The Pharisee's House

The following is a work of fiction based on the story of Jesus eating at Simon the Pharisee's house (Luke 7:36-50).  It's based on a sermon from awhile back and seemed somehow appropriate for Lent.  
 
He tended to every detail. 

Invitations were carefully considered and extended.  The best linens laid, the finest dishes set out.  The seating chart arranged and rearranged again, everything situated to present himself in the best light.

He prepared his questions ahead of time. Clever queries, not too controversial, aimed more at displaying his own mental agility than fleshing out the nuances of this new and controversial teacher. 

Or maybe not.

Maybe the invitation was a moment of spontaneity he later grew to regret.

Perhaps there was a knot of nerves in his stomach as the meal approached, a cool sweat breaking out on his upper lip.  

Jesus and his disciples arrived wearing the dust of the day and looking tired.  By now Jesus had a reputation as a “drunkard and a glutton.”

The Pharisee’s friends arrived, other teachers of the law, exchanging looks, eyebrows raised.  They were likely cordial, but distant.  

Simon began to wonder if he'd made a mistake.  Everywhere he went, Jesus drew a crowd.

Strangers from the town gathered around the open courtyard, leaning, leering, murmuring among themselves.  

Those gathered at the table found themselves separated by a thousand years of interpretation, a million nuances, a trillion tiny judgments that left the conversation stilted, nearly unbearable.  

//


She was at the river, washing her thin clothes, watching as the dirt lifted layer by layer, carried away by the current.  She beat the cloth heavily with a stone in her effort to clean what could not be cleaned - the reputation that followed her like a shadow.

Far from where the other women gathered, she was free from their endless chatter, alone with her thoughts, her fears, her deep aching loneliness.

Over the wind, over the water, John the Baptist's wild voice rolled like the echo of distant thunder.  

Like water, his words seeped in, bypassing her loneliness and cracking open a well of pain that she carried deep deep within.  

Drawn closer, she watched as one person after another approached the water where John stood, waist deep.

“Repent!” he said, to each and then, splash, they sank under, supported only by his thick hands.  

“Your sins are forgiven,” he proclaimed over every face as it broke the surface, dripping.  

She didn’t ask how or why or by whose permission as she stepped forward into the water.  Her wet clothes clung indecently to a body gifted with curves that drew men’s eyes, even here, even now.  

Stumbling on the uneven riverbed, she righted herself and her eyes met the wide, wild eyes of John.  His eyes held her there in a steady gaze.  

She felt naked before his searching eyes, vulnerable as her shame fell around her, dropping like garments.  

In a matter of seconds, she was turned by rough hands that held her gently and plunged into the dark, cold water.  The sound of the river pummeled her ears.  It was a whirl of chaos, then she too broke the water’s surface.  

The light, the sounds, pierced her as she absorbed the word that was shouted over her, “Forgiven!”

She stumbled, weeping, toward the river’s edge and sat there stunned while people continued moving in and out of the water and the refrains repeated again and again, “Repent!” and “Your sins are forgiven!”  

There was another word too, on the lips of everyone there, “Jesus,” a teacher, a prophet.  Jesus was the one, the driving force behind the man with the wild eyes.  

Jesus was the one turning the world upside down, Jesus was the water washing it all clean, the light casting out shadows, the love piercing the shame. 

//
 
Word spread through the village, there was to be a dinner, a tete-a-tete at Simon the Pharisee’s house and Jesus would be there. 

She ran the whole way to her shambled home and tore through meager belongings until her fingers wrapped around the small jar she kept hidden, wrapped in a rag, her most precious possession. 

By the time she reached the dinner, she was sweating, out of breath, her hair hanging down in tangles.

There was a scuffle on the outer edge of the crowd, some shouts and shoving as she burst into the courtyard. 

Disheveled, she erupted into loud tears, overcome with emotion at the sight of Jesus.

Everything stopped.

Every eye turned.

Jaws dropped.

Every man at the table stiffened, drawing back, but Jesus' body softened visibly as she knelt.   

Bending over his feet, her hands eased along the arches, the callouses smoothing hot tears over dry, dusty skin. 

The weariness in Jesus' eyes, his shoulders, softened as he opened himself to the love that welled up out of her eyes, her hands, her sweaty, bent back.

