Reading from the Gospels, Pentecost +3, Year C: Luke 7.11-17
And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!”
– Luke 7.14b
Blessing for the Raising of the Dead
This blessing
does not claim
to raise the dead.
It is not so audacious
as that.
But be sure
it can come
and find you
if you think yourself
beyond all hope,
beyond all remedy;
if you have
laid your bones down
in your exhaustion
and grief,
willing yourself numb.
This blessing
knows its way
through death,
knows the paths
that weave
through decay
and dust.
And while this blessing
does not have the power
to raise you,
it knows how
to reach you.
It will come to you,
sit down
beside you,
look you
in the eye
and ask
if you want
to live.
It has no illusions.
This blessing knows
it is an awful grace
to be returned
to this world.
Just ask Lazarus,
or the Shunammite’s son.
Go to Nain
and ask the widow’s boy
whether he had
to think twice
about leaving the quiet,
the stillness;
whether he hesitated
just for a moment
before abandoning the place
where nothing could harm
or disturb.
Ask the risen
if it gave them pause
to choose this life—
not as one thrust into it
like a babe,
unknowing, unasking,
but this time
with intent,
with desire.
Ask them how it feels
to claim this living,
this waking;
to welcome the breath
in your lungs,
the blood
in your veins;
to gladly consent
to hold in your chest
the beating heart
of this broken
and dazzling world.
P.S. If you haven’t already visited our Art + Faith page on Facebook, please do! Gary and I would love for you to stop by, “like” the page, and be part of the creative conversation that’s unfolding there. And be sure to check out our upcoming Liturgical Arts Weeks at the wondrous Grünewald Guild.
Using Jan’s artwork…
To use the image “Rise,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!
Reading from the Gospels, Pentecost +2, Year C: Luke 7.1-10
“Only speak the word, and let my servant be healed.”
–Luke 7.7
Only Speak the Word A Blessing
You might not have guessed
how far this blessing
can travel.
But it is worth believing
that it is built
for crossing distances
for stretching itself
for making its way
without hesitation
to the place
where it is needed most.
Only believe—
or, failing this,
latch onto someone
who will believe
for you,
who will ask
on your behalf,
who will plead
for this blessing
to come.
Trust one who knows
with a certainty
fierce as fire
that this blessing
will find its way
to you,
that it will treat
miles and time
as nothing,
that it will push through
each boundary,
cross every border,
pass through
all obstacles
to reach you.
Trust that these words
know the path
into your anguish,
that in your ache
they will become balm
and in your pain
they will become soothing.
Trust that they will be for you
a sweet
and stunning
peace.
Using Jan’s artwork…
To use the image “Only Speak the Word,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!
Reading from the Gospels, Lent 1, Year C: Luke 4.1-13
Almost Lent! As I shared in my previous post, during the coming season I’ll be devoting most of my creative energies to the online retreat that Gary and I will be offering, and we’d love to journey with you in this way. If you haven’t visited our overview page for the Lenten retreat (which you can do from anywhere, in whatever way works for you), please stop by and see what we’ll be about during the coming weeks.
Here at The Painted Prayerbook, I’ll post links to previous reflections and art for the season. After journeying through five Lents here, we have lots of resources for your Lenten path! I also have many images for Lent and Easter. See the Lent & Easter gallery at Jan Richardson Images.
I wish you many blessings as Lent begins.
For a previous reflection on this passage, click the image or title below.
And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white…. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” —not knowing what he said. —Luke 9.29, 32-33
Dazzling A Blessing for Transfiguration Sunday
Believe me, I know
how tempting it is
to remain inside this blessing,
to linger where everything
is dazzling
and clear.
We could build walls
around this blessing,
put a roof over it.
We could bring in
a table, chairs,
have the most amazing meals.
We could make a home.
We could stay.
But this blessing
is built for leaving.
This blessing
is made for coming down
the mountain.
