A Prayer for the Season of Easter

by Wilfred L. Winget

O Mighty, Holy Breath of God
On this glorious Day of Resurrection

Blow open all the shutters of our minds
bursting the barriers of
prejudice and pride
insensitivity and sloth
ignorance and fear
stretching wide our vision of
what you are doing
where you are working
in our fascinating
exasperating world.

Blow wide the doors of our hearts
impelling us outward to
the lonely and loveless
the angry and hopeless
the empty and faithless
as ready instruments
of your Grace.

Blow up our lungs to keep us shouting
Yes to Faith in the face of fear
Yes to Hope in defiance of despair
Yes to Love in spite of apathy
Yes to Life in the teeth of death

Through Christ, the Living One,
Our Lord.
Amen


This poem/prayer was given me by Morris Weigelt, Ph.D., who taught New Testament at Nazarene Theological Seminary. Wil Winget was his brother-in-law. Wil taught at Spring Arbor University and died a painful death after a long bout with cancer. This poem was written amid that portion of his life's journey.

I have posted this poem most Easters for about 25 years.

May this prayer be answered in and through each of us.

Good Friday: Seven Reflections

Good Friday invites our own life responses


“Christmas and Easter can be subjects for poetry, but Good Friday, like Auschwitz, cannot. The reality is so horrible, it is not surprising that people should have found it a stumbling block to faith".

 -- W.H. Auden



Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon--
I, only I.

Yet give not o’er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock. 

-- Christina Rossetti



“Given is the word. Given publicly, on the first Good Friday, on a hill, in the sight of all, was the visible demonstration of the only permanent way to overcome evil. Human nature demands something more enduring than the unquiet equilibrium of rival powers.” 

-- Muriel Lester

“The symbol of the cross in the church points to the God who was crucified not between two candles on an altar, but between two thieves in the place of the skull, where the outcasts belong, outside the gates of the city. It does not invite thought but a change of mind. It is a symbol which therefore leads out of the church and out of religious longing into the fellowship of the oppressed and abandoned. On the other hand, it is a symbol which calls the oppressed and godless into the church and through the church into the fellowship of the crucified God.”  

 -- Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God

One of the paradoxes of what Christians call Holy Week is that what is being taken is being given. "No one takes my life from me; I lay it down."



"...Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all."

 -- Isaac Watts

Holy one,
shock and save me with the terrible goodness of this Friday,
and drive me deep into my longing for your kingdom,
until I seek first
yet not first for myself,
but for the hungry
and the sick
and the poor of your children,
for prisoners of conscience around the world,
for those I have wasted
with my racism
and sexism
and ageism
and nationalism
and regionalism
for those around this mother earth and in this city
who, this Friday, know far more of terror than of goodness,
that, in my seeking first the kingdom,
for them as well as for myself,
all these things may be mine as well:
things like a coat and courage
and something like comfort,
a few lilies in the field
the sight of birds soaring on the wind,
a song in the night,
and gladness of heart,
the sense of your presence
and the realization of your promise
that nothing in life or death
will be able to separate me or those I love,
from your love
In the crucified one who is our Lord,
and in whose name and Spirit I pray.
Amen. 

-- Ted Loder in "Guerillas of Grace"

Washing Another's Feet

"AS I HAVE DONE FOR YOU"

Off and on over the years, I participated in the Maundy Thursday liturgy at St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church in Breckenridge, Colorado (we were there to ski and snowboard during Spring Break--nothing pointedly spiritual about it.)

Typically, the little church was half full and it was likely a quarter of us were out-of-towners. No matter.

Not used to the turnings, responses and readings of formal liturgy from The Common Book of Prayer, I would fumble my way through the service.

The part to which I felt particularly connected was the foot washing. The liturgy invites us to do for another what Jesus did for his disciples that night of their last meal together--a Passover seder. After the leadership team's example, we would be invited to wash each other's feet at the front of the sanctuary.

During the foot washing, the congregation sings:

Brother, sister, let me serve you,
Let me be as Christ to you;
Pray that I might have the grace to
Let you be my servant, too.

We are pilgrims on the journey,
We're companions on the road.
We are here to help each other
Walk the mile and share the load.

I will hold the Christ-light for you
In the nighttime of your fear.
I will hold my hand out to you,
Speak the peace you long to hear.

HOMELESS NEIGHBORS' FEET

The radical humiliation of washing another's feet first struck me in 1989, when a nurse asked me to help with the foot soaks and foot massages she weekly offered the homeless men who visited Horizon House--a day service center for homeless neighbors in Indianapolis. I initially volunteered to assist, but when the hour came, I found myself strangely resistant and made excuses not to be available to wash their feet.

The next week, Nurse Anne wouldn't let me off the hook. I found myself kneeling before the dirty, gnarly, swollen, smelly feet of a homeless man. Still resistant, but yielded, I gave myself to the task, pushing inner protests aside. One after another, I washed and massaged feet until there were no more feet to wash. I felt relieved and released—and somehow strangely at peace. From that point on, I have always embraced unhoused people as neighbors, recognizing and accepting my connection, complicity, and challenge in their condition.

LEADING PARADIGM

During my 2,000-mile bicycle ride through India in 2007, we were honored in Bangalore/Bengaluru with foot washing. The Free Methodist Bishops of India knelt down and washed each cyclist's feet in front of all their pastors, parishioners, and non-christian friends and community members who gathered to welcome us to that city. We, in turn, washed their feet. Knowing the strong sense of caste and social role that pervade the various Indian cultures, I can only begin to imagine the radical--even offensive--action of a leader washing anyone's feet. But this is likely close to the context of Jesus' action on what we now call Maundy Thursday. He is the servant leader and this is the primary image for Christian leadership. The towel and basin stands alongside the cross. Those who dismiss or stray from this central paradigm mislead.