Jesus, love-hungry and worn, welcomed her touch and what was a holy moment for Jesus and the woman - a sacrament - was a blasphemy for the Pharisee.

The sound of alabaster shattering ricocheted off the walls.

The scent of perfume wafting woke Simon like smelling salts. 

His eyes narrowed as he pulled himself back, half-rising from the table.  His lips curled into a sneer as what sounded like a low growl rumbled forth.    

Jesus, sensing the shift, half-turned and spoke the name, low and stern, like a master calling off a dog, "Simon . . ." and then, pausing, he added, "I have something to say to you."

"Simon."  It was the name that drew him up short, giving him pause enough to listen. 

Simon, the name his parents gave him all those years ago, the name he no longer used, preferring, instead, the shelter of religious titles.  The name stripped him to his essence and he replied as though a school boy to his master, "Yes, teacher, speak."    

//

The woman’s gratitude becomes a table, a meal where she and Christ are fed.  

Simon’s judgment becomes a wall isolating him from this meal of grace.  

Oh, God, may we also be moved through repentance and forgiveness to the seat of gratitude, at your feet.  Never let us miss this meal of grace.  Amen.  

This post is linked with Playdates With God.

Taming the Little Beasties

(How does an introverted mother make it through the long, cabin-fevered months of winter with four wild and wiley children underfoot?  Why, she reads to them, of course.)

This is the scene every morning and night at my house: me in sinking into a well-worn hollow of the couch, my lap filled with boys and a blanket and the older two perched along-side. 

They are my lions and tigers and bears, running and roaring restless and I tame them, still and silent, with the power of words.

They are hungry birds squawking and screeching until I build a little nest and fill their ears with stories. 

They are the snakes I charm with the hypnotic notes of "once upon a time" and "happily ever after."

They are my crowd, my captive audience, the flies trapped in this mama spider's web of words. 

This post if linked with Five Minute Friday, click over to read more posts on the prompt "crowd."

Building Walls for Lent (This Is Not a Post About Soda)

Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall.  The wall is the thing which separates them but is also their means of communication.  It is the same with us and God.  Every separation is a link.  Simone Weil

I have a headache.

I'm tired.

I want a Diet Coke.

I gave up Diet Coke for Lent.

//

I cannot say whether it is my body or my mind that turns first toward that magic elixir.  I do know there are times and places - rituals, you might say - wherein I crave it most.

With pizza.

With Chinese food.

With pretzels and chips.

With four whiny children at my feet.

With headaches, severe and with stress and exhaustion - these make an excellent pairing.

//

Yesterday I sublimated my cravings for soda by eating the last, stale squares of brownie, prying them out of the glass dish with a steak knife.  Does that still count as sacrifice?

//

I'm not good at Lent, not very good at anything long-ish, although I can do deep on the spot.  Also, it seems a bit foolish, me here in my first world comforts, donning the proverbial hair shirt of a caffeine deprived existence.  Nothing noble, nothing brave.

Who knows, maybe this very evening I'll walk across the street to the little deli, a wrinkled dollar and five cents in my hand.  They're waiting there, chilled to perfection, black bottles lined up like soldiers waiting to be deployed.

Moreover, my discipline, should it endure, will not make Christ love me more.

Easter comes to us all, my friends, to those who anxiously prepare and wait and to those also who find it sneaking up like a surprise.

So, why bother?

//

I haven't given up yelling at my kids, as this friend has (let us all say a prayer for her now!), or looking in the mirror like this woman here who's leading a whole movement of women in smashing their idols.  I will continue to eat meat on Fridays and I will, mostly likely, slip-up when it comes to soda consumption.

With this relinquishment I'm building a wall, not the Great Wall of China, but something smaller, a facade you might say, between me and my good friend God, so that we can learn to communicate better.

I'm listening to my moods and how they swing, listening to what lies just behind the craving and, should I endure, what lies further behind.  I'm asking God about what I hear, what I see in myself, in gentle and non-judgemental ways.

//

"Oh, my God, this day is simply too much, I really think a soda would make it better." I say, knocking with some urgency.

"Yes," God says, tapping slowly in reply, "it's possible it would.  But really, let's stick with what's going on right here right now, you can get a soda later if you still need it."