This blessing
wants to be in motion,
to travel with you
as you return
to level ground.
It will seem strange
how quiet this blessing becomes
when it returns to earth.
It is not shy.
It is not afraid.
It simply knows
how to bide its time,
to watch and wait,
to discern and pray
until the moment comes
when it will reveal
everything it knows,
when it will shine forth
with all it has seen,
when it will dazzle
with the unforgettable light
you have carried
all this way.
—Jan Richardson
2016 update: “Dazzling” appears in my new book Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons. You can find the book here.
And also . . .
ONLINE LENTEN RETREAT: Gary and I would love to have you join us for the online retreat that we’ll be offering for Lent. If you’re longing for an experience that draws you into the season without feeling like it’s just one more thing to add to your Lenten schedule, this retreat is for you. Intertwining reflection, art, music, and community, this retreat is a great way to travel toward Easter in contemplation and conversation, from anywhere you are. Group discounts available! Begins February 13. For info and registration, click this icon:
For previous reflections for Transfiguration Sunday, click the images or titles below:
[To use the image “They Saw His Glory,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]
Reading from the Gospels, Epiphany 3, Year C: Luke 4.14-21
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because God has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
—Luke 4.18-19
A Prophet’s Blessing
This blessing
finds its way
behind the bars.
This blessing
works its way
beneath the chains.
This blessing
knows its way
through a broken heart.
This blessing
makes a way
where there is none.
Where there is
no light,
this blessing.
Where there is
no hope,
this blessing.
Where there is
no peace,
this blessing.
Where there is
nothing left,
this blessing.
In the presence
of hate.
In the absence
of love.
In the torment
of pain.
In the grip
of fear.
To the one
in need.
To the one
in the cell.
To the one
in the dark.
To the one
in despair.
Let this blessing come
as bread.
Let this blessing come
as release.
Let this blessing come
as sight.
Let this blessing come
as freedom.
Let this blessing come.
P.S. I’m delighted to share the news that my book In Wisdom’s Path has recently come out in a beautiful hardcover version! With color artwork throughout, In Wisdom’s Path is a companion through the seasons of the sacred year. For info and to order, click the cover below. (This will take you to the Books page at janrichardson.com.) Inscribed copies available by request!
And for a previous reflection on this passage, click the image or title below:
[To use the image “To Proclaim Release,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]
Reading from the Gospels, Epiphany 1/Baptism of Jesus, Year C: Luke 3.15-17, 21-22
Blessing the Baptism
As if we could call you
anything other than
beloved
and blessed
drenched as we are
in our love for you
washed as we are
by our delight in you
born anew as we are
by the grace that flows
from the heart of the one
who bore you to us.
P.S. In my previous reflection on Luke’s account of Jesus’ baptism, I shared Janet Wolf’s story about the baptism of Fayette. If you don’t know the story, please don’t miss it! Fayette’s story continues to bless and haunt me as it challenges me to think about what the sacrament of baptism really means. Click the image or title below to visit that post.
And if you don’t know about the new retreat that I recently released for Women’s Christmas 2013, which you can use anytime (not just on Women’s Christmas!), you can read about it and download the retreat as a PDF (at no cost) by visiting the link below. It’s been wonderful to hear from folks who are using it for their personal reflection or with a group.
[To use the image “Washed,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]
Reading from the Gospels, Ascension Day/Ascension of the Lord (often celebrated the Sunday after): Luke 24.44-53 Reading from the Gospels, Easter 7: John 17.6-19
It is a season of leave-takings. In the United Methodist Church, this is the time of year when colleagues who will be moving to new pastoral appointments this summer are announcing the news. Several friends have died in recent weeks (including dear Joe, whom I wrote about in this post a few months ago) as have several family members of friends. Graduation ceremonies are taking place (Brenda Lewis, my longtime friend and seminary roommate, reminded me this week that it’s been twenty years since our own graduation from Candler School of Theology), boxes are being packed, and familiar landscapes are receding into the distance.
