Leaving my losses at the foot of the cross

In the early 1980’s. while working at University Lutheran Church at the University of Pennsylvania, I had the opportunity to go on a Palm Sunday weekend retreat with the Taize brothers from Hell’s Kitchen, New York City. I felt privileged to be among this group of pilgrims preparing for Holy Week. The retreat house was in rural Maryland, and signs of spring were all around us.

The small chapel where the brothers led us in Taize prayer services was dominated by a large wooden cross, and we were invited to meditate on the cross.

I remember sitting in front of the cross on Saturday afternoon and imagining the scene on the day Jesus died. I imagined Jesus’ mother and Mary Magdalen (my patron saint) at the foot of the cross, overcome with sorrow, crying out in anguish. In my imagination, I joined them at the foot of the cross and looked up at the dying Jesus. I gasped at the sight of Jesus in agony.

As I sat with Mary and Mary Magdalen, I joined in their questioning the scene before them. Poor Mary, recalling the prophesy of Simeon that her heart would be pierced. How right he had been!

Poor Mary Magdalen, losing the only man she truly loved, the man who had given her hope and loved her into wholeness.

How could this be? Where was God in all this? How could God abandon Jesus and us?

Even though Jesus had suggested bad things would happen in Jerusalem, we had no idea he meant this bad. I wondered how I had missed the signs, how I had misinterpreted what Jesus had been saying. How blind I had been, how comfortable in my denial.

As we watched Jesus dying and heard him cry out to God in his abandonment, my heart broke, and I wept along with Mary and Mary Magdalen.

Tears streamed down my face as I thought of the losses in my own life, of times when things did not go as I had hoped, of unmet expectations and crushed dreams. I joined Jesus, Mary and Mary Magdalen in the depths of despair. I questioned God’s love and care for me.

And then, one of the Taize brothers approached me and gently invited me to lay my burdens at the foot of the cross. “Lay them down,” he said, “and walk away.” He told me to trust that Jesus would take up whatever was weighing me down.

What? Just let go of the hurts I had been carrying around for so long? Let go of those losses that had shaped me? Those painful events that I had survived and carried as a badge of honor?

The brother sensed my hesitancy, my resistance, and reminded me of the resurrection. God did come through. God is faithful.

By the time we left that retreat house on Sunday afternoon, I felt ready to enter Holy Week, believing that God’s love would transform my sorrow into resurrection joy.

Originally published in Manresa Matters, Spring 2022.

Preparing for Christmas

This weekend, we begin the season of Advent, four weeks of preparing for Christmas. One of my past parish ministries was writing a reflection for our weekly church bulletin. Advent reflections could be my most challenging because the Pastor encouraged us to focus on preparing for Christmas, instead of celebrating Christmas throughout December. “Advent is a season,” he would say.

This was a reflection I wrote at the beginning of Advent one year that resonates with me this year:

“As we begin this time of preparation for the birth of Jesus our savior, I am so very aware of the suffering throughout the world, in our cities and neighborhoods, and in our homes. Peace seems elusive; despair seems pervasive.

“The Advent readings, though, remind us that we are a people of hope from a tradition of hope. The light of Jesus overcomes the darkness of despair.

“Advent is highlighted in the Church year as a time of waiting which is something that many of us are not particularly good at doing. We have become a people of instant communication, instant replay and instant gratification. We have fast food, EZ pass and express lanes. We tend to want what we want when we want it. For many, this is most true during the month of December.

“This Advent, I invite you to try something different. I invite you to deliberately try to slow down and experience the season of Advent. I invite you to put off celebrating Christmas until the end of Advent and to use this time as an opportunity to become stronger in our faith, more rooted in our traditions.

“Here are some suggestions for the weeks ahead:

• Spend a few minutes every day with the Sunday or daily scripture readings.
• Save and don’t open the Christmas cards you receive during Advent. Open a few on Christmas Eve and then a few more during each evening during the Christmas season.
• If you decorate the outside of your house, do not turn the lights on until Christmas Eve.
• Create an Advent wreath for your home—three purple candles and one pink.
• If you put up your Nativity set during Advent, wait until Christmas Eve to place the baby Jesus figure in the scene.
• Simplify your gift-giving practice. Give more handmade and symbolic gifts.”

I remember writing this piece while I was drinking my morning coffee from my Christmas mug, so very aware that I am one of those people who feels uncomfortable with the not-yet, who likes to jump ahead. I am reminded of the words of Teilhard de Chardin.