Then and there, just like that, a conversation unfolds between the two of us.

And so it goes.

Knocking, tapping, banging at times, on that same flimsy wall for forty days straight.

//

It's not about what you give up or whether you make it forty days or not. 

It's not about earning or proving.

For me, it's about listening intentionally, opening myself to a conversation that wouldn't otherwise happen.

And, also, it's about Easter that comes to us all, slowly and surely whether we realize we've been waiting or not; Easter, when ALL of the walls came down.

Love Was His Meaning

What, do you wish to know our Lord's meaning in this?  Know it well, love was his meaning.  Who reveals it to you? Love.  What did he reveal to you?  Love.  Why does he reveal it to you?  For love.  Remain in this, and you will know more of the same.  But you will never know different, without end." Julian of Norwich

//

I've been gone on retreat - 24 hours - away from the beginning of one day's nap until the end of the next.  They're ecstatic to see me, my little cherubs, their faces still red and their downy hair wet from a good, hard nap.  I sit on the couch and they perch on my lap, one on each leg.

Between gulps of juice, Levi accuses me of having gone on vacation.

"You, ta-chun?" he asks, again and again until I grasp his garbled question.

"Me, ta-chun!" he demands, in a voice ripe with the accusation of one left behind.

Isaiah tucks himself in under my arm, nestling down with his head on my chest.  Looking up, he makes lovey-eyes at me, his face spread wide with a look of pure pleasure.  I kiss his cheeks and he slides himself out from time to time, resting his cheek on his hand and gazing up at me with complete and utter adulation.  Right here, right now, he is love embodied and pure love and delight rolls off of him in waves.

Laughing, I turn to my husband, "He is so in love with me right now.  It's adorable."

//

Later in the week, I take the twins to a local green house where we eat lunch in a little cafe.  Isaiah holds his bun-less hotdog like a cigar, taking bites from the end.  Once the hot dogs and chips are gone, they move on to the bread, dipped in ketchup.

Then the game of "throw-away" begins as they clear the table of all debris, making multiple trips to the trash can a few feet away.  Their chests puff out a little more each after each trip until finally the table is cleared except for the large plastic tray.  Handing the tray to Levi, I tell him to place it on top of the trash can.  Clutching it, he throws his shoulders back and long-strides across the room.

By this time he has an audience, an older gentleman stands watching from a few feet behind.

"How sweet," the man murmurs, before leaning in to ask about my boys.  I explain they're twins and his response, "That must be a lot of work," pleases me.

Then he tells me how he met his wife in 1948 and that they were friends for two years before becoming something more than friends.  His blue eyes twinkle with love-light as he talks and I can tell he can't hear a word I say, so I listen with a wide-eyed smile.

"I still remember it, like it was today," he says.  "She took my hand in hers and said, 'Roger, I sure do love you.'"

Then he told me how they had three girls, all in a row, motioning once with his hand for each daughter and how he expected the next might be a boy.  His wife said no, though, she wasn't having any more children and figured that three girls was a big family as it was. "You don't want any more children," she told him, but I could see right there in his eyes that he did.

"But they grew up," he continued, "and got married and gave me grandchildren and now those grandchildren are married."  He seemed overwhelmed by the goodness, the marvel of it all, the way life opens up and multiplies around us.

Now this whole time, my boys were winking and wiggling at the table, eating bread and murmuring subtle and not-so-subtle hellos in his direction.  As he turned to join his wife who was waiting for their meal at the lunch counter, Levi leaned into me, his blue eyes wide.  All serious and sweet he asked again and again, "Me hug, me hug?"

Surprised by his boldness I checked two or three times to be sure, "You want to hug him?"
"Yeah," he replied, with a relieved smile.

By this time Isaiah had worked his way around the table, he wanted to hug too and he kept taking two steps forward, then back.

"Ok," I said, "you can hug him."

I gathered their coats and Levi's hand found mine as Isaiah ran ahead, surprising the man with a bear hug from behind.  The man turned, surprised, delighted and Isaiah did his happy dance then ran forward again, his arms spread wide and the man bent down to receive him.

Levi hung back, his hand in mine, caught in indecision before leaning in with a hug of his own.