In the rhythm of the liturgical year, this too is a season of leave-taking. For some time now we’ve been watching Jesus prepare his friends for his coming absence. As Jesus practices the art of departure, he invites us to think about what it means to say good-bye with intention, with mindfulness, with love. This week, the exquisite care that Jesus brings to his leaving reaches its apex in the passages for Ascension Day and Easter 7.
As always, I am struck by how, in Luke’s account of the Ascension, Jesus chooses to leave from Bethany. It is a beloved place of memory for Jesus: here he found hospitality in the home of his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus; here he raised Lazarus from the dead; here he received the gift of a woman’s anointing shortly before his death. Bethany has been a place of blessing for Jesus. And so, from this place of blessing, Jesus leaves, offering a blessing as he goes. While he was blessing them, Luke tells us, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven (24.51).
As we see also in this week’s passage from John, the blessing is part of the leaving. And, somehow, the leaving is part of the blessing. His departure—and the way he enters into it—is part of Jesus’ final gift to his friends. In much the same way that Jesus tells Mary Magdalene on Easter morning not to hold onto him, Jesus at the table and in his Ascension urges his disciples—his friends—to grow up. He invites them to enter into a new relationship with him that will no longer depend on his physical presence but will rely instead on trusting in his love and growing into the people and the community that Christ has called them to become. It is time for them to become his body, to continue his transforming work in the world that he has physically left but has not abandoned.
Joyful, sorrowful, bittersweet; planned or unexpected; welcomed or resisted or grieved: no matter how a leave-taking happens, it always brings an invitation, and it makes a space for the Spirit to come. As you navigate the leave-takings in your own life, how do you keep your eyes open for the invitations they hold? What blessings do they offer, and what blessings do they invite?
In the Leaving A Blessing
In the leaving,
in the letting go,
let there be this
to hold onto
at the last:
the enduring of love,
the persisting of hope,
the remembering of joy,
the offering of gratitude,
the receiving of grace,
the blessing of peace.
[To use the image “While He Was Blessing Them,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]
Reading from the Gospels, Ascension Day: Luke 24.44-53 Reading from the Gospels, Easter 7, Year A: John 17.1-11
Throughout this Easter season we have seen how the gospel lections have emphasized the theme of knowing: knowing the risen Christ, knowing what he has done for us and to us, knowing what he desires of us and calls us to do, knowing what he is preparing for us—and preparing us for. The fact that most of the gospel readings for the Easter season take place at a table underscores the intimacy that comes in knowing—in knowing Christ, in knowing God, in knowing one another.
This theme of knowing reaches its stunning apex in the gospel texts for this week. The reading from John’s Gospel draws us once again to the table where Jesus has lingered with his friends on the night before his death. He finishes their final feast by praying for his disciples. In his prayer, Jesus is knowing all over the place: “And this is eternal life,” he says, “that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent….I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world….Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you.” Then Jesus, who knows these friends so well, releases them into the world and into the care and protection of God, who has known them from the beginning.
In the reading from Luke for Ascension Day, we see the risen Christ appearing one last time to his disciples. He opens their minds, as Luke tells us, “to understand the scriptures,” and he impresses upon them that what was written about him, they have seen with their own eyes. Jesus then takes them to Bethany: this place so familiar and dear to Jesus, the place where Mary and Martha and Lazarus lived—his close friends who knew and were known by Jesus. And from this place Jesus leaves, blessing his beloved companions as he ascends.
As we spiral back around these stories this year, what still takes hold of me is this: how Jesus prays for and blesses his friends as he leaves them. How the leaving is part of the blessing. As if the blessing can happen no other way than by his departure, by his letting go of the ones whom he has loved—these ones whom he will never cease to love but must release into their own lives, so that they may enter into the blessing and enact it on this earth.
