prayer, an appeal to the honor of God” (Tom Long, What shall we say). (More on that later!)

 The second way is what Thomas Aquinas and others call the virtue of longanimity. Paul calls it long-suffering (in the list of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22)). More on that later!

 The third way we are given to press into the goodness of God and how to reconcile that with suffering in the world is beauty. What an odd couple – beauty and suffering – what on earth could be the connection? Suffering of any kind is chaotic, disordered and anarchic. We know it as something born of sin and brokenness. Beauty, in great contrast, speaks of wholeness, and truth, ordered and steadfast.

 By beauty here, I am not primarily referring to physical beauty – but to a beauty that reflects truth, single-mindedness and eternal rightness.  God in his creation of the world lavished Eden with a perfection of beauty that remained as long as its inhabitants worshipped God. But with the first bite of the apple the perfect beauty God intended for His creation drained away…

I remember a movie from many years ago, Pleasantville, that began in black and white as two teenagers are transported from the 1990’s to the 1950’s to a suburban town steeped in “repression.” As long as its inhabitants did the “good” thing they remained in black and white. But when the rules began to be broken so that people could be “themselves,” color came to town. The theme as I read it was -the world is only beautiful when everyone asserts their own way. That grieves me – and how that must grieve the heart of God.

True beauty calls one to go higher up and further in… It soothes – it compels, it ennobles. And that beauty is never limited to the physical beauty so desired by the culture of the world… True beauty is both moral and spiritual. From the center of that beauty emanates a radiance that could only have originated in the divine. “Josef Pieper noted that in its original sense beauty is “the glow of the true and good irradiating from every ordered state of being, and not in the patent significance of immediate sensual appeal.” Quoted in Thomas Dubay – The Evidential Power of Beauty (p. 35).

Beauty is incarnational. To know any created beauty, to really see it, we must know that we are looking into the very nature of God.  

The Son is the radiance of [the Father’s] glory and the representation of his essence.

Hebrews 1:3

 Nothing is more radiant than the Son, and so all that God created in the garden was beautiful and radiant. If a flower is beautiful how much more beautiful is its Creator. If we find the sunrise over the ocean glorious, how much more glorious is the One who made it? Moses in his encounters with God would come down the mountain, returning to his people, with a face that shone. He carried with him, on his face, the very radiance of God’s presence. And it was beautiful. How sad was it that the beauty faded the more time he spent with his people?

 Beauty, like integrity is simple – whole, undivided in its very nature…  The end of time – the final crescendo is the story of the city of Jerusalem – “coming down from heaven” bearing the glory of God – radiant like a most rare jewel” (Rev 21:10-11).  The end of time- the beginning of eternity … tells a story of beauty. We are not bodiless souls who sit on clouds – or even in houses made for us by God. (I think Jesus was describing a metaphor in John 17 – although I wouldn’t mind a mansion of my own choosing!)

There is a river, there is a street made of gold, and there is a tree with leaves that bring the healing that ends for all eternity the pain of grief, of sorrow, of migraines and of all manner of sickness.

And every time we look up and out from the ash heap of our pain – we are invited to see God – to truly see beauty. Many years ago, I prayed for a woman who would drive to Toledo from Cleveland every six weeks or so. She had experienced so much trauma – her body and her soul wracked with the pain of abuse. I remember feeling inadequate, woefully so, but I would listen, and we would pray. And God revealed Himself to us as we did so. One time, I asked her to do a bit of homework before her next visit. I think I had been reading Clyde Kilby’s ten resolutions (included on the site as a page). In one of those resolutions, he would tell his students – “every day, go outside, and look… Look at a flower, a cloud, a bird… and give thanks for what it is- something made by God for the sheer joy of creating something beautiful…” (paraphrased by me here). She came back the next month and I asked her how it went for her. She talked about how hard it was, but that she had determined to do it. She spoke of seeing a bird one day and being amazed at its intricate beauty. In that moment – she was able to turn her attention away from the darkness in her soul – to gaze at something so ordinary, but so simple, so undivided in its nature, something beautiful, something totally other than her pain. 

I think it was a turning point for her. In her struggle, in her doubt, she found a way to see the eternal nature of God in the beauty of His creation. It didn’t fix her – and it wasn’t intended as an assignment to help her change her focus. It was an encounter with beauty that helped lead her on her way toward her healing.