I was supposed to be in Europe right now, but I decided against going because of covid. So, the thirteen days I had planned to be away are now free. I will use this time for baking, knitting gifts and writing Christmas cards. I will try to be more patient. I will set up my Advent wreath and ponder light and hope.

How will you celebrate the season of Advent?

Let go

Leaves turn red and gold,

at the peak of their beauty,

and then they let go.

Having faith

A friend had surgery last summer and post-operative complications led to lots of pain and additional surgeries. She is frustrated, fearful and depressed.

One day she said, “I keep asking God to take the pain away, to fix this, and God does nothing. How can I have faith?”

“That is not the kind of God I have,” I said.

My God is not like a plumber, someone to whom I show a problem and say, “just fix this.”

My God, like my family and friends, is someone with whom I have a relationship. In the same way I would not expect my family or friends to fix my problems, I don’t expect God to either.

My relationships are more about listening, accepting, supporting and loving.

And just as I don’t blame my family and friends for my troubles, I don’t blame God either. My God is not a punishing God, and I don’t believe God causes pain or suffering; I believe that pain and suffering are part of life. When I am facing a challenge, I approach God with the question, “What am I to learn from this?”

Often, the answer is to let go.

Looking back, I can see that many of my struggles have been exacerbated by my pride or stubbornness or belief that I am strong enough to handle anything. I tend to hold on too tightly to my expectations and my image of myself as being in control.

Sometimes it is difficult to learn lessons when I am in the middle of a painful situation, and I have to wait until the situation has passed to gain clarity.

Other times, though, I can see that if I let go of my pride and admit my vulnerability, the pain lessens. Just by surrendering my ego, by admitting that I need help, I can ease the burden.

I have learned that it is not only ok to accept my vulnerability, but that accepting my vulnerability is the way forward. I am human; I need help.

After I left l’Arche, brokenhearted and humiliated, I had an aha moment. “God holds all the cards,” I said one day, and as soon as I said those words, I was comforted by the truth of God’s presence in my life—not to take away difficulties, but ready to catch me when I fall, to console me and help me stand again.

I have always loved the image of the potter creating and re-creating. I think of God that way, always ready to send a Spirit of hope and new life to get me back on my feet.  

Each of us faces challenges—health troubles, job losses, unmet expectations, etc. My faith tells me that God does not give me these challenges, nor can I expect God to remove them. My faith tells me that God will be with me through them, loving me, believing in me and wanting me to remember to let go of the illusion that I am in control.

Please, God…

An email the other day asked me to join people around the world to pray for the end of the coronavirus; the accompanying prayer put words to this idea.

Please, God, end this virus…

I don’t want a virus any more than anyone else. But this email helped me to gain some clarity about what I ask God to do for me.

Please, God, I pray, help me to learn from this time of isolation how to be more patient, loving and compassionate.

Please, God, help us as a nation to be more mindful of those who have less and to share however we can.

Please, God, as a people, as your people, help us to share our resources generously with those who are suffering from the impact of the virus, no matter where they are in the world.

Bad things happen in the world all the time; we all suffer—perhaps in different ways and at different times, but suffering is part of life, of all our lives. Praying the suffering away seems to miss the point.

Every suffering, every hardship offers an invitation or a gift—some insight that helps us to become stronger or clearer about who we are meant to be. Every suffering is an opportunity to connect with others who are also suffering, to be generous, and to grateful that we can turn to one another.

I think of the widow in Mark 12:44 whom Jesus compares to those who gave from their surplus. During this time of a worldwide pandemic, how many of us are giving from our need like the widow? Or are we holding onto what we have for fear we may run out?

The widow trusted God completely and so she was free to give all she had. She invites us to do the same.

Yes, I want the virus to end—or at least for a vaccine or some effective treatments to be developed. I also want to learn from this experience. I want to let it remind me of those who are suffering from the virus in ways that I am not, and I want it to remind me that living in fear is not really living at all.  

See the good

It is good that we are here, Peter said in the bright light,

on top of the mountain.

How easy to feel the rush of glory,

to bask in the glow and know our blessedness.

Joy overflowing.

But coming down the mountain,

would he say it in the dark valley?

In the ordinariness of everyday life?

When facing disease or distress?

Would he say it at the foot of the cross?

