darkness

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nights filled with thin places

 

“A thin place is where two worlds meet, where heaven kisses earth and eternal time brushes against ordinary time.”
Liz Budd Ellmann

We meet a time of transitions. Days to nights, earthly to sacred and back to earthly. Grounded in all that makes us human, we find ourselves in a series of moments when the air is thin and our vision sharpened.
Shepherds, Innkeepers, Wise ones from afar and terrified Kings, we join them all to witness a birth. A birth that stirs spirits with hope and promise. A birth that stirs egos with threat and tragedy.
The space between heaven and earth has grown thin. The divine was so close that eyes were opened and bodies charged with wonder and truth. A baby was born whose purpose was realized as he drew his first breath. The promise of a coming Messiah had been on the lips of prophets for many years.

Today we move quickly as did Joseph from his dream. An angel came to warn that his newborn was at risk of being killed by an enraged king. He led a donkey carrying Mary and the baby out into the night toward Egypt. 

A place to live in safety until Herod was no longer a threat.

Yet as they travelled away, I wonder if they could hear the cries of mothers watching their young sons killed at King Herod’s command. Today the Church remembers The Holy Innocents. First born sons put to death because Herod saw Jesus as a threat to his reign.

We witnessed these deaths just as we witnessed Jesus birth. The veil had thinned. God’s presence was real and the world knew it to be true.

‘A thin place is where two worlds meet…’ We are living through a time where the air is thin and vision sharpened. Rejoicing and revolting, we experience these stories as the foundation of our journey.

These nights – they are filled with thin places.

 

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A tomb, a door…

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Today… a tomb, a door
life waits

 

 

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Before daybreak

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We listened as did his disciples. He tried to prepare us for the events to come. We experienced the emotional spin of a final meal, a betrayal and anxious hours of waiting.   

These minutes seem like years. We walk the dusty road in dis-belief. No sun light, only a sky filled with clouds of anger and heavy hearts. When ‘it is finished’ all is silent.

We hear this deafening silence. All that promised a New Way recedes into a hollowed stone – the grave of our hope sacrificed. 

Alone- we stand together. The ashes lay before us. There is no stirring of a Phoenix, no thought of what is to come.

Unlike those nearest Jesus, we know that tomorrow’s sunrise will bring life anew. Yet it is important to stay present to this ‘time in between’. For only on this day can we ask – what impact does tomorrow’s daybreak have on our own faith and witness? 

May your reflections bring strength on this Holy Saturday. 

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Making Darkness Conscious

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“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
Carl Jung