Beauty invites us into a story – the story of a good and faithful God – but a very unlikely story. We are not met by a knight riding his beautiful steed into our suffering to sweep us off our feet with instant healing. In the end, at the end, our salvation will mean that we were not ultimately “healed by Jesus’ miracles, but by his wounds.” (Tom Long, What Shall We Say). Of course, we have seen Christ’s kingdom come – not in its fullness but in ways that bring us solace and hope and freedom. We should never cease praying for suffering to end! God meets us there and sometimes delivers us, and sometimes He doesn’t. But He always remains with us, and in us, to give us what we need to remain steadfast and true.  The cry of our hearts in season and out of season, remains, “Maranatha – Come Lord Jesus” – make all things good and beautiful!”

 Fyodor Dostoyevsky in one of his novels said – “Beauty will save the world”. (The Idiot). He was not, of course, speaking of eternal salvation, but of the power of beauty to reveal the good, the beautiful, the true nature of all created things. That beauty also reveals God in His glory. I have a picture of one of my grandchildren, Eisley, who at the time the picture was taken was about 18 months old. It is a picture of her face – and it captured not only her personality, but the beauty of her “otherness” – in this sense it was the childlike femininity that exuded from her face. The photo inadequate as it was, nevertheless captured the transcendent beauty there portrayed.

Once, at a Pastoral Care Ministries school Leanne Payne, speaking from the stage, held up a poster with the inset image of an angel’s face from a Leonardo Da Vinci painting, “The Virgin on the Rocks.” Our registrar that week had made a way for a man to attend who had been homeless, and who had struggled with mental illness most of his life. When Leanne held up the poster, he left his seat and went up onto the stage to get a better look at the angel’s face. Leanne was pointing out the eternal quality of true femininity Da Vinci had painted in her face and this man was simply drawn up out of his seat to see what she saw. He (like us all) was captured by the transcendent beauty Da Vinci had painted. He wanted to get close, not simply to see what Leanne had seen, but to be immersed in that eternal quality of the true feminine.

 We say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder – while I think there is more to it than that, this idea does capture the idea that what is loved is beautiful. Looking at the hands of a beloved grandmother and calling them beautiful is seeing all that those hands have done. Every child held, bathed, clothed, every meal prepared, every bandage applied was done with love- all of our beloved’s life is seen in the raised veins, the delicate purple tint and the age spots – and these are all beautiful because of love.

This love is also the love the Father poured out in the sacrifice of His Son on the Cross. In a most ironic way then, we could say that the Father’s love made the crucifixion of Jesus beautiful.

“The cross shows us the true beauty of love. Dear young friends, the beauty of Christ crucified is the great paradox of our faith. It is the beauty of a love that gives itself completely to you and me, to each and every one of us. It is the beauty of a love that bears the marks of our wounds. It is the beauty of a boundless love, yet a love utterly concrete and thus credible, which brings us to our knees, moves us deeply, brings tears to our eyes and leads us to pray from the depths of our heart: “Lord, as I contemplate your terrible sufferings, I find myself able to believe in love” (Primo Mazzolari, Un volto da contemplare, Milan 2001, 86) (Pope Francis).

How great is his goodness and how great is his beauty!

Zechariah 9:17

 “To love the good, the beautiful, the just, the true, is mysteriously, to be drawn up into them – or to use another image, to become incarnate of them, to participate in them. To love God, for example, is to be drawn up and out of ourselves (the hell of the self-in-separation) and into Him. In loving Him, I become incarnate of Him. The imagery here is of ascending and descending. God descends into us, and we are drawn into Him. This is a profound thing to think on, for it is the way we get in touch with all that is real. If I come to know and understand justice by loving it, I receive it into myself. If I rejoice in the beauty of another’s face, I become more beautiful.” (Leanne Payne, The Healing Presence)

 In saying this, Leanne is writing not only about the power of beauty, but also about how our love of it is transformative.  She continues: “This is precisely why the capital sin of envy is so deadly a destroyer. By envying what we feel to be more beautiful, just, good, true, etc., or trying to possessively hold it for ourselves through jealousy, one of the dread daughters of envy, we cut ourselves off from becoming. To envy is to hate.” (ibid)

In the Apostle John’s first letter to the early church, he tells his readers that “everything in the world – the lust (concupiscence) of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life comes not from the Father, but from the world.” Concupiscence (a sinful longing for sensual experience) is the unholy desire to possess, to take over, even to destroy (and so it is another way of talking about envy). It stands in stark contrast to the desire to “behold” beauty. Pornography is but one act of this lust of the eyes. Josef Pieper says, “concupiscence of the eyes” does not aim to perceive reality but to enjoy “seeing” (The Four Cardinal Virtues). To behold beauty is to rest our eyes on the object of that beauty and see the eternal truth and goodness represented there as well as the beauty. But “lust of the eyes,” like envy seeks to consume and then destroy.

To love the beauty in my granddaughter’s face is as Leanne says, to be drawn up into it. And this is the very thing that can save us from the destructiveness of suffering.  My advice to my friend from Cleveland helped her to look up and out. In no way did this dismiss her trauma or her pain; instead, it gave her a rest and a respite from the weariness of her pain.

 Eternal beauty awaits us, friends. Not merely in the physical beauty of the city of God described in Revelation 21, but the spiritual beauty of the full reign of God.

 I see the landscape of my pain – the dry parched places, the rocks, the cliffs of despair, of fatigue, of intractable migraines, and yet I can look up and also see that my destination is the place described by John in Revelation 21-22. “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of light, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit each month (wouldn’t that be a cool gift of the month subscription?). The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations… They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads…” 

 Our home at the end of the journey is a city – a holy city descending from heaven when Jesus comes to be our dwelling place. A city, where there will be no loneliness, for God himself will be with us as our God. A city, where there will be no more tears, no more death.  A city described by John with an incredible attention to detail – every measurement of every rod and detail given; every jewel set perfectly in its place. Look at verse 15 of chapter 21 – “And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and its wall.” – Is that not beautiful? Perhaps in our pain, or in our suffering, it would do us well to go to these two chapters at the end of the Scriptures and meditate on the beauty that will become our eternal home.

 Years ago, I was staying at a guesthouse with other friends and colleagues in the ministry. We were in England (but I can’t remember where). I walked outside one morning and felt the chill of an early Spring day. The gravel crunched beneath my feet as I walked across the driveway. I went out to a low stone wall at the edge of the house and looked at the view before me. I saw the mist rising from the hills, and the earth still covered in dew – and I saw newly prepared fields for farming laid out before me, marked by the same low wall I was standing by. Those stone walls had been there for centuries! And I felt this quickening in my soul. It was a moment both of longing and of joy. In some odd way I felt at home. There is an old English hymn, the lyrics of which were written by the poet William Blake. Its title is “Jerusalem”, and it stands in a sense as an unofficial national anthem. Here are some of the lyrics:

And did those feet in ancient time
walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
on England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the countenance divine
shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
among those dark Satanic Mills?

The reference to the dark satanic mills is to the excesses of the Industrial Revolution.  The hymn sings of the loveliness of England and how because of the beauty, it must have been a place of Christ’s visitation (It wasn’t).

Beauty awakens in us the longing for something more than what we see and experience here on this earth.

I’ll end here with a beloved quote from one of the Narnia books:

“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing—to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from—my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.” (C.S. Lewis – The Last Battle)

On Beauty and Suffering

…For beauty comes to us all in the moments that unravel our cynical surety as our hearts seem to come apart at the touch of some odd slant of light on an evening walk. Or we hear the strained thread of some beloved old music that seems to break the spell of doubt. We read a novel, a story of someone who forgave or fought or hoped, and we feel something stir to life as precious, as fragile, as urgent as a newborn child within us. We are encountered by beauty, and suddenly the story of our grief seems to be the passing thing- that faint, ghostly illusion that one day will melt in the beams of a great, inexorable love.

My deep belief is that beauty has a story to tell, one that was meant by God to speak to us of his character and reality, meant to grip our failing hands with hope. We know God when we behold his beauty, when his goodness invades the secret rooms of our hearts. To believe the truth beauty tells: this is our great struggle from the depths of our grief. To trust the hope it teaches us to hunger toward: this is our fierce battle. To craft the world it helps us to imagine: this is our creative, death-defying work.

Sarah Clarkson, This Beautiful Truth, p. 22.

These quotes and others that don’t include a post written by me are categorized under commonplacing – which simply means a collection of inspiring quotes or other material attributed to another writer, artist…

Repentance

It is one thing to love sin and to force ourselves to quit it, it is another thing to hate sin because love for God is so gripping that the sin no longer appeals. The latter is repentance, the former is reform. It is repentance that God requires. Repentance is a “change of mind.” To love and yet quit it is not the same as hating it and quitting it. Your supposed victory over sin may be simple displacement. You may love one sin so much (such as your pride) that you will curtail another more embarrassing sin which you also love. This may look spiritual, but there is nothing of God in it. Natural men do it every day. Jim Ellif

Rule of Life

I’ve wanted to write for several days now about a practice I’ve engaged in over the last few years. It’s become a pretty popular exercise, and you’ll find all kinds of information out there on the world wide web! I was probably first exposed to it through using a planner created by Sacred Ordinary Days. The idea goes back to the 6th century when a monk named Benedict developed it for his monastery. I’m not going to go into much detail here but google it and find what you can, if you’re interested.

