a palm sunday lesson

(posted by kevin maddock)

Recently on the morning of Palm Sunday a group of Christian men went into a prison to play a game of cricket with the inmates. I had the privilege of being part of the group.
We got through all the formalities and the security checks and at last arrived at the oval for the game.
The prisoners were happy in anticipation, looking forward to a time of sport and good competition. We got the game planned out, organised the umpires, scorers etc, tossed the coin and the game got underway. It was 25 overs each and if a batter got to 30 runs he would retire.
It was a really good day, played in a good spirit of sportsmanship and everyone seemed to enjoy it.
When it came time for the prisoners to bat, several of the prisoners were dismissed without scoring many runs. One of the leaders among the prisoners said something that struck me as being very significant, he said, “You can tell who the sinners are”
What was he saying? You are different to us. We don’t measure up to you.
We are the failures, the “losers” the outcasts the rejects.
There was a perceived gap between those two groups of men on the cricket oval that Sunday morning.
I kept thinking about that mans comment and wondered how we as Christians can reach across that gap so that we as PF visitors can be friends and not different to those who we visit (and play sport with).
I was reminded of a story I read a long time ago where Saint Vincent De Paul was caring for the poor, he is recorded as saying to one of the sisters who worked with him, “We must love these people very much, so they will forgive us for having helped them”.
You see, if you reach down and help me, you are strong and I am weak, there is a gap between us, I am obligated to you.
It is only when I understand that you love me, that your help doesn’t cause me to loose some dignity, some of my identity as a human being.
May we love the prisoners we visit, may our friendship be a blessing to them as we show them grace, and maybe one day they will be brave enough to ask us about God’s grace.
The prisoners won the cricket match, but I think they fiddled the score.

The Church as Puzzle

Examining each piece of the puzzle,
we are finding ourselves undoing an image of beauty,
but the image became familiar
and with familiarity a false sense of normality,
and we failed to see the lines that separate the pieces.

The lines exist.
The lines exist because of the puzzle’s rhythm,
the deconstruction, examination, construction, contemplation
of the puzzlers’ practice,
like the winter, spring, summer, and fall of Creation’s experience.

Where are the puzzlers’ now?
Some are in the winter of deconstruction, others in spring’s examination,
moving toward the summer of construction and the fruitful season of
contemplation. Yet, some are emerging in their own seasons,
and the puzzle is waiting, simply, for the new image that it will
reveal to the world.

I’ve had the book, “An Emergent Manifesto of Hope” in my backpack for the past two weeks. I finally found the time to read it in my Methodist History class; I know, I know, I should be listening, but I figure that napping would be more of a distraction than reading. Either way, in the first chapter, Mark Scandrette discusses the growing pains of Emergent. Of the emergent church. His discussion caused me to think about the church as a jigsaw puzzle, with all of its pieces locked together, and the emergent movement, whichever form it takes, wherever it takes it(?), as persons within the church dismantling the pieces and examining them in new ways. At some point, though, some of us sit in the midst of the pieces, mourning the picture that was once the church. For me, mourning because I am losing (have lost?) that false sense of normality which created some sense of security. I don’t find myself fully in winter, and as seasons are cyclical and not linear, maybe I’m in the backside of the fall of contemplation. Either way, I wanted to highlight the lines that exist within puzzles because every time I look at a puzzle, I rarely notice them. Yet, they’re there because puzzles are meant to be taken apart and put back together. Today, the Church is much like a puzzle to me, and I am holding my own piece, both contemplating and mourning, yet looking forward to examination and construction. Fortunately, I’m not sitting on the floor, alone, in the midst of the thousands of pieces that make up the church. There are those who have been at this a long time, those who are just now taking their own piece(s) out of the whole, and those who have more together for the new image than any of us; these sit with me, with us, and together we are faithfully trying to create an image for the world that reveals the good news.

A little Koch

Asher Koch joined us this morning. This is a totally "guy" posting, so I don't know all the fun details, but here's a fun picture. Ryan and Jodie and Asher are doing well, though exhausted and probably napping presently.... but would appreciate visitors come Sunday!

It takes a snowy Good Friday in April to bring this one out!