At all times, it is good that we are here, wherever we are.

See my wounds

While praying with the resurrection stories this week—scripture passages I have read dozens of times, heard preached about every year and thought I knew so well—I had an “aha” moment.

The idea that Jesus’ suffering was not in vain, that his death had a redemptive quality is not new.

This year, though, the image of Jesus showing his wounds to the disciples after his resurrection took on a different meaning for me.

Recently, I have been pondering sharing more of my wounds. I have written pieces that expose parts of my story that have been long kept secret. Although I have been through years of therapy to help me get past the shame, I can still be crippled by it. Don’t tell are two words that reverberate in my mind and prevent me from full disclosure.

I admire others who get past shame and tell all and am amazed by those who seem to have escaped shame all together.

But I have not been able to shake off shame. I still cringe whenever I reveal a detail of my past, when I speak of something I have been warned not to tell.

Reading the resurrection stories this year and imagining the scene of Jesus standing with his fearful disciples sparked a new insight.

Jesus got his wounds in a shameful fashion. He was mistreated by his own religious leaders and crucified as a common criminal.

The disciples scattered rather than stand at the foot of the cross and watch the man they respected be humiliated and disgraced. He had been their leader, but now he was broken—not powerful at all, but humbly submitting to ridicule, abuse and death.  

And yet, just days later, there he was, standing in their midst and inviting them to look at his wounds.

For Jesus, they were not marks of shame, but rather signs of victory. He was proud to show the marks of his suffering.

The disciples had been cowering in a locked room when Jesus appeared and invited them to look at his wounds.

What was clearer to me this year is that if Jesus could endure humiliation and overcome shame, so could his disciples. He was inviting them (and me) to shake off shame, to convert what looked like weakness into power, to break free of the bonds that kept them in hiding, behind locked doors.

Jesus broke through their fears and invited them to spread the word that humiliating treatment did not define or limit him, but rather he converted that treatment into true freedom.

Fear drives people to abuse power and victimize vulnerable people.

By showing his wounds as signs of triumph over the fears of others, Jesus was offering the ultimate freedom. He did not let what had happened to him to limit or define him, and he invites me to do the same.

Showing his wounds was the exclamation point on his message that fear is useless and that trust in God leads to freedom.     

Aging gracefully

When I was in my mid-forties, I became more aware of women who were aging gracefully. These were women in their fifties, sixties and seventies who were not embarrassed by their grey hair or shape-shifting bodies. They exercised for health but did not obsess over the effects of gravity. Peace and wisdom seemed to emanate from them, and just being in their presence calmed me.

These women were content with themselves and their lives. They lived in gratitude for all that had been and hope that the best was yet to come—even though they had endured hardship and suffering.

One woman had lost a son to suicide and another had a life-threatening disease. Another woman’s husband had been having an affair and after forty years of marriage, he asked for a divorce. My friend was devastated by his betrayal. Yet, even in her pain, she was able to pray for the grace to see her ex-husband and his new wife as God saw them.

What courage, I thought. I want to grow old with that much courage and grace.

I know that holding onto hurt and anger can make me bitter and cynical, and that is not how I want to live. I believe God calls me to live as my friend did—to forgive and let go, to be compassionate and merciful, to try to see as God sees and to love as God loves.

Last Friday, I turned sixty-five; I am a senior citizen by every definition. We have longevity in my family—my mother is ninety and her mother lived to ninety-six—but I know I have many fewer days ahead than have already passed. That awareness gives me a greater sense of urgency to appreciate each day.

The Native American story of the two wolves that live within me has been coming to mind recently: One wolf is good and does no harm. She lives in harmony with everyone around her and takes no offense when none was intended. She is joy, peace, serenity, hope, love, kindness and compassion.

The other wolf is full of anger. The littlest thing will set her off in a fit of rage. She fights anyone, any time, for no reason. She is full of envy, greed, anger, regret, self-pity, false pride and resentment.

The two wolves vie for my attention and energy; whichever one I feed will dominate.

I am paying more attention to the negativity within and around me and trying to counter it with positivity and hope.

I tend to think of my life in thirds—the first third was formative; the second third was restorative and this third I want to be generative.

Like those women I admire, I want to show compassion and mercy, to forgive and to encourage others to let go of anger and regret. I want to be content and grateful.

Life is short—no matter how many years we have, and I want to live each day to the fullest.