What I do want to say is that a rule of life is not a set of resolutions, or a mission statement or a set of rules. It is not a list of things that need to be done; it’s about ways we are called to live. Rule refers to measure not regulation. This past year I sat with the idea for several months, and let it simply emerge out of my relationship with God, and some things He was calling me to.

“It is a commitment to live in a certain way. It is created with prayer and discernment as we consider the way God made us and the unique ways we are invited to partner with God in kingdom building” (Sacred Ordinary Days).

“It helps us to stay connected to God in the present moment by noticing the now – not by adding disciplines to an already busy life but by becoming conscious of God in what we are already doing. Our part is to remain available, to listen, to observe, to act, to be. This enables us to remain spiritually alive – mindful of God’s presence with us” (Northumbria Community).

The rule of life is descriptive not prescriptive. Henri Nouwen said this about it – “it does not prescribe, it invites, it does not force, but guides.”

So that’s a quick view into the idea – and you will find all kinds of different ways to create your rule of life, should you choose to do it. I did not start 2023 with a clear idea of what I wanted here – but a few things directed me toward what I wanted it to do.

…regla, a feminine noun, carries gentle connotations;

a sign post, a railing, something that gives me support

as I move forward in my search for God.

Esther de Waal

The first was this definition by Esther de Waal. – I loved that she refers to it as a feminine noun (whereas I think of mission statements as being more masculine in tone – not bad, just very action oriented!).

I knew I wanted something to measure my intentions by and I loved the picture of a signpost. One of the ways I’m wired is that I’m not a details sort of person; I’m more drawn to the big picture. I’m much more likely to tell you how to get somewhere by giving you landmarks, not mile markers! The relevance here is that I am more drawn to symbols (pictures) than instructions. But that’s not true of all of us is it? We may all approach this idea of a rule of life differently. My only recommendation is that we keep it “being” centered, not “doing” centered.

Secondly, I found what I needed in a word by Alexander Schmemann, as I was reading Of Water and the Spirit during Lent last year. It says it all for me… well maybe not all, as you’ll see in a minute. But this quote by him changed the way I started each day.

…that he may remain faithful to his baptism, living by it, making it always the source and the power of his life, a constant judgment, criterion, inspiration, rule of life.

Alexander Schmemman, Of Water and the Spirit

I will explore this more in our journey through Lent (if you stick around for that). The pastoral schools led by Leanne Payne, were, from her perspective, a school of baptism; a preparation for and an affirmation of our baptisms! And they truly were. In some liturgical traditions, this is what the season of Lent is about: helping prepare converts for baptism (which happens on Easter). And I thought – what a way to approach Lent! To spend those weeks affirming my baptism by asking the question – “how will I live out my baptism today?” I’ve been trying to do that on a regular basis throughout the whole year. But “Into Our Bones” for the season of Lent will pursue this in a very intentional manner.

Last year, sometime around June or July – I felt I had a sense of what God was calling me to do in creating a rule of life. I had been praying and reading – and found a few scriptures that were really relevant to the season I was in. (Some people take one word for the whole year – and it becomes something like a rule of life). I had a few quotes, a prayer, and a few questions. As I approach 2024, I’m finding it easier to formulate something that will serve as a signpost for my journey through the year. I’ll share them here.

Schmemann’s quote on baptism is right up there for me. As I ask the question (daily, weekly??) “how will I live out my baptism today?” I know it will include confession, repentance, forgiveness, joy, death, resurrection! So many things…

I’ve also been led to a Scripture passage for 2024 – 2 Peter 1:3 – His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence… (ESV) I know for me I desire to live more fully from Christ’s incarnation in me!

I’ve found a quote that is meaningful to me:

Above all else, trust in the slow work of God.

Pierre Teilhard

And then a prayer – Give me a grace that precedes, follows, guides,
sustains, sanctifies, aids every hour,
that I may not be one moment apart from thee,
but may rely on thy Spirit to supply every thought,
speak in every word, direct every step,
prosper every work, build up every mote of faith,
and give me a desire to show forth thy praise;
testify thy love, advance thy kingdom.
I launch my bark on the unknown waters of this year, with
thee, O Father, as my harbor,
thee, O Son, at my helm,
thee, O Holy Spirit, filling my sails.
                        The Valley of Vision (a compilation of Puritan Prayers), Arthur Bennett.

A word God gave me at Cedar Springs last year was about how He wanted me to use the years left to me (I know… I’m not that old!) My calling in this season of life is to share the wisdom God has carved out of me (carved into me) through His sanctifying work – whether in joy or sorrow, suffering or peace, absence or presence. Identifying your calling in the season you are in provides a great signpost not only to your intentions but to the decisions you make about how you spent your time, your resources.

