The idea of starting a blog came to me over a year ago. I like to write, but somehow that didn’t feel like good enough reason to blog. Somewhere someone has said, “Write only what matters.” Well, I’m not sure that will be the case for me and my blog. I better settle for hoping that what I write will matter. But even if I fail there, I can say that writing matters. Sharing matters. This blog is likely to be a mishmash, a melting pot, a deranged clump. It might get read by the people I share a house with, or a church with, or a town with, or those I call family, or colleague, or foe. No doubt all these and more will inspire and shape what I put down here. Again, sharing matters, and I’m grateful for those who have shared with me.
Like many across our country and world, I’ve been tuned into the recent bombing devastations in Boston, Massachusetts. I actually get to call Boston and its towns to the south home, and so, like many, I can say that the events of this week have been more than just a news reel. They have felt personal on some level. But I’ve been trying to sort out what that means to call it all personal. Some speak of the terror itself as personal, and we want, with all our might, to see those who have caused us injury, injured. We want those who have shut down our bus lines and driven us indoors behind locked doors, to be shut up and driven away forever, maybe even to the grave. For others there is the personal loss of safety, of not knowing if, when, where something like this could happen again. I no longer live in the Boston area and so that kind of personal-ism doesn’t feel so personal to me. Of course, there is the personal tragedy of losing a loved one, or not knowing if a loved one will be lost still.
In the church, where just about everyone might turn today, it’s Easter. Not too many people catch that. “Easter was a day three weeks ago,” we say. Fortunately though, Easter is a season. As a season it’s not over when all the candy has been eaten or the leftover ham is gone. It’s not even over when the final verse of the Easter hymn is sung and Jesus himself is pronounced alive again. Seasons mean that whatever got us there in the first place will come again. Death will come again. Not even resurrection lasts forever. As a season Easter also means though that when death does come again, it won’t get to last either. If Easter is a single moment in a single day belonging to a single person, say Jesus, then we might do well to see how Jesus handles his moment in time. He doesn’t keep it to himself. He finds everyone who is anyone who has experienced death lately and he breathes on them, which is to say, he gets close enough to let them see, feel, and even smell what new life is like. That we all might remember we’re still alive.
I’ve named my blog, PleaseGrace, remembering that grace is for the giving and the taking. There will always be a want for justice, for payback. But before we reach for these we might first remember those who shared grace with us when we said, please, and maybe even when we didn’t.
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O Lord, we are the doubters. Overcome with sorrow, not believing that anyone can really move past the betrayal of friends and the denial of loved ones, we are the doubters. O God, come among us, breathe peace into our doubt.
O Lord, we are the hurting. Our lives are shattered by the pain of death, by the anxiety of having more needs than we can possibly fill ourselves. We are anxious for hope. We are the hurting. O God, come among us, breathe peace into our hurt.
O Lord, we are the fearful. Our world is ruined by a thousand wars producing thousands of hungry, homeless mouths and leaving a thousand more hearts without care. We have underestimated or perhaps taken advantage of our powers. Can anyone set it right for us again? We are the fearful. O God, come among us, breathe peace into our fear.
O Lord, we are the. I don’t know, what are we Lord? We are the ones who go by so many names. We have grown so familiar with ourselves and the way things are that we hardly know what to call ourselves or what to do with ourselves. We sit locked behind closed doors, closed hearts, closed minds, and for all of this our hands are closed too. O Lord, who are we? We are the ones you died and rose to save. We are the ones you’ve come to, to say, “Peace be with you.” We are the ones who are sent out in hope and faith to overcome the world with love and renewal. O Lord, come among us, that we might never be alone. Breathe your life upon us that we might walk in the spirit of Jesus always, for who we are is your people. Amen.
PleaseGrace 