//

It was three years ago in January that we found out we were expecting twins.  An unexpected pregnancy, life interrupted times two and oh how I struggled to make sense of it all.

Julian prayed for fifteen years to know the meaning of her revelation and I've waited nowhere near as long, but stumbling across her words this weekend I realized that the meaning was the same.  These boys, oh, these boys, how they've made life open up and multiply around us. Stretching my belly, my arms, my heart, there's no area of life that's been unchanged, unexpanded by this love and now my prayer is this, may we never know different, without end.

If you like this post, you might also like When Love Visits or The Blessing: On the Eve of Your First Birthday.

You've Made Me Strong (Downton Gets It Right)

Baxter: "You've made me strong, Mr. Molesly.  Your strength has made me strong." 

Mr. Molesly: "My what?!"

// 

(Season Four Season Finale SPOILER alert)

"Oh, Mr. Molesly."

This is what we said again and again.  Poor old Mr. Molesly who always arrived with too little, too late.  Mr. Molesly who seemed forever behind the eight ball, always stepping squarely into one mess or another.  We said it just as often as we said, "Oh, Edith!" as we watched the two characters muddle through.

Julian Fellowes, the writer and creator of Downton Abbey seems to have taken it easy on us with season four's Christmas special and season finale.  After Matthew's tragic death last year and the horrific rape of Anna in this season's premire, the season finale was like a beautiful present where nearly all of the plot lines were neatly tied up with ribbons and bows. So neat and pretty that it might be easy to miss this moment of sheer beauty and truth that happens between Baxter and Molesly.

I so enjoyed watching Molesly rise to the occasion this season, his strength awakening as he senses Baxter's vulnerability.  Mr. Barrows is a man who preys on weakness and vulnerability, not unlike the gruesome Mr. Green who uses brute strength to violate Anna.  But Molesly offers another view of strength, strength that lends itself to weakness, rather than taking it to its advantage.

//

As a female Christian blogger I read a lot of blogs written by other Christians - male and female - and let me say the discussions about what it means to be male and what it means to be female are alive and well, but what I see missing are the conversations about what it means to be male and female together in relation to each other.

Don't get me wrong, there are lots of posts about the proper relationships between men and women, both in the church, in the home and in the world at large.  But all of these conversations seem, to me, to focus almost exclusively on the age old question of "who gets to be on top."  It's as though we're stuck again and again, placing men and women on opposite ends of a see-saw and the rise of one is inherently seen as a threat to the other.

Some argue that feminism makes women too strong and men just don't know what to do, thus women must become less so that men can be more.

Others argue that masculinity is an inherent threat to the feminine and so a man confident in his own strength is only to regarded as a cause for great alarm.

I love the picture painted in this brief endearing scene between Mr. Molesly and Baxter - "You're strength has made me strong." 

Molesly's strength is not against, but with, his strength is not a threat, but a gift.  When we look at men and women this way, equally gifted, then the argument shifts from "who will be on top" to "who will stand beside;" we move away from the see-saw and out into the wide open field of life where men and women, equally gifted, equally needed, work together.

I don't know what will come of Mr. Molesly and Baxter in the season ahead, but I'm hopeful for them as they already show the ability to "row together" as Mary says to Mr. Blake and that, indeed, is a very good sign. 

What did you think of the Season Finale and the development of relationships in Season Four?

Photo source.

The Mercy and the Little Kernels of Gold

For as the heavens reach beyond earth and time, we swim in mercy as in an endless sea. 
(Psalm 103:11)

//

We sat together in sunny silence as snow lay all around like a smooth and glassy sea and over the waters of white danced the songs of the birds.  Full-throated notes tipped and turned, floating, flitting in a chorus of call and response. 
 
"Did you know," she asked, "that birds only sing when mating season approaches?"  

This was after the first snow, unexpected, and before the next that buried us under layers of flowing white adorning creation like a bride on her wedding day.  Those birds whispered and whistled songs cloaked in the bright rainbow of spring's hues even as we waded through a world turning from white to white again.  

It was as though they knew, as though they believed in something more than what was seen.  

Those birds and their songs, guided by a wider light, a deeper knowing that arose from somewhere beneath the surface of things, like the tiny shoots emerging green from their winter beds pressing like notes against the underside of all that snow and ice.