This week provides a good occasion to remember that the English word bless comes from the Old English word blod—blood, referring to the use of blood in ritual acts of consecration. The blessing that Jesus gives as he goes is one that will infuse the community with his love, his grace, his lifeblood. He gives a blessing that will run in the veins of those he has called to be his body; a blessing that will beat in the hearts of those whom he is sending into the world.
As we prepare to leave the season of Easter and cross into Ordinary Time, what blessing do you need? What word or gesture of grace and love do you need to infuse you and sustain you to be a blessing in this world? Is there a blessing that might depend on your letting go, on releasing something—or seeking to be released from something—so that there will be a space for the blessing to enter?
Blessing the Distance For Ascension Day
It is a mystery to me
how as the distance
between us grows,
the larger this blessing
becomes,
as if the shape of it
depends on absence,
as if it finds its form
not by what
it can cling to
but by the space
that arcs
between us.
As this blessing
makes its way,
first it will cease
to measure itself
by time.
Then it will release
how attached it has become
to this place
where we have lived,
where we have learned
to know one another
in proximity and
presence.
Next this blessing
will abandon
the patterns
in which it moved,
the habits that helped it
recognize itself,
the familiar pathways
it traced.
Finally this blessing
will touch its fingers
to your brow,
your eyes,
your mouth;
it will hold
your beloved face
in both its hands,
and then
it will let you go;
it will loose you
into your life;
it will leave
each hindering thing
until all that breathes
between us
is blessing
and all that beats
between us
is grace.
To use the “Ascension II” image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. (This is also available as an art print. After clicking over to the image’s page on the Jan Richardson Images site, just scroll down to the “Purchase as an Art Print” section.) Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!
Then they told what had happened on the road,
and how he had been made known to them
in the breaking of the bread. —Luke 24.35
Everything in this passage, it seems, can be summed up in this verse, where the two who walked with the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus tell of how they finally recognized him in the breaking of bread. And this is where Christ shows up again and again: at the table where we gather, in the bread that we break. In the feast and in the simple fare, his presence persists and his blessing abides: waiting for us, staying with us, hungering to be known. May we taste and see.
As we travel with Christ in this season of resurrection, how will we approach our tables, our meals, and one another in a way that will open our eyes and help us to see and to know the Christ who lingers with us?
Bonus round: For a blessing for your ears, click the player below to hear the song “On this Road,” which was inspired by the Emmaus story. It’s by my husband, Garrison Doles, from his CD Draw Us Closer.
Using Jan’s artwork… To use the “Emmaus” image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. (This is also available as an art print. After clicking over to the image’s page on the Jan Richardson Images site, just scroll down to the “Purchase as an Art Print” section.) Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!
Reading from the Gospels, Proper 19/Ordinary 24/Pentecost +16, Year C (September 12): Luke 15.1-10
In one of my earliest memories, I am perhaps five years old. I am standing in my parents’ bedroom with a stack of my artwork. Drawings in pencil and crayon, paintings in tempera and watercolor and finger paint: these are the pieces that my mother has gathered up and saved. The entire collection. And I am systematically tearing up each one.
The most vivid part of the memory is when my mother walks in. I have made it nearly to the bottom of the stack by this point. Horrified to see the pile of shredded paper, she asks me why I have done this. “Because they weren’t any good!” I tell her, amazed that she can’t see this for herself.
I don’t know where I got this idea; it didn’t originate at home, where my family valued and supported creativity. Call it a precocious inner critic.
It would be many years before I began to understand myself as an artist, to connect with and claim that part of my soul. I long thought that an artist was someone who could draw or paint well, and although I made forays into these media from time to time, I still carried with me that inner critic who had shown up so early in my life.
Just as I was about to graduate from seminary, I started seriously playing with paper, and was transformed. In the process of cutting and tearing and pasting—those basic skills I had picked up in kindergarten—something magical happened that did not depend on painting or drawing. I had found my medium. In the practice of collage, I discovered a path to a place where it became harder to hear the voice of my interior critic.