IT'S NOT ABOUT THE FEET

I have not fully identified the points of my resistance to wash either the feet of homeless neighbors in a homeless center or the feet of a friend in a Holy Week foot-washing liturgy. I'm not nearly as interested in analyzing my resistance as in simply recognizing it and overcoming it. It's really not about foot washing, anyway. It's about doing the necessary, menial, and helpful things for one another without reference to "who's who," social role, or fear. I want to continue to move in that direction in my life, breaking resistances and hesitancies and excuses with helpful actions for whomever they are needed.

What Do We Know?

A poem penned while substitute teaching at a local high school

These high school students--

what do they know?
What does he know? they may
think or say of me.

They know much
beyond algebraic equations
and Latin and Macbeth.

They know how to navigate
learning institutions
and peer complexities
and the disequilibrium of growing
dis-equally in different directions
at the same time.

What do we know?
Little.
And much.
May they--may we--dare to continue
to learn and know
and grow.

Don't Go

A reflection in anticipation of burying mom's ashes

I'm really not one to dwell on the death of a loved one--or anyone, really. But I find myself processing my mother's December 15, 2024, passing slowly and carefully.

Why? I'm not sure. Perhaps it's because she was my mom. Perhaps because she was the last direct living link I have to my childhood and a post-WWII generation (I was born in the last years of the post-war baby boom). Perhaps I want to fully process what goes on in grief--particularly my own. Perhaps I am just not as ready to fully let go as I imagined.

With this on my mind, I wrote the following this past Saturday--one week before her interment at South Mound Cemetery in New Castle, Indiana. Mom and dad lived and met and courted and were married in New Castle. All my deceased relatives--both Sheffields and Hays--are buried at South Mound. Burying her ashes will be the last official act my sister Debbie and I will need to carry out to bring what American civility calls "closure."

But, I wonder, if closure will be the outcome. That's what I was pondering as I wrote this piece.

In a week, we will bury her ashes—
all that physically endures of mom.

Having held her hand as she breathed her last,
having hosted a celebration of her life with family and friends
(how buoyant and warm a gathering it was),
having distributed or disposed of her last possessions,
having settled her accounts, we will,
at last, place her remains in the ground.

That, they say, will mean closure.
That, they say, will conclude months of grieving.
That, they say, will put the final nail in the coffin.
That, they say, will wrap it all up.

I’ve already removed a piano-top tribute,
boxed up cherished photobooks,
reduced the number of framed photos;
already put away memorabilia in
plastic tubs and file folders (they’ll reside
in basement storage until occasionally called
upon by nostalgia or heartfelt memories).

We’ll dutifully do all that is required
and necessary to fulfill our responsibilities.
Civility and decency and respectability will
be served and satisfied and we
will, technically, be relieved and released.

We will walk from cemetery grounds that
are nourished by all our deceased loved ones;
drive back to our cities and homes and daily lives
somehow, in some way, turning the page
toward what we do not yet know.

All this seems good and proper—
our minds and hearts confirm it.
But our hearts feel, also, something lingering—
something not ready to be ended,
wrapped up, put away.

“Don’t go,” we used to lovingly say to
family and friends even as they were
walking out the door and down the sidewalk.
“Don’t go,” even as we knew they needed
to leave and we needed to move on.
“Don’t go,” now, even as we must bid
a final farewell to my mother’s good life.

She is gone and we let go.
She is gone, yet we hold on.
She is gone and we move, not on,
but haltingly forward with memories and
gratitude and all that
grace may offer.

‘The Way, the Truth and the Life’

Wendell Berry's 2012 poem speaks to today's cultural chaos

I came upon this gripping, insightful 2012 Sabbath poem of Wendell Berry a while back. With him, my heart aches at the ripping fabric and cultural insanity of twisted words, shallow values, hollow justifications, and indefensible violence.

Praise "family values,"

"a better future for our children,"

displacing meanwhile the familiar

membership to be a "labor force"

of homeless strangers. Praise

work and name it "jobs."

With "labor-saving technology"

replace workers at their work

and hold them in contempt

because they have no "jobs."

Praise "our country" and oppress

the land with poisons, gouges,

blastings, the violent labors and

pleasures of the unresting displaced,

skinning the earth alive.

This is the way, the truth, the life.

Welcome the refugees set free

from the "nowhere" of rural America,

from the "drudgery" of the household

and the "mind-numbing work"

of shops and farms, into

the anthills of "liberation,"

the endless vistas of "growth,"

of "progress," the "limitless adventure

of the human spirit" rising

through inward emptiness into

"outer space." Welcome

the displaced naturally "upwardly

mobile" to their "better world"

as they gather bright-lighted

in "multicultural" masses

in the packed streets. Catch

those who inevitably

fall from the light-swarm

in meshes of "safety nets," "benefits,"

"job training," the army,

the wars, mental hospitals,

jails, graves. Forget

vocation, memory, living

and dying at home. This

is the way, the truth, and the life.

Flourish your weapons of official

war where they are needed

for peace, bring death by chance

but needfully to small houses

where children play at war

or a wedding that is taking place

so that the bride and groom

will not be separately killed,

for you have an enemy

somewhere, who must be killed.

Therefore forgive the unofficial

entrepreneur who brings

your weapons to your

school, your office, your

neighborhood theater, bringing

death randomly but needfully,

for his enemies are his

as yours are yours. This is

the way, the truth, and the life.

- from This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

Being a Neighbor

Neighboring Includes Being There and Taking Part

It’s a privilege to engage directly as a resident urban neighbor with real neighbors in real time—on our block, on our streets, in our local coffeehouses, bars, eateries, shops, faith communities, schools and gathered meetings—and to take part in short and long-term problem solving and planning for a better quality of life for all.