Awe Struck!

It occurred to me this final week of Lent that the problem with trying so hard to be in Christ and to be aware of Christ in me is that when He fit into Jesus’ divine humanity, God shrunk about as much as He possibly can. He can’t fit in me, maybe not even with Christ’s help.  To spend all of this Lenten time and Lenten energy to become fully aware of the magical majestic magnificent miracle of comingling my own humble humanity with divinity could very well be an absurd and impossible feat, even with all of this prayer and fasting and going to church.

Maybe this is the phase that all lofty endeavors experience, when thoughts of abandoning the quest seem super-rational, and the quest starts to tarnish. After all who am I to dare toy with the grand notion that I could be a cell, even an airy spirit cell, in the body of the creative, luminous, intelligent, awesome Trinity?   Slap my face and bite my tongue, I say!

Please don’t misunderstand me; I am infinitely grateful to Jesus the Christ for building the bridge to reunion with our Creator and God, the Father. Being tossed out of the Garden of Eden has been hell. Without Jesus, we would have no hope whatsoever of living with God forever. Death, whether it is the separation-from-God kind that makes us distrust Him, or it is the last-heartbeat-kind, death haunts this outcast soul. Christ appearing like a resurrected Adam from straight out of the Garden was and still is a shock to humanity.

As loving as He is, Jesus digs one pitfall for aspiring immortals. His familiar humanity blinds us to God’s infinity. How can I be in Christ-God when I can’t even imagine what that means?

Pal Jesus, brother Jesus, servant washing apostles’ dirty feet, I’m afraid that your humanity causes me to lose touch with reality. So before I climb Golgotha, dragging my heavy cross remind me of who You are.

Reality check: PTL.

Lord, God, Creator God

Father of my fathers

Light of the Sun

Languageless Word

Author of Love

Pure, unchanging, unwavering Will

Will to heal

Will to unite

Father forgiver, tolerant and wise

Patient and good

Light-years beyond human frailty, intellect

Author of righteousness

Maker of earth and heaven

Playmate of time

I can’t reach you.

Even with my Easter lily,

Even with my white candle glowing.

How can you hope for my eternal life?

I can’t reach you.

Christ bending so low on the Cross to grab my hand,

and I can’t even stretch far enough

to tap His golden toe in the moment when He dares to be only mortal

because I am blinded by His awesome celestial glorious splendid vast wonderful light.

 

Week Three

I survived my week in hell, but not before making an utter fool of myself before God and a couple of brothers. Of the thousands of movies I’ve seen, and the tens of thousands of quotable lines in them, the one that struck a lasting chord of perfect pitch in me came out of Steve Martin’s mouth in Father of the Bride. He said, “I come from a long line of over reactors.” When I heard that for the first time I underwent a catharsis of hysterics. Suddenly I was no longer totally responsible for my emotional tantrums; my ancestors helped me to carry the blame. I laughed out loud in the heartiest most joyful expression of relief, and since then from time to time I remember the line with no diminution of joy.

It is when I need forgiveness the most, that of course I deserve it the least. Being haunted by my own weakness, as I approached the cleansing purifying Chalice on Sunday, I wondered if I could forgive myself. Weakness is the wrong word. It tries to erase blame. There was no weakness, it was a voluntary and intentional performance staged to express the tumult I felt, like a pinball being jettisoned not just by flippers but in a sea of currents screaming to bust through the wall of conflict, when I should have been a meek and faithful lamb. It doesn’t help at all that I am reading Mark Twain’s Recollections of Joan of Arc. Worse yet, I am at the part in the book that describes her at her trial. Here stands young Joan firm and strong before the most evil opposition. The contrast is humiliating. Please reader of mine, read Twain’s book for the most inspiring tale of a true immortal.

I look ahead at this week with renewed commitment to find my way into the very heart of Christ so I can consciously join Him at the moment when He reunites humanity to God to make the new Eden possible, even here and now. To listen to the echoes of my failure is to deny the power of the Blood. This is a new day in a new week and I have only to experience what is true and real and before me now. I mustn’t look back, but rather set my hand to the plow.

During this Lent in my writing, I am intentionally not on another journey likes the ones you have joined me on so many times before, such as when we walked the Exodus together, or rode in the bubble during Creation (that was fun!). Nope, no journey this time. I know that most aspiring immortals call Lent a journey, but not me, not this year. I don’t want to go from here to there; instead in stillness I want to become aware of being in Christ and He in me. Awareness is no journey, it is an awakening. It is truth revealed in the midst of powerful lies, distortions are like wavy mirrors at the carnival that tickle us with our false reflections. Awareness of truth is the first speck of sunrise over the ocean illuminating what had sat in darkness.

Of course I need help to become aware of being in Christ, the help one can only get from a friendly immortal or an aspiring immortal. I started Lent with one such man, Nicholas Cabasilas, but then needed to put him down for book club assignments and the occasional treat, Joan of Arc. I am almost finished with my book club assignment, Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a beautiful book about how the true Christianity of both Negroes and Caucasians helped to overcome and ultimately to extinguish evil slavery. After the meeting tomorrow, I hope to shed the scales from my eyes and tell you what I see. Till then, adieu.