Tag Archives: Easter
Word of the day: ‘godforsakenness’ – Bonhoeffer on Good Friday
A few years back, Stephen Colbert made news by making a new word – ‘truthiness’ – and successfully entering the word into the cultural zeitgeist. Often we find ourselves at an impasse of reason and emotion where language shows its limits and the ‘perfect’ word to express our deepest thoughts, fears, and emotions escape us.
Good Friday has always been such a time.
I honestly never know how to feel … There’s more to read here.
Good Friday – poetry and space for reflection in such a time as this…
Each Holy Week I try to pull together some poems that evoke the mystery, pain, confusion, hope, silence, whispers, tragedy, exhaustion and expectation of this dark time of the year. For many theologians this is a time where we become bankrupt in language and reasoned resources with which to approach this time-between-times. You cannot rush through the week – the days will not go quicker for us nor will Easter … There’s more to read here.
Jesus – Dead or Alive? Luke Timothy Johnson and the temptation to put Jesus back in the tomb
One of my favorite New Testament Scholars is Luke Timothy Johnson who is the R.W. Woodruff Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Emory University in Atlanta. He is a former Benedictine monk and prolific scholar whose work digs deep into scripture but continues to ask very humane questions. In his 1999 book Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospels, he poses a deceptively simple yet … There’s more to read here.
Easter: Fantastic Mr. Fox, St. Augustine, Calvin and Bonhoeffer on why the Cross remains
At the beginning of Wes Anderson’s animated film Fantastic Mr. Fox, Mr and Mrs Fox are trapped by a farmer and perceiving that this might be the end, they have the following interchange:
Mrs. Fox: This story’s too predictable.
Mr. Fox: Predictable? Really? Then, how does it end?
Mrs. Fox: In the end, we all die. Unless you change.
There is something in the simplicity of this exchange that … There’s more to read here.
Holy Saturday: Following Job beyond a Heretical Praise Song
Passion week thrusts us into a realm of uncertainty amidst the certainty of Christ that should unsettle us to our very core. As we sit now before both an empty cross and a tomb now filled with our Savior – is it right to wonder where this is all leading? To ask what is going to happen now? Sure, many Christians know how the story ends (SPOILER ALERT!) and the fact … There’s more to read here.
Good Friday: Poetry for reflection from Auden, Berry, Cairns and Levertov
Stop All The Clocks
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone
Prevent the dog from barking at a juicy bone
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message “He is dead”
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves
He … There’s more to read here.
Maundy Thursday – The empty cup, Annie Dillard, and stumbling into the Garden with U2
The world of Scripture is a world of “limited good.” That is, everything that exists is perceived to exist in limited amounts, in amounts that cannot be augmented without depriving others. As we come to this point in Holy Week, we come against the limits of our lives and the limits of what is around us. After weeks of fasting and doing without, coming into Holy Week is often a … There’s more to read here.
Lenten closeness: Psalm 51, Georgia O’Keefe, and considering lilies up close
One of American artist Georgia O’Keefe’s most famous paintings posted below is entitled “Black Cross.”
Painted in the New Mexico desert in 1929, O’Keefe draws us into this image of a dark cross set against the dusk of a New Mexico desert and pulls us close – very close – not to the scenery that surrounds, but the very thing that both blocks out and centers our vision. She makes … There’s more to read here.
