Grace and peace to you and through you
Last week we were reminded of our human tendency to want to booth or box or contain mystery – as Peter suggested to Jesus on the mount of Transfiguration. Religion / faith is meant to awaken us to mystery – and to open us up to the “more-ness” of life and wonder and God. Yet sadly it has too often been used to contain and manage the mystery – as well as determining access to the mystery. The Divine voice will have none of this … and proceeds to interrupt Peter mid-suggestion!
The whole world is our sanctuary. There is no place more sacred than any other place. All burst with the presence of the Holy. The Holy Land is not a place to visit but ALL land to value. Let us focus on the miracle of LIFE and not simply miracles in life.
Last week in reading from Brian Keenan’s passionate and moving book, An Evil Cradling, in which Keenan wrote about his experience of being held hostage in Beirut, often in solitary confinement. After an interminable time of sitting in the dark, Keenan is brought some small oranges:
“My eyes are almost burned by what I see. The fruit, the colours, mesmerize me in a quiet rapture that spins through my head … I lift an orange into the flat filthy palm of my hand and feel and smell and lick it. The colour orange, the colour, the colour, my God the colour orange. Before me is a feast of colour. I feel myself begin to dance, slowly, I am intoxicated by colour… Such wonder, such absolute wonder in such insignificant fruit. I cannot, I will not eat this fruit. I sit in quiet joy, so completely beyond the meaning of joy. My soul finds its own completeness in that bowl of colour … I want to bow before it, loving that blazing, roaring, orange colour … In there in that tiny bowl, the world recreated in that tiny bowl … I focus all of my attention on that bowl of fruit … I cannot hold the ecstasy of the moment and its passionate intensity … I am filled with a sense of love.” (pp. 231-2)
An orange is holy. An orange is a miracle to behold. An orange should bring us to our knees with reverence.
As we come to kneel before bread and wine today – let us do so knowing that all bread and wine is sacred and that all meals with our neighbour are holy. We come to the Lord’s Table to learn the significance of every table. As we ponder the mystery of this meal on our knees, we commit to reflect on the mystery of every meal that nourishes our bodies and gifts us with life. This Lenten time invites us to be attentive to the mystery and miracle of life…
Grace,
Alan