//

The notion that God is absent is the fundamental illusion of the human condition.  Thomas Keating

// 

If you were to ask me what one thing (though in truth, there are many) I'll carry with me from our time of waiting for a home, this is what I would say:  this waiting has stretched me open wide, this gestation in the land of not-knowing, in the depths of winter's long dark.  

I have learned, am learning still, to endure the pause between call and response, to open to the space between what is and what will be and to sink down into what is there, to trust in the slow unfolding. 

//

I saw how time - all our times - are contained in something bigger: a space that is none other than the Mercy itself.  . . . And in that Mercy all our history - our possible pasts and possible futures, our lost loved ones and children never born - is contained and fulfilled in a wholeness of love from which nothing can ever be lost. - Cynthia Bourgeault in Mystical Hope

//

Maybe it's like this - the way two dancers move together across the floor, arm in arm, leaning, shifting, moving in perfect rhythm each with the other.  Such unity is a beauty to behold.  But perhaps, in truth, the real test comes, when they break apart, swirling off into separate spheres for a time.  Dancing across the floor, not touching, yet held together by the rhythm and even, also, by the space between.  

There are times in which we are asked to dance the wild, wondering dance of faith in the absence of what we long for.  What tune will guide us then, what rhythm move our feet?

If we were able to sink through the terror that comes in the absence of knowing, the blinding white that flies in the face of spring's arrival, would we not also, like those dancers, find some deeper rhythm holding, leading, guiding our feet?  And might not also the very space created by our longing be a reminder of that to which we belong, the One with whom we dance?

//

Take away everything else down to that point of final destruction, and the last little bit that's left before destruction, a little kernel of gold which is the essence of you - and there is God protecting it . . . And this is something terrific. - Thomas Merton

//

Author Cynthia Bourgeault speaks of this underlying unity as the Mercy, by which she means God - not a god who dwells apart or above, but the God who surrounds, holding us all as swimmers in a vast and spacious sea.  Merton speaks of this as the protecting presence of God, this presence that holds the truth of every created thing - those tiny glimmering kernels of gold - protecting and preserving so that nothing is ever lost.  

Maybe this is what the birds know, deep within their breasts.  

Maybe this is what guides their singing, living, loving, the light that warms them long before spring's unfolding. 

//

You are not lost, dear ones, you are held, though you may not yet be aware of it. 

This Mercy, this tender mercy, it is the key to endurance, the doorway to hope, the promise of joy in the midst of deep and tragic sorrow.  

I have only waited for a little thing - a house, a home, a promise - and maybe this song I sing seems as foolish to you as the voices of the birds did that snowy day.  What can I say to convince you?  

There are not words, my friends. 

So I'm singing today in the face of winter, singing from a place I'm coming to know, lifting notes that crack and fail to carry just as often as they sometimes soar.  I'm singing this song of hope in the waiting, pressing these tender shoots of green against the snow and ice, dancing these slow, strange steps with a Partner I cannot always see.

Spring will come, love will unfold, and when it does, you will be found in its midst, held, protected, embraced.  

Linking this week with Laura,   Jennifer, and later in the week, Diana.

Bearing One Another (Breast Feeding, Potty Training and Twins)

“Let me tell you a story,” Estevan said. “This is a story about heaven and hell.  If you go visit hell, you will see a room like this kitchen. There is a pot of delicious stew on the table, with the most delicate aroma you can imagine. All around, people sit, like us. Only they are dying of starvation. They are jibbering and jabbering, but they cannot get a bit of this wonderful stew God has made for them. Now, why is that?  They are starving because they only have spoons with very long handles. As long as that.” He pointed to the mop, which I had forgotten to put away. “With these ridiculous, terrible spoons, the people in hell can reach into the pot but they cannot put the food in their mouths. Oh, how hungry they are! Oh, how they swear and curse each other!” he said.

“Now,” he went on, “you can go and visit heaven. What? You see a room just like the first one, the same table, the same pot of stew, the same spoons as long as a sponge mop. But these people are all happy and fat.  Perfectly, magnificently well-fed, and very happy. Why do you think?  The people in this room are feeding each other.”  