That path eventually led me to become the artist-in-residence at a Catholic retreat center, where a Franciscan friar named David had opened the door for me to create a ministry that brought all the pieces of my vocation together. As I worked with David in the studio one day, he asked me, “Where did your fascination with paper come from?” The long-forgotten memory of the five-year-old who shredded her artwork suddenly resurfaced. I told David that story, and then said that perhaps becoming a collage artist was my way of putting those pieces back together.
As I moved deeper into the artist layer of my soul, I came to experience paper collage as a spiritual practice—a form of prayer—and as a metaphor for the creative work that God does in my own life. In much the same way that I sit at my drafting table and piece together the scraps to create something new, God does this within me. God takes everything: experiences, stories, memories, relationships, dreams, prayers—all those pieces, light and dark, rough and smooth, straight and torn—and creates anew from them. I’ve learned to think of God as the consummate recycler: in God’s economy, nothing is wasted. The broken as well as the beautiful, the torn as well as the whole, the pieces that we treasure as well as those we might prefer to throw away or bury or forget: everything—everything—can be used. Transformed. Redeemed.
This image of the God who reclaims and redeems lies at the heart of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel lection for next Sunday. Telling parables was Jesus’ artful way of putting pieces together, of taking everyday experiences, juxtaposing them in new ways, and revealing patterns of hope and possibility. In these two parables that he offers at the beginning of Luke 15—the parables of the search for the lost sheep and the woman’s finding of her lost coin—Jesus provides vivid images that depict God’s penchant for searching out what is lost in order to reclaim it and restore it to wholeness.
For those of us who live in a culture devoted to rugged individualism, with its emphasis on pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps and making our way in the world by relying on our own resources, these parables pose a challenge. For while these stories remind us that God calls us to participate in our own redemption by repenting—by acknowledging how we, by our own actions, have perpetuated the brokenness of the world—we cannot achieve our redemption and wholeness all by ourselves. These parables remind us that redemption is always God’s work, God doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves. The most we can do is turn ourselves Godward—and the act of turning lies at the Greek root of the word for repentance, metanoia—and pray that in our turning, we will—like a sheep, like a coin—be unlost. Be unhidden. Be found.
These parables call us also to remember that redemption does not, cannot, happen in isolation. Redemption restores us to the community and continually challenges us to work toward the flourishing of those whose lives are bound together with ours. Yet while God continually pulls us toward community, redemption is not about conformity: being restored to the circle does not mean thinking or acting or looking like everyone else, and making all our pieces look the same. Repentance and redemption invite us instead to discern what we have to offer, what distinctive gifts God has placed within us that no one else can bring, the pieces that, when brought together with the richness of the pieces that others offer, transform the brokenness of the world into a pattern of beauty.
And when this happens, as Jesus illuminates in these parables—when what is broken and lost is restored and redeemed—it is worth a celebration. Is not complete, in fact, until some rejoicing gets under way.
Where do you see this kind of restoration happening in the world and within the landscape of your own life? Are there pieces you have lost—scraps of your story that you have buried or forgotten or let slip away—that God might see as treasures and be yearning to incorporate into a picture of your life that is more integrated and complete? Where do you see cause for celebration? How might the act of celebrating—of noticing where pieces are coming together and rejoicing in this, even in the midst of ongoing brokenness—be part of your journey toward wholeness?
As you contemplate these questions, I invite you to listen to a remarkable song called “Redemption” by clicking on the arrow in the player below. It’s by my singer/songwriter husband, Garrison Doles (from his CD Whenever I’m with You). As you listen and ponder and live into this week’s lection, I wish you blessings and pray that in the coming days, God will provide glimpses of wholeness taking hold in your life and in the world, and of the angels who rejoice when pieces come together.
[To use the “In the Presence of the Angels” image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]
