Thursday, October 21, 2004

taking unto our bodies

a friend left our house last night commuting on his bicycle. four blocks away he was hit by a car, his left leg hinging midcalf like a grotesque new joint.
we spoke with lisa this morning about the opportunity to do clinicals in the swaziland. she would be an immense help. She would also be in constant contact with bleeding people in various stages of decay from hiv\aids.
and grieving with geoff over norelle and her family's choice to put their bodies up for suffering in chad and sudan.
it is a beautiful thing to 'take unto our bodies the crucifixion.' it is a powerful statement in the face of so much sickness. i am proud to live amongst people who walk up to the already stained cross with the belief that their lives can make things different, better.
but those are hard things for me to say. this morning i would rather us start a kibbutz, isolate, be safe. it is too painful to watch. there are images that won't leave. and so i finish praying for us to have eyes to see not just the crucifixion, but the resurrection as well. like the prophet, to see dried and bleached bones rise with sinew and muscle and skin knit together.

2 comments:

billy said...

Brad,

I couldn't agree more with your assessment about the need to live in the power of the resurrection. I've been thinking about that a lot lately and your post is an encouragement to probe further. Its definitely going to be a challenge to figure out what that looks like in our society, where for many people "living in the power of the resurrection" seems to involve a bizarre type of self-aggrandizement that revolves around personal triumphs leading to material prosperity etc. But I take a lot of encouragement from what I see God doing among an increasing number of unstable and opportunely unwilling Jesus freaks. And I'm happy to count you as a friend among that lot. Even though we don't see each other as much these days your unfolding story continues to move me. There is a honesty and sincerity in what you have to say that makes our communal sight much more clear-keep going...........

geoff and sherry said...

thanks bradley. just the tonic for me and, dare i say, us all. i am more likely to become enamored with the stains on the cross and miss the majesty of the resurrection. i'm afraid to embrace this risen-ness for fear of the kind of victorious/success-religion that has grown up in the over-rich soil of the western church....but fear should not keep me from the regeneration that must accompany the life and death of Jesus. thanks for your poetry and your faithfulness where these words spring from.