Then he pinched up a chunk of pineapple in his chopsticks, neat as you please, and reached all the way across the table to offer it to Turtle. She took it like a newborn bird. 
                                           adapted from Barbara Kingsolver's book, The Bean Tree

*   *   *

Two cheap plastic potty chairs sit side-by-side in the kitchen.  On them sit my twin boys, half-naked, both nearly two-and-a-half years old. 

Pajama-clad, I sit cross-legged in front of them, flipping my way through picture books.  Outside, the wind-chills are below zero and here on the old wooden floors it's drafty and cold.  Isaiah sits primly on his potty, hands folded neatly, a look of delighted expectation on his face and Levi looks similarly happy with the addition of a palpable sense of confidence.

By the end of the morning I'm frazzled.

There's pee on the floor and I'm not sure whose it is. 

Wet spots lay scattered throughout the house and I'm unable to accurately discern between melted puddles of snow and urine.  There was a poopy incident, which we all know is the worst, and as I'm putting shoes and socks onto still-pudgy feet in preparation for taking the older ones to school, I notice poop on the bottom of a little foot.

They're diapered in the van and it feels like oh-so-much of a relief that I wonder whether I can hack this potty-training business at all.  Some have suggested that I train them one-by-one and, driving along, it does seem simpler.

But here's the thing, one boy has the ability, but lacks the will, while the other has the will, yet lacks the ability and I'm hoping, secretly, that they will somehow pull each other along.

It's happened before.  

//

Levi, our baby B, was pulled into the world feet first after what Drs refer to as an Internal Podalic Version.  After a good five minutes of wrestling he emerged breathless and badly bruised on his ankles and feet.  The bruising and trauma led to a tough bout of Jaundice which left our wee-little-warrior exhausted nearly all of the time.

All of our babies experienced Jaundice so we were prepared and stripped him down to nurse, hoping the fresh air would keep him awake, but after an initially weak latch, he would drift off to sleep, too drowsy to be bothered with food.  Between blood draws and dropping weight, we worried about our little man.

My husband learned to finger-feed him milk I pumped, teaching him to suckle a syringe.

Meanwhile, his twin brother, Isaiah, was a nursing champ.  Born a good ten minutes before his brother, he latched on with a ferocity in the recovery room. 

Finally, desperate to be home with our older two, longing to get the all-is-well signal from the pediatrician, we decided to try tandem nursing.  We practiced popping Isaiah on, letting him work for the let-down, then bringing Levi in on the other side at the crucial moment, so that both could get the gush of milk. 

I don't remember if this was something we read in a book or if a helpful nurse gave us advice, but I do remember watching those boys and realizing how the one was leaning on the other already, how one's strength was carrying the other's weakness.

//

This is how it is with twins, with two who fit together like puzzle-pieces in a womb for nearly nine-months.  They enter life paired and they learn both to lean and support from an early age because there are times when life depends on it.  One runs to get me when the other is hurt and each serves as the other's primary interpreter. If one has a cookie, he waits expectantly to be sure his brother will too and, when they have to, these two two-year-olds share and take turns for as long as their desire-filled bodies can stand it.

What I'm noticing is not the peculiarity that it happens to be this way for them, but the possibility that it might be this way for all of us.  

Paul tells the church in Galatians that in bearing each other's burdens, they will be fulfilling the law of Christ (Gal 6:2).  Of course, this can be taken to unhealthy extremes and the phrase "one another" is key to the verse, but Paul is getting at the heart of the bible in his teaching here.  Elsewhere the apostle persistently refers to his readers as "brothers and sisters in Christ."

We are related, whether we like it or not, both as believers and members of one body, but also as human beings.  One of the most significant aspects of the creation account in Genesis 1 is the clear depiction of the interdependence of all things - all things made to exist in interdependent relationship with each other and with God. 

So let me ask, ever so gently, have you learned to lean? To be carried by the strength of another (which is to be the recipient of sheer grace)?  Have you learned to carry? To lift another along without resentment or judgment, but to simply give of your own deep giftedness (which is to be a conduit of sheer grace)? 


//

This is the law of Christ, this is the kingdom of God come down in our midst, when we carry each other, when we bear with each other in weakness and strength. 

This post is linked with #TellHisStory.