Maundy Thursday

All shall be well and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well - Julian of Norwich

We began our Lenten Meditations with these words of comfort. Over 2000 years ago, the disciples could have used these words of comfort, but I doubt if words alone could have brought them comfort. Despite Jesus warning them that the events were and had to happen and that " all shall be well," words even coming from Jesus were not enough.

For all of us there will be times when our world will seem to be crashing down. Words of comfort ring hollow. It is at those times we must point our toes and feet in the direction that will always bring us comfort. We point them to the cross. We point them to the symbol of unconditional love.

Maundy Thursday brings lots of questions. Suzy asks what would have happened if Pontius Pilate had a backbone, or more likely he had listened to his wife? Any single event slightly altered could have altered the result, or was there a back-up plan? We have no answers.

If people who walked and talked with Jesus had doubts, it is not surprising we at times of crisis also have doubts. That is why for the last forty days we have practiced those tools of prayer and meditation. You are now skilled in using these tools to forge your life going forward.

God will be with us every step of the way, and "all shall be well." That is the promise of Easter.

Webb

Thank you all for being with us for this Lenten Season. I suspect if the six year old philosophers have a message for us all, you will receive an e-mail or visit www.thehubbellpew.blogspot.com. For entertainment I recommend www.pickledpigsfeet.blogspot.com. See you next year. Webb

Wednesday of Holy Week

Jake: "Jesus is everywhere, he is even inside of us, in our hearts."
Will: "He's like the Force."

Will: "The Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny both work for Santa Claus."
Jake: "Santa works for Jesus."

Will: "Jesus is always with me, but he doesn't talk to me."
Jake: "Yes he does, he just whispers to you cause he's a holy spirit."
Will: "Right, Spirits only whisper cause they don't want to make a lot of noise and get you in a time out."

Jake: "God made everything. He made all of the animals and people and trees and dinosaurs."
Will: "Did God make the meteor that killed the dinosaurs?"
Jake: "No that came from space, God liked the dinosaurs."

Jake : "Jesus didn't have to clean up his room all the time!"
Will: "Yeah he lived in a manger and there was hay everywhere!"

Since this is my last post of Lent, I felt I would share with you some of the funny, and thought-provoking , conversations that have gone on in my house in the last few weeks. With all that goes on in life, I find I get the most joy just listening to my kids talk.

I have felt genuinely privledged that you have allowed me into your lives this Lent and I sincerely hope that you have a wonderful Easter week.

Walter

Tuesday in Holy Week.

Vocare

It comes from the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a person is called to by God.

There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of society, or the Superego, or Self-Interest.

By and large a good rule for finding out is this: The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work that you need most to do and that the world most needs to have done.

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

Frederich Buechner, Wishful Thinking — Courtesy of the Faith and Politics Institute.

How do we point our toes in the direction of God’s call. Buechner suggests that the “numbing forces” that keep us off the correct path are the voices of society, ego, and self interest. Where can we go to hear God?

It is said the once their was once “ A silence so profound that it can be heard.”

Mother Teresa said, “ We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence.”

In Lent we seek a quiet moment daily to meditate and pray. We become immersed in God. Soon however we will arise and begin our journey to that place where “deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” If we remember our Lenten exercise and silence the voices of ego, society and self-interest nothing will ever be the same again. Everything will be different, and no fear or earthly desire will be great enough to overcome the transforming power of God.

Webb

Monday of Holy Week

"Merciful Father, I have squandered my days with plans of many things. This was not among them. But at this moment, I beg only to live the next few minutes well. For all we ought to have thought, and have not thought; all we ought to have said, and have not said; all we ought to have done, and have not done; I pray thee God for forgiveness."

This prayer, which I believe is common to both Christianity and Islam, is found in of all places, the movie "The Thirteenth Warrior", which no one liked but me.

The hardest thing on earth is to be truly repentant. To stand in the face of someone and say "I have done wrong, I am sorry, please forgive me." Once, when I was young my Dad caught me in a lie. It was a bad lie, one for which I am still very ashamed. Dad told me that my punishment was going to be to apologize to the people I had hurt; no grounding or soap in the mouth or belt across my you know what. Just a face to face admission of what I had done. I cried my eyes out suffering through those apologies.

The first step toward the resurrection this week is to be truly repentant. To look God in the eye (so to speak) and say, I am sorry for what I have done and mean it. It's hard. If it was easy we would do it more often. We can practice by apologizing to others. Who do you owe an apology to? How can you be truly repentant before God, who knows your heart, if you have not apologized to the person you have wronged?

Walter

Palm Sunday

Do you have hope for the future?
Someone asked Robert Frost, toward the end.
Yes, and even for the past, he replied,
that it will turn out to have been all right
for what it was, something we can accept,
mistakes made by the selves we had to be,
not able to be, perhaps, what we wished,
or what looking back half the time it seems
we could so easily have been, or ought…

The future, yes, and even the past,
that it will become something we can bear.
And I too, and my children, so I hope,
will recall as not too heavy the tug
of those albatrosses I sadly placed
upon their tender necks. Hope for the past,
yes, old Frost, your words provide that courage
and it brings strange peace that itself passes
into past, easier to bear because
you said it, rather casually, as snow
went on falling in Vermont years ago.

-David Ray, from Sam’s Book, courtesy of the The Center of Faith and Politics

One of the greatest “numbing forces” in our lives is the should've, would've and could've -- Our tendency to look back and say “if only.” Frost reminds us that God buries our sins in the sea of forgetfulness and post a “no fishing” sign on the spot. We began this Lent with “All shall be well,” and as we approach Easter we need to remember that “all shall be well.” Our past is forgiven and forgotten.

Webb