Earthdays in the Bluegrass

Our friend Shane Tedder helps orchestrate this event at UK, a celebration of spring and green things and the power of groups of people to change their communities. Here's something from the site:

Earthdays in the Bluegrass 2007 is a month long promotion of RESPONSIBLE GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP and a celebration of the power of local action. Throughout the month there are workshops‚ films‚ community service opportunities and speakers that will highlight the many opportunities we have to make a positive impact through our daily choices. We hope to see you in April!

Visit this site http://www.uky.edu/StudentAffairs/Recycling/earthdays.html
to see what's coming up this month. And here's how to contact Mr. Tedder: resliferecycling@lsv.uky.edu or (859) 257–2003.

Jubilee USA's Grassroots Conference

Many mornings Greg and Mary come to the High Street House ruminating on what Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) said today on the radio. If you don't know her show, let it suffice to say that if the revolution will not be televised, it will probably be a major part of this woman's attention.
Well she is going to be talking at Jubilee USA's 2nd Annual Grassroots Conference on June 15-17 in Chicago. Learn more by checking out this site: www.jubileeusa.org. And if you get close enough to Ms. Goodman, see if she'll sign your program for the Leffel family.

an easter poem

by Michael Symmons Roberts
(from Corpus, Cape Publishing, 2004)

Food for Risen Bodies – I

A rare dish is right for those who
have lain bandaged in a tomb for weeks:

quince and quail to demonstrate
that fruit and birds still grow on trees,

eels to show that fish still needle streams.
Rarer still, some blind white crabs,

not bleached but blank, from such
a depth of ocean that the sun would drown

if it approached them. Two-thirds
of the earth is sea; and two-thirds of that sea

- away from currents, coasts and reefs -
is lifeless, colourless, pure weight.

Food for Risen Bodies – II

On that final night, his meal was formal:
lamb with bitter leaves of endive, chervil,
bread with olive oil and jars of wine.

Now on Tiberias' shores he grills
a carp and catfish breakfast on a charcoal fire.
This is not hunger, this is resurrection:

he eats because he can, and wants to
taste the scales, the moist flakes of the sea,
to rub the salt into his wounds.

Food for Risen Bodies – III

Generations back, a hoard of peaches,
apricots and plums was laid down
for the day of resurrection; treats for all
those dry tongues, soil-caked palates.

Fruit was picked, clad, crated,
shelved in beech sheds.
doors were sealed with wax, padlocked
and left. Children’s children waited.

In the sheds, each fruit still lies
cocooned in careful shrouds of vine-leaves,
tissue, moss. Each is now a dark, sweet
twist of gum, as sharp as scent.

Outside, stripped trees as light as balsa
ring the sheds and knit into each others
roots to stand. Mosquitoes cloud,
as if they sense a storm.

Food for Risen Bodies – IV

The men they silenced
-now heads of tables –
slit their stitched lips free
as if to kiss and bless
the dinner knives.
They whisper grace
through open wounds.

Food for Risen Bodies – V

Cautious and clean-shaven
all his life, the next world
woke him gaunt and stubbled
by the shrinkage of his skin.

He turned down the banquet
-broth to brie – ‘Later, later’,
and went straight for the cigarettes.
‘Do you have any with filters?’

Food for Risen Bodies – VI

Abeja blanca zumbas – ebria de miel – en mi alma
-Pablo Neruda

No longer ravenous, they smoke
and sip. Some carry tables out

to get a feel for sun on skin again.
More words are coming back,

so there’s a lot of naming.
Old ones still hold good – oak,

brook, crab, sycamore – but more
are needed now. They mull

potential titles for these new
white bees, as sharp as stars

against the ivories of cherry
or magnolia. Word gets round

the bees were new creations
made in honor of a poet,

so they wait for him to choose.
He’s in no hurry, cups them

in his hands, weighs up the tenor
of their hum. The sun brings colour

to the diners’ sallow skins.
Although these bodies were not

theirs before, there are resemblances,
and flesh retains a memory

even beyond death, so every
lovers touch, each blow or cut

is rendered into echo on the hand,
the lips, the neck. Some fall silent,

while their own phenomenology
is mapped across them.

Others look astonished
expecting their new skin to be

a blank sheet, but the man
who went ahead to find a route

for them came back with wounds
intact and palpable. No pain,

but a record nonetheless, a history
of love and war in blank tattoos.