Comments on: Lent 5: Into the Seed

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:12:12 +0000

I love your catch of that “He hid.” After the last four weeks and mid-week services I was happy to look up and find a baptism happening this Sunday. (Don’t ask why it couldn’t be saved until Easter.) It gave me a chance to hide in sermon prep, still in a mystery, but a more comfortable and joyous one.

By: Jan Richardson

Jan Richardson — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:54:27 +0000

Thank you, Becca.

…though taking a detour around or a break from them for a little bit, where possible, can occasionally be helpful…sometimes we need to regather our energy in order to keep traveling.

Blessings to you.

By: Jan Richardson

Jan Richardson — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:51:14 +0000

Thank you, Tess. Amen to what you said about the ephemeral somehow being with us always, and that being comforting—I appreciate how you put that. Years ago, I came across a poem by the Uruguayan poet Maria Eugenia Baz Ferreira that began to subtly shift how I think about the ephemeral; she writes, in part, “To all that is brief and fragile/superficial, unstable/To all that lacks foundation/argument or principles;/To all that is light,/fleeting, changing, finite/To smoke spirals,/wand roses,/To sea foam/and mists of oblivion…./To all that is light in weight/for itinerants/on this transient earth/Somber, raving,/with transitory words/and vaporous bubbly wines/I toast/in breakable glasses…” (From Earth Prayers by Roberts & Amidon.)

Cheers!

By: Jan Richardson

Jan Richardson — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:40:24 +0000

Thank you, Sunrise Sister! It’s always a gift to receive your words. May your path continue to be seeded with good surprises!

By: Jan Richardson

Jan Richardson — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:39:20 +0000

Thanks, Magdalene. I am often surprised by where a lection will take me—where it will lure me, to borrow your word—if I sit with it long enough…how a seemingly small thing—a seed, say—will open a direction, a path, a world.

Thank you for your words, and blessings to you as you continue to find words in your preaching and elsewhere on this Lenten road.

By: Jan Richardson

Jan Richardson — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:35:23 +0000

Thanks for your words and for stopping by!

By: Jan Richardson

Jan Richardson — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:32:41 +0000

Ha! Thanks for sharing this, Country Parson!

And I think it’s best, in this season, not to get TOO serious, anyway—I mean, Lent presents us with intensely serious stuff, but we need to be mindful of not letting it overwhelm us. Think that’s part of why the Sundays in Lent aren’t counted as being part of the forty days of this season—as in the rest of the year, they are like “little Easters,” as Don Saliers, et al, say in Handbook of the Christian Year. A cause for celebration in the midst of a challenging journey.

I will carry that image of The Barbie Doll Practice Chapel—thanks!

By: Jan Richardson

Jan Richardson — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:25:39 +0000

Ooooohhh, Carolyn, thanks so much for this Pablo Neruda poem and for your own words. Had not encountered that particular Neruda poem before—it’s quite wonderful. A good word for me in this season. Thank you.

By: Becca

Becca — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:33:06 +0000

Could not have been a more timely entry for me–a reminder that trials and pain must be traveled through, not around. Thank you.

By: Country Parson

Country Parson — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:50:35 +0000

A serious post asking serious questions, but all I could think of was the “practice chapel” at seminary that we called “The Barbie Doll Practice Chapel” because it was tiny, filled with all sorts of liturgical costumes, and included baby dolls for practice baptisms. So I guess my challenge is to read this post again and get serious this time.
CP