Vastness

This morning when I ran across this poem by Mark Strand, my first thought was to send it on to all of you.  However, I felt certain  that I had done so in the past.  A search revealed that to be true.  I actually have sent  twice over the years and that made me laugh.  Yet, the poem is so beautiful, and many of you have seen it, so I shall send it again.    

It was interesting to read this devotional that I sent on May 8, 2010.  As soon as I read the first line, this day came back to me so clearly. 

What also comes back to me is that Jesus' ministry was remarkable simple.  He touched people.  He listened to their stories.  He broke bread.  He laughed more that we give him credit for. He often walked in solitude.  Most importantly, he loved and dared to let it all go.     

Vastness

When I arrived at the care home, many of those who had been gathered were sitting quietly in their usual circle in their wheelchairs and gurneys, with a few sitting at tables just outside that circle.  As is my common  practice, I turn off the tv and begin my general greetings as I set out what we may need to create a sense of worship space.  I walk around saying more hellos and handing out  song sheets.  Many I greet by name with a gentle touch or handshake.  "Hello.  How are you?  Oh, so good to see you."  This is a pretty predictable pattern that helps me to settle into a home and get a sense of how people are doing. 

When it came time to serve communion, I broke the bread (well, wafer) and then lifted the cup.  Suddenly, all changed.  We were no longer individuals with finite, failing bodies.  In front of me was a timeless sea that I can only describe as love.  At that moment I knew beyond any doubt that the living Christ was among us, and it is the living Christ that I serve.  I wept.  Please forgive this clumsy description, but such love is beyond words.  I think many elders know this.  Many have already journeyed to the far edges where land and words begin to give way to this vast sea.  I am not there yet.   I stand at the shore and simply try to touch one more time those who are passing through.  I periodically look up and gaze at the distant horizon, and the wonder of it all.   

One night when the lawn was a golden green
and the marbled moonlit trees rose like fresh memorials
in the scented air, and the whole countryside pulsed
with the chirr and murmur of insects, I lay in the grass
feeling the great distances open above me, and wondered
what I would become---and where I would find myself—
and though I barely existed, I felt for an instant
that the vast star-clustered sky was mine, and I heard
my name as if for the first time, heard it the way
one hears the wind or the rain, but faint and far-off
as though it belonged not to me but to the silence
from which it had come and to which it would go.                                                     -
Mark Strand, “My Name,” The New Yorker, April 11, 2005, p. 68.  

  

When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it and bread...

Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them. 

John 21:9,13