Changing Relationship

The name that God gives Moses reveals and conceals at the same time. Whether our relationship with this God is 20 or 40 or 80 years old,  I AM WHAT I AM helps us to realize that the relationship can always be deeper.  A healthy relationship with I AM is one that is always changing.  Better understanding.  More profound love.

(I am going to start using earlier pictures, so don't think the Lake is thawed and already has boats on it.) 

80

I am grateful for the blessing of surviving to celebrate my 80th birthday.  This picture from several years ago was filed under "Awakened by Beauty," whom we sometimes call God.

I prayed and meditated on Psalm 90 this morning: "from age to age you are God....Our life is a mere seventy years, eighty with good health....Teach us to make use of our days and bring wisdom to our hearts....shine your love on us each dawn and gladden all our days.  Balance our past sorrows with present joys and let your servants, young and old, see the splendor of your work.  Let your loveliness shine on us, and bless the work we do, bless the work of our hands" (1994 translation by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy.)

I thank God for showing Godself in my family and friends, in nature, in Eucharist, and in the beauty that human beings create, like movies.

Cross

This is the painting of the 2nd station from St. Martin de Porres Church.  In the Gospel according to John, he writes "So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha." (19:16-17)  The other three Gospels just say that they led Jesus out to be crucified.  They mention the cross only when Simon is made to carry it, an incident that John doesn't have in his Gospel. 

Jesus embraces all the pain and suffering of the human race.

I love you, Jesus my love, let me love you always.

I AM ?!

"What's your name?" Moses asks God in his encounter with the burning bush.  God replies, "Elyeh-Asher-Ehyeh."  This is how Robert Alter puts the Hebrew in our alphabet in his fine translation of The Five Books of Moses.  Alter says that the most plausible construction is "I-Will-Be-Who-I- Will-Be," but that it could also be "I-Am-That-I-Am" or "I-Am-He-Who-Endures."  There is a lot of theological speculation about the meaning of this name.
Carey Walsh says that the name protects as it reveals Divinity.  Moses wants to get to know God.  God initiates an intimate relationship with Moses, but there will always be an element of mystery.  The Divine remains elusive.

Approaching Holiness

Carey Walsh in her book Chasing Mystery proposes Moses in the story of the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-15) as a model for approaching mystery.  Moses pauses to check out this bush.  A fourth grader told me once that it was burning up but not burning down.  Divine presence is inviting rather than coercive.  It's as if God were saying, "If Moses notices the difference, then I shall speak to him."  God is waiting, not to see if Moses merits a revelation, but to see if he is receptive, ready for a relationship.  Moses slows down and pays attention to "the ordinary, from which the holy blooms."

Pilate and Jesus

The church of St. Martin de Porres in Marigot on St. Martin has a unique set of the stations of the Cross.  Each is a painting done by a different artist in whatever style he or she chose.  This is the first station: Pilate condemns Jesus to death.

Luke 23:1-25 has Pilate declare the innocence of Jesus three times.  Finally, however, Pilate caves in to the demands of leaders and the crowd, and hands Jesus over to their will.

We ask forgiveness for the many times we caved in to the crowd.

I love you, Jesus my Love, let me love you always.

Glory

While Jesus is praying on the mountain Luke says that Jesus' clothing becomes "dazzling white" (9:28-36) and  that Moses and Elijah appeared with him "in glory."  When the disciples wake up they see "his glory."  The luminous brilliance that fills them and surrounds them is the presence and power of God.  It is a glimpse of the Risen Christ and the Christ who will come in glory.