And finally, this question has been on my heart for the last few years – Dealing with chronic pain, being prayed for, being willing to be prayed for when the answers have not gone the way I’ve wanted, have made me wrestle with this question: “What is the posture toward pain that God is calling me to?” It’s an unsettling, deep and profound question because I have to approach it in honesty and humility. It causes me to “reason together with the Lord” (Isa. 1:18).

Let me summarize -a rule of life is simply a way to stay aligned with what God is calling you to become, not a way to measure what you’ve done. It’s a marker, a signpost. It can include all measure of things. A question, a song, a Scripture, a prayer… Whatever God leads you to! I have found there is no end to the resources out there. I’m reminded of part of St. Patrick’s Breastplate. It would make a great signpost or rule of life.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ’s birth and His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.


I could say more, but I won’t! Let me leave you with this as you consider a rule of life, and I’m including myself in it.

May it start in us through the song God has sung over us through all our days. May it spring from a place of hunger, and a desire for transformation that can only result in our becoming like Him. May we be resolute in casting off any hindrance, any sin, any relationship that inhibits His sanctifying work in us. May we live out our baptisms every day. From the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep may we remember to take our place in His death and in His resurrection – through prayer, through confession, through practicing His presence, through virtue, and through love.

Belovedness

Friends, I found this beautiful song as I was reflecting on what God has done in me and for me in 2023. I hope it blesses you too.

Sarah Kroger

You’ve owned your fear and all your self-loathing
You’ve owned the voices inside of your head
You’ve owned the shame and reproach of your failure
It’s time to own your belovedness

You’ve owned your past and how it’s defined you
You’ve owned everything everybody else says
It’s time to hear what your Father has spoken
It’s time to own your belovedness

He says, “You’re mine, I smiled when I made you
I find you beautiful in every way
My love for you is fierce and unending
I’ll come to find you, whatever it takes
My beloved”

You’ve owned the mess you see in the mirror
You’ve owned the lies that you’re just not enough
You’ve been so blinded by all you’re comparing
It’s time to own your belovedness

He says, “You’re mine, I smiled when I made you
I find you beautiful in every way
My love for you is fierce and unending
I’ll come to find you, whatever it takes
My beloved”

You are completely loved and fully known
Beloved, believe He died to make your heart His home

And He says, “You’re mine, I smiled when I made you
I find you beautiful in every way
My love for you is fierce and unending
I’ll come to find you, whatever it takes”

He says, “You’re mine, I smiled when I made you
I find you beautiful in every way
My love for you is fierce and unending
I’ll come to find you, whatever it takes
My beloved”

It’s time to own your belovedness.

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Tony Wood / Michael Farren / Ben Shive / Sarah Kroger
Belovedness lyrics © Curb Congregation Songs, Farren Love And War Publishing, Integrity’s Praise! Music, Integrity’s Alleluia! Music, Tony Wood Songs, Fiat Music

Into Our Bones: Diving into 2023-24

During each week of our time together, there will be 5, sometimes 6 practives to the week. I’ve explained these in the Before We Begin post, but I will give you a brief explanation here and how to move from one practice to the next. Along with this I will explain how I’ve managed to stick to some manner of order, in terms of the Church calendar.

Before We Begin: This section includes an introduction to the Guide. That’s followed by an explanation of Lectio Divina, Confessional Prayer, Lectio Quote, and the Lord’s Prayer. This will be posted the week prior to Advent.

Advent 1: This is the first week of Advent which begins on December 3, 2023. The theme of this week is: Prepare. The reflection will post on Sunday afternoon. While I’m not sure how I will work the timing of the practices connected to Advent 1 I will upload Lectio Divina, Confessional Prayer, the Lord’s Prayer and a Lectio Quote based on that week’s theme, probably on Monday. You are welcome to do any of it or none of it!

Advent 2: This is the second week of Advent and it begins on December 10, 2023. The theme of this week will be waiting. This will begin with a devotional uploaded Sunday afternoon and then through the week the different practices will be posted.

Advent 3: This is the third week of Advent which begins on December 17, 2023. The theme of this week is: Watch. Like the first two weeks it will begin with a devotional posted that Sunday night, followed by the other elements. If this is starting to get confusing go to the spiritual practices section and read what’s written about these different practices!

Advent 4: This is where it gets tricky! This is the fourth week of Advent, and it begins on Christmas Eve. This theme is Immanuel and this section has all the same practices as the preceding weeks. But it’s tricky because usually there would be a full week before Christmas Day, but there is only one day!  When I post the devotional, I will post all the different practices as well.  

Christmas 1: This begins on December 25, 2023, and it too has a whole week of reflections and exercises. The theme for this week is: Incarnation. You can double up for the week or do it at your leisure. The devotional will be posted on Monday, the 25, and then the exercises will be posted throughout the week.

