A death in the family

After John 11 

Hearing his friend is ill, 

he does nothing, but

waits, surprising them all.

When he does come,

finally, the friend is

dead, four days dead and

in the tomb. Too late,

far too late, to heal.

The crowd follows as

he goes to the tomb;

the sister implies he

failed them all by 

waiting, that he could

have saved her brother,

his friend, because

nothing could be done

after death. Deeply moved,

he tells them to open

the tomb. He calls the man’s

name; the dead man rises

and walks, fully alive. 

We who are dead

hear our name called,

and we walk, 

fully alive.

 

Photograph by Wiki Sinaloa via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Reaching Outsiders with Our Words – Warren Peel at Gentle Reformation.

 

Two Ways to Gauge Contemporary Issues in Theology – Daniel DeWitt at TheoLatte.

Independence Day - July 4, 2024

The Declaration of Independence – National Archives. 

Notes before Independence Day 2024 – Kathleen at The Course of Our Seasons.

 

Town Born! Turn Out! – New England’s Precedent of Independence – John Wilson at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

Celebrating Freedom – Martha Orlando at Meditations of My Heart.

 

The Landlord’s Tale: Paul Revere’s Ride – poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Freedom isn't free. Never forget - Bill Grandi at Living in the Shadow.

 

The New Colossus – poem by Emma Lazarus. 

The True Meaning of Freedom & How to Defend It - Dr. Art Lindsey at the Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics.

 

I Hear America Singing – poem by Walt Whitman.

Thirteen Clocks Striking Together: The Forging of American Independence - Alison LaCroix at The Imaginative Conservative. 

Happy Fourth! – Brian Miller at A South Roane Agrarian on the Battle of King’s Mountain.

 

The Beautiful Send-Off: Jefferson and Adams’ Legendary Final 4^th – Jason Clark at This is the Day.

 

“Old Ironsides,” poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Last Days of a Revolutionary – Hillsdale College.

 

Your Constitutional Right to Be a Pirate – A.J. Jacobs at The Free Press. 

 

Battle Hymn of the Republic – poem by Brian Yapko at Society of Classical Poets.

 

A Republic – If God Keeps It – David Mathis at Desiring God.

 

We Became American Because We Could – Jake Meador at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Meet the American Who Wrote ‘America the Beautiful’ – Kerry Byrne at Fox News.

 

Explore the American Revolutionary War – History.com. 

 

Great Balls of Fire – Asher Gelzer-Govatos at Front Porch Republic.

The Star Spangled Banner - Sandi Patti and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (1986)

Painting: The signing of the Declaration of Independence, oil on canvas (1817)  by John Turnbull (1756-1843).

The sounds of metal

After Galatians 4:1-7

The sounds of metal

around my wrists, my ankles,

chilling sounds ringing

my heart with iron,

until a voice, not mine,

calls out,

come out, you Lazarus,

come out, you are free,

you are alive.

The stone rolls away.

A choice: slave or son.

A call: slave or son.

A decision: chains or freedom.

The grace: following down

   from the tree on a hill.

The blood:

   washing white

   washing right

   washing cleaning

   washing free.

Painting: The raising of Lazarus (Mount Sinai, 12^th century).

Lazarus time 3

After John 11

The waiting is for naught,

for nothing; he dies, his body

placed within the cave.

Then the healing comes,

too late, trailed by despair

greeting despair. With

simple words the healing

speaks, words of life,

spilling from lips of life,

falling on death and

consuming it.

Related:

Lazarus time.

Lazarus time 2.

Painting: The Resurrection of Lazarus, watercolor over graphite on paper by James Tissot (circe 1886-1894); Brooklyn Art Museum.

Lazarus time 2

After John 11

It isn’t the timing,

it isn’t the healing,

this Lazarus time

when we wait

when we endure.

The waiting is the plan,

a part of what is

greater, what is

larger, what we do not

understand, It lies

beyond us, this answer,

this knowledge, and we

rage in frustration

at this waiting that

tempts the impulse

within us, not outside us.

Related: Lazarus time.

Painting: The Raising of Lazarus, oil on canvas by Vincent Van Gogh (1890); Van Gugh Museum, Amsterdam.

Lazarus time

After John 11

We wait for the healing

from this sickness;

the healing does not come.

Sickness, terminal, but

it can be healed,

we know. We do not

know why the healing

waits, why it does not come.

It is cruel, seems cruel,

is cruel,

this waiting, this cruelty

we impose on ourselves.

Illustration: Early Christian depiction of the raising of Lazarus.

Unexpected Tears

I recently started following a blog called Walking to China, the stories of an American family who moved to China with their daughter. The father teaches English as a second language, and the family is in the process of adopting a Chinese boy.

This weekend, the post was entitled “Tears,” and it included this quote by Author Frederick Beuchner:

“Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are but, more often than not, God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is ummoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go to next.”

I pondered Beuchner’s words, and asked myself what are the things that bring me to unexpected tears.

Certain movies and television shows.

Sappy movies and television shows.

Hallmark Hall of Fame commercials.

Stories of heroism and sacrifice.

Stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Memories of emotional times.

Someone experiencing profound emotional or spiritual pain.

Stories about the Holocaust.

The Olympic Stadium scene in my novel Dancing Priest (I’ve read it hundreds of times, and the tears never fail.) (I’m slightly embarrassed to admit this.)

Certain music, like Michael W. Smith’s version of Agnus Dei.

Certain moments when I’m writing, when the emotion overwhelms.

Beuchner says tears, unexpected tears, are telling you about “the secret of who you are.” Did you ever think of yourself as a secret?

And more: that God is speaking through unexpected tears of the mystery of where you’ve come from and where you should go next.

The secret of who you are.

The mystery of where you’ve come from.

The summons of where you should go next.

And then I think: Jesus wept.

At the tomb of his friend Lazarus, Jesus wept, and it appears to have been unexpected. If Jesus was going to raise Lazarus from the dead, why did he cry?

Perhaps he wasn’t crying for Lazarus.

The secret of who he was.

The mystery of where he came from.

The summons of where he should go next.

(Unexpected tears.)

Illustration: Old Man in Sorrow (On the Threshold of Eternity), by Vincent Van Gogh, 1890; Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands.