Inexpressible Joy

 

The joy that I have been experiencing lately was heightened by my traveling to the lowlands this week. Redbud doesn't grow in the mountains where I live. I think it is probably my favorite spring blossom. So my trip was a lavender journey into joy.
Springtime accounts for some of the intense joy that I have been experiencing lately, but I think my recent immersion in the New Testament has something to do with it as well. For two months I have been studying in a much deeper way than before the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, and the letters of Paul. Not just studying them, but reflecting on them in a very prayerful way and sharing them with others. I have been greatly impressed with the struggle of these sacred writers to express the inexpressible God. It is impossible to be drawn into the Divine Mystery without experiencing Divine Joy.

Undifferentiated Joy

 

I feel like just a mess of joy. Yesterday and today have been glorious days, as hot and pretty as any we get in the summer in these mountains. Spring, which comes late to us, seems finally to have gotten up nerve enough to give it a try. A few new flowers and lots of bird song. This evening's sunset was brilliant and long lasting. I had a hard time deciding which picture to use of the more than twenty I took.
I can remember a time long ago when I was experiencing a lot of anxiety and didn't seem able to get on top of it. A friend called it "undifferentiated anxiety." He suggested I make a list of all the things that I was anxious about; prioritize them; and then, starting at the top, deal with them one at a time. It was a big help.
Lately, especially these last two glorious days, I have been feeling a lot of joy. It's like it's coming at me from every direction. Yesterday, as I started trying to name the source, the phrase "undiffentiated joy" popped into my head. I don't think I want to get to the bottom of this. I doubt that I could. Like God.

Emerging from Chaos

 

"The dynamic of dying and rising, of going down into chaos with something new emerging...this is a dynamic that permeates God's Universe."
This quote from John Surette, SJ, is on April in this year's wonder-full calendar from www.ministryofthearts.org

New Life out of Death

 

In nature, death and new life go hand in hand. Winter's death and Spring's new life. That's one way that God has of helping us to understand the Paschal Mystery, the dying and rising of Jesus.
In his Gospel, Luke is especially intent on helping us to focus on the connection between suffering and glory, between death and new life. Along with Mark and Matthew, Luke has Jesus predict the connection between his death and resurrection three times before his Passion. But it is only in Luke that we are reminded of this connection three times after the Resurrection.
The "two men in dazzling clothes" at the tomb of Jesus tell the women, "Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." 24:6
Of the two disciples on the way to Emmaus Jesus asks, "Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?" 24:26
When Jesus appears to the disciples gathered together he opens their minds to the "law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms" and says "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day." 24:46
We may not always catch it, but in our experience also, suffering and joy, death and new life go hand in hand.

Full Life Here

 

Needless to say, this is not now here in these mountains. This stunning variety was in Vancouver several years ago. I was looking for something that would capture the full life that the Risen Jesus offers us.
In chapter 20 of the Gospel according to John we see believing begetting life. First the disciple whom Jesus loved believes, then Mary Magdalene, then the disciples in the locked room, then Thomas with an over-the-top "My Lord and my God!" Then all of us since. "Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed." John tells us that these things were written that we may believe and in believing we may have life in Jesus.

Earlier Sign

 

The birds are an even earlier sgn of spring than any flowers, but they are harder to capture in a picture. This one was outside my bedroom in the early morning. When I went walking this morning it was still cool, but very sunny. The birds were loving it. Lots of chirping and singing. Lots of God in the air.
The birds come even earlier than those little yellow flowers that grow close to ground along the road. I'm told by two different people that they are coltsfoot (not groundsels."

Happy Easter!

 

i who have died
am alive again today
and this is the sun's birthday
this is the birthday of life
and of love and wings
and the gay great happening
illimitably earth.
(e.e.cummings)