Christmas 2: This begins on December 31, 2023, and the theme for this week is “Incarnational Reality.”

Epiphany 1: The devotional will be posted on January 6, 2024, as this is the official date for Epiphany. This is a Saturday, so it too will have the devotional and all the exercises posted for this day.

Epiphany 2: The devotional will be posted on January 7, 2024 (a Sunday). The theme will be on The Magi. The exercises will follow throughout the week.

Epiphany 3: The devotional will be posted on January 14, 2024. The theme is Christ’s baptism. How exciting! The format will follow the other weeks of the guide.

Epiphany 4: The devotional will be posted on January 21, 2024. The theme is The Trinity. This format will follow as the previous weeks have.

This ends this half of Into Our Bones, and we will pick it up probably the two Sundays before Ash Wednesday.

*Note here on Epiphany – Many traditions end Epiphany the Sunday after January 6. And then enter into a period of time called Ordinary Time. (This does not mean it’s common or mundane – it means it is ordered, numbered time.) I’ve elected to post 4 times with the theme of Epiphany because there is so much richness in this season!

Where We Begin: Into Our Bones

This phrase – “Into our bones” came from an article I read by James K.A. Smith., about worship. He said, “This is why God enjoins us to sing (Col. 3:16). Song seeps into our bones in ways that didactic information never will. To sing the story of God’s gracious acts is not just to recite them. In the embodied, affective rhythm of song, the Spirit plants the story in the epicenter of our being: in our desire, in our imagination. Singing the story is the way it gets into our bones and under our skin, shaping the very way we perceive our world.” (Singing the Story into our Bones, www.reformedworship.org/article/june-2013/singing-story-our-bones). This image of “singing the story” pictures how we enter into the story of God and His people. We all desire to inhabit this story of ours, and that it would go so deep into us that we would feel it in our bones.

I cannot answer the question, ‘What ought I do?’ unless I first answer the question, ‘Of which story am I a part?’

Alasdair Macintyre

Following the liturgical year, or the church calendar is a vital part of our Christian formation. We have the opportunity to enter the whole story of Salvation as we walk with Christ through his birth, passion, death, resurrection, and the final day of the Lord. From Advent to second Advent, we are confronted season after season with the foundational principles of our faith. Even more than that though, we enter the story, and we follow the story, and we internalize the story of who we are and what God has done for us. I love what Alastair Macintyre says: “I cannot answer the question, ‘What ought I to do?’ unless I first answer the question, ‘Of which story am I a part?’” )Alasdair MacIntyre (2013). “After Virtue”, p.250, A&C Black)

This always makes me think of the movie “City Slickers” and how Billy Crystal’s character is awakened ever year at 5:00 a.m. on his birthday! His mother calls and goes through the whole story of his birth. He of course acts like he hates it, but I bet that deep inside him, just as I would bet that in each of us is the cry to hear our story told repeatedly.

 Memory is such a critical part of how we are formed, and the Christian story captures this perfectly. We are told to remember – remember who we are, remember what Christ has done for us, remember Him in the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the cup. One vivid picture of this is when Joshua is told by God right before crossing the Jordan to enter the promised land – to take 12 men and give them 12 stones and they were to carry those stones out to the camp and leave them as a memorial to future generations of the miraculous river crossing. (Joshua 4:2-3). This happens often in the Old Testament and was a sign of God’s actions on their behalf. These stones may have looked like a pile of rocks, but to the people of Israel they were a constant reminder who their God was and how He acted on their behalf.

A word about story. When I write about the church calendar as the opportunity to enter God’s story over and over – I hope you don’t hear me say – it’s “just a story” as if it might or might not be an accurate recording of the “real important events”.  As moderns, we have a history of preferring facts over “story”, statements over experiences. But Jesus himself did not come with a list of propositions – how did he engage people? He told stories, He was present to real people with real needs. He healed more than he preached – and even then, he tended to preach to the Pharisees and other “intellectuals”.

I have known several great storytellers in my life. My father was a great storyteller. We would sit around the dining room table long after we had finished eating while he told stories of his childhood, mostly about his younger brother, whom he pictured as a scapegoat for all the scrapes they got in. Later, after learning how to play the guitar he would sing (well, it was more talking than singing) folk songs that told the stories of coal miners, or railroad vagabonds. Did I learn anything? About history or even his family? Probably not. But I learned how to be with him, to sit and let the stories wash over me. I learned that my family was more than what it felt like in the darker years.

