A playlist, a poem, and a picture for Holy Week.
This week, the weather where I live in the western corner of Oregon has been tumultuous.
On Monday morning, we started with three inches of snow. It’s April! The kids had a two hour snow delay and by 10 AM, there were no traces of snow but a fallen snowman with twig arms pointing toward the sky.
Tuesday brought intermittent rain, hail, and sun patches. On Wednesday, it rained hard, not like our usual gentle rain, quiet, misty, and all day long. But more like a Texas downpour, hard and fast, the kind that makes you sit up and take notice. And if you’re driving, windshield wipers even at their highest speed cannot keep up and you cannot hear the radio. You have to pull off the road and let the pouring rain pass.
tOn that same day after the rain, the sky filled with Reddi-wip clouds as if a mighty hand had shaken heaven’s aerosol can. I was mesmerized by the puffs layered on top of each other like a good banana split topping over vanilla scoops of ice cream.
Thursday morning we woke to fog draped over the firs. By Thursday evening, we could see the start of April’s Pink Moon, clear and bright, and shades of umber sky crackling with lightning bolts reminiscent of wildfires blazing through acres in the Columbia River Gorge. All of this was in the same sky at the same time.
It is not lost on me that these crazy weather patterns are stacked up in Holy Week - the week leading up to Easter Sunday. I have felt the groan of the skies above me all week and it seemed fitting for these days. There are mountain ranges of emotions as Jesus is saying goodbye to his friends.
It reminded me of the way the universe responded to Jesus’ crucifixion on Good Friday - for three hours as Jesus hung on the cross in the middle of the day, the sun went dark.
We tend to think of this phenomenon from our perspective on earth. It must have been frightening, cold, eerie. I wrote about experiencing an eclipse here.
While not a bad place to start, there is more. To understand the cross from God’s vantage point is to begin to look deeper into love.
What was it like for God to visit his creation and die so tortuously at the hands of creatures he had made?
This print hangs in Mike’s office. He had it back in college when I met him, unframed and slightly tattered. Until then, I had rarely thought of Christ’s crucifixion from God’s perspective. Just one reason I loved him instantly.
It is a study drawing by Salvador Dali inspired by a sketch from the diary of St. John of the Cross.
If it seems morose to take our time during Holy Week and feel all the weather of the last week of Jesus’ life., consider what we miss if we rush to Easter.
It breaks my heart and comforts me to realize that the God I love I sometimes barely know. As in this drawing, God looked down on the scene of his beloved Son on the cross. But he was also there peering out of human eyes. He is a crucified God, a cross-shattered Christ.
A poem called “Mercy” by John F. Dean*
Unholy we sang this morning, and prayed
as if we were not broken; crooked
the Christ-figure hung, splayed
on bloodied beams above us;
devious God, dweller in the shadows,
mercy on us,
immortal, cross-shattered Christ –
your gentling grace down upon us.
*from the “Cross-Shattered Christ” by Stanley Hauerwas with beautiful woodcuts by artist Rick Beerhorst.
I have been looking for practical ways to slow down and enter into Holy Week. I created a playlist I call “The Longing Place”. You’ll notice there are no Easter songs and that is my attempt not to rush through the fullness of God’s love.
Here it is for you to enjoy. Grab your earbuds and go on a walk. Easter Day will be brighter for feeling God’s gentling grace coming down.