One of my favorite children’s books, which I read to my children, is called Father Fox’s Penny Rhymes. It starts out – “The night is cold, the fire is warm, Old Father Fox, will you sing us a song”. Stories change our lives. A very close friend and mentor of mine was one of the smartest people I’ve ever known. She held weeklong schools about healing prayer and discipleship. Before she lost the energy to do much of the teaching, some of her best teachings came through her stories about Uncle Gus and Aunt Rhoda, or Peety the parakeet and Dr. Kilby. One year, we were in Denmark for a school, and I was walking with Leanne down the hall back into the meeting room. A young woman behind us, didn’t realize Leanne was there and muttered, loudly enough for me to hear it, “why doesn’t she stop telling stories and just get to the teachings that matter!” I understood totally where she was coming from but so wanted to let her know that much of her healing would come through the stories told during the week. Most of us who were a part of the ministry team were there to tell our “stories”, our testimonies. Rev. 12:10 -11, “And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.”

Whether we are conscious of this or not, stories are a part of formation, yet that formation might very well be the wrong kind of formation. We inhabit the stories of our brokenness, of generational sin, or even our own sins or mistakes. We all need a greater story to replace or at the very least mitigate our stories of shame or guilt. And that’s what we have in the Scriptures! – a holy story from beginning to end that in an unrelenting manner gives us the story of God and His love for His people, His creation!

And that’s where we find Christ – in the story of the Bible. We find the story of His incarnation, His life, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, and His final return. And smuggled right along in there is the story of the Holy Spirit, and the Father’s deep love for us, and the story of the Church. We have such great storytellers in the Scriptures. Take a moment and think about the writers of the four gospels. Why did we need 4? Why not just one oracle that spelled it all out? And think about Paul and the story of his persecution of the church, and his conversion and his love for the church and for Christ!

I believe that one of the ways we can be immersed in our story in the faith is by a regular immersion in the story God has given us in Christ. It’s a steady ramble from beginning to end – as we begin in Advent with His incarnation and we end in Advent with His return! And there is so much in between!

In that sense, we live in perpetual Advent – the place between two apocalyptic events – the birth of a baby, and the return of a King. Following the liturgical year helps us intersect with every part of God’s story, in season and sometimes out of season. For example, we may have an incredible insight and experience of the Cross, but not really understand His Ascension, until we approach it through a regular practice of observing the church year.

“Christian formation is the work of God’s Holy Spirit in the lives of his people, slowly growing then, into the image and character of Jesus. God does this by renewing our minds, re-ordering our loves, and redirecting our lives toward the end of glorifying God.”  (www. cornerstonepresfranklin.org)

And it is liturgy that helps us do that. “The liturgical year, is the process of slow, sure immersion in the life of Christ that, in the end, claims us too, as heralds of that life ourselves.” (The Liturgical Year) What I am trying to do with the guide, Into our Bones, is to help us do that. The scope of this work (at this point anyway) will take us from Advent through Pentecost. I’ve planned this guide to help with our formation in Christ by approaching the Story through different formats. The week preceding the first week of Advent 2023 I will post an explanation of how we will approach this, and then I will include an introduction to each of the different formats I will include each week. Then on December 3rd, I will post a devotional/reflection and for the next five days I will post the different ways that devotional will take us!

               I also will include a guide on each of these elements which will be uploaded to my blog before December 3, 2023 (which is the first Sunday in Advent).

My prayer is that you all would be inspired by the different avenues to formation in Christ that I’ve written to help us enter into the Biblical narrative. Our first half of the guide will cover Advent, Christmastide, and Epiphany. This will take us to January 21, 2024. It will then be followed by a guide that will cover Lent through to Pentecost.

I pray, Father, that You would so inspire us through Your Word, and Your Spirit, that we would know this love displayed by Your Son, and that it would go deep into our bones. Amen.

“Christian worship should tell a story that makes us want to set sail for the immense sea that is the Triune God, birthing in us a longing for a ‘better country – a heavenly one’ that is kingdom come.” (James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love.)

“The liturgical year, is the process of slow, sure immersion in the life of Christ that, in the end, claims us too, as heralds of that life ourselves.”

The Liturgical Year

The Gratitude Project: Moving toward Resurrection

This month (March 23) marks the fourth anniversary of my grandson’s going home to be with Jesus. (For those of you unfamiliar with Zekey’s story I would encourage you to read my son’s blog (thesometimespreacher.com) and my daughter-in-law’s blog (breeloverly.com). Zekey passed into the arms of Jesus at four years old, after suffering  a rare neurological disorder called Batten’s). Because of its proximity to Good Friday and Easter I associate his death with both Lent and Holy Week. In my last post I wrote of Zekey receiving the ashes of Ash Wednesday. And his journey continued from there until he passed into the arms of Jesus  almost a month before Easter that year. I  am reminded that with my memories of  Zekey, just as in the memorial of Good Friday there is the paradox of conflicting emotions. We are relieved because Zekey no long suffers but we miss him with the longing for that reunion that will only come in heaven.

I believe we can honor Christ’s sacrifice by being both saddened (sobered) that the world had come to this place in our brokenness and sadness and sin that God’s only son had to die and joyful (grateful) that in his death is glory. The glory of the cross.  I wonder if Satan rejoiced at Christ’s death or did he already know that in Christ’s dying the world was made new again – that Redemption was purchased through the blood of Christ? Christ experienced both the humiliation of death by crucifixion and its glory because it was through that death that He once and for all could demonstrate his unfailing, his eternal, his lasting love for us, sinners that we are.

How can we turn our backs on that love – either in our presumption to believe we are no longer sinners, or in our despair to believe that nothing can take away our sin? Our task both during Lent and throughout our Christian lives is to live in that space between sin and glory, death and eternal life.

Alexander Schmemann called Lent the season of Bright Sadness.  And he did so, in the knowledge that we as Christians are called to walk the journey (passover) to Resurrection.

“For each year Lent and Easter are, once again, the rediscovery and the recovery by us of what we were made through our own baptismal death and resurrection”.

It strikes me that Christian maturity has a lot to do with our capacity to live in tension – to know we are sinners and at the same time saints; that we are  called to die daily (to our sin) and to live daily (to the hope we have in Christ!) And such is Christian gratitude, which is so much more than the world offers. With Zekey, we could hate the “unmaking” of disease, but be eternally grateful for the redemption of Easter, of Resurrection. Because of Christ – #zekeylives.

One practice of gratitude that I find so helpful is the naming of the sin that binds me, and moving through that confession (to God and others) to receiving God’s grace, His unwavering love, and His unmitigated forgiveness of that sin. I do not need to be grateful for the hard circumstances of my life, or my sin, or the world’s sin… but I can be grateful that God, through His Son redeems what Satan intended for evil. How about you? What part of your story have you seen God redeem? And how does this journey to Easter reflect it?

GP: Lent

An Odd Thanksgiving: Two Powerful Lenten Experiences:

The year Zekey died, it snowed all winter. We had snow on the ground from November well into March. Andy and Breena had been with us since the preceding August. Cyrus and Eisley were in school, but that winter it seemed like they rarely went because of school delays or closings. Bexley (then 2) spent her days lying alongside Zekey who was camped in a bed by the window which looked out at the woods in our front yard. It seemed like they watched an endless loop of Lightning McQueen and Daniel Tiger. There was so much laughter coming from that bed – Bexley giggling and Zeke laughing at whatever show he was watching at the time. He couldn’t talk with words, but his laugh was riddled with meaning.

I cannot now remember when Easter was that year, but I’ll never forget Ash Wednesday. By this time we knew that Zekey would not be with us long. Andy brought him forward during our service that evening to receive the ashes and to hear the words: “From dust you came, to dust you will return”. Most of the church watched as Andy carried him forward, and we all wept at the reality of what was being done and said over him. His mortal body would soon be gone, but his immortal soul would be eternally yoked to Jesus – the one for whom we walked this Lenten journey.

The second profound Lenten experience happened a year later for me. My great friend and mentor had fallen and broken her hip a week after Zekey’s funeral and the next year was spent trying to find good care for her and to be with her as she prepared to leave this world for another. She had spent her life helping people prepare for death and resurrection. In her books and in her ministry the message of the Cross was central to all she did. In my own life, it was her message and ministry of Christ’s coming, his suffering, his death and resurrection that fully awoke in me the promise of wholeness. I remember hearing her speak for the first time, and thinking to myself – I have no idea what this woman is talking about but I desperately want what she has. It was like listening to the beauty of another language (French in particular!) and saying to myself – I want to, no I need to, learn that language.

She died on Ash Wednesday 2015. As she left this world for the eternal company of God – she brought home to those of us gathered around her, that indeed from dust we come, and to dust we return. Just as she had done in life, she did so in death: she bore witness to the promise of wholeness for the whole of our beings – our minds, our souls, our bodies, our spirits. She suffered, as Zekey did in the last months of her life, but it never diminished her soul’s capacity for joy.

These two Lenten experiences have made me very grateful for the walk to Resurrection Sunday. I can acknowledge my great dependence on Christ, and I can acknowledge my body’s frailty. I can yield my will’s inability to be who God has called me to outside of that total dependence on him. I can affirm that while the body may die, my soul like Zekey’s and Leanne’s will be tethered for all eternity to the great love of the Father, through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ.