Remain in Me

Redbud is one of my favorite trees and one of the earliest blooming spring trees.  Unfortunately it doesn't grow at the altitude at which I live.
In John 15:1-11 Jesus tells us that he is the vine and we are the branches.  I think it is important to note that he doesn't say that he is the trunk and we are the branches.  Jesus is the whole vine and we are part of him.  This is not unlike St. Paul's image of the Body of Jesus with us as members of his Body. We are in him and he in us.
In this brief passage, Jesus uses the verb "remain" ten times.  The Greek verb "meno" is the source of our verb "remain."  It has the meaning  "to stay permanently."  "Abide" and "dwell" are other ways to translate the same verb. 
Jesus says, "Remain in me as I remain in you."  I begin my centering prayer by addressing the Risen Jesus in me and around me, on the surface of my skin and in the deepest part of who I am.  In him I live and move and have my being. Always!  This imagery feels even more intimate to me than the mutual knowing between the Good Shepherd and his sheep.  The sap flows through the trunk and into the branches.  The very life of the Risen Jesus flows through every part of who I am and through every human being.  This shared life lasts for good, forever.

Intimacy

Predicted freeze didn't happen last night.  Wind kept up all night and today.  White caps on the lake.  Spring wins this round.
I've been meditating on John 10:14-18.  Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd.  I know my sheep and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father."  The unique knowledge and love between the Father and Son is reflected in our relationship with Jesus.
It is a great comfort to me that Jesus knows me intimately, knows everything I am and everything about me, and still loves me.  That makes it very clear that I don't earn his love.  His love for me is not a response.  Jesus loves me, not because of who I am, but because of who he is.  His heart if full and overflowing with love always.
His unearned love, sometimes working through me, brings us all together in one flock.

Spring?

Every year it seems here in our mountains spring don't come easy.  Never mind that a month ago we had two weeks of summer.  Winter still keeps pushing in.  I took this picture Monday morning from my car on my way out of my neighborhood to Baltimore.  I scraped four inches off my car before leaving and I'm told we had four more that day.  When I returned the next afternoon all the snow was gone.
We had two pleasant spring days.  I just came in from a long walk in the nearby woods.  I needed only a T-shirt.  Now weather report warns of a freeze tonight that may damage some plants.  Looks like winter may win this week.
But I know that sooner or later spring will out.  The reluctant trees will open their leaves.  I will put my plants out to stay (I've already had them out and in twice!)  The lake will start to warm up. 

Even when it looks like darkness and death are winning, new life and light will shine through.

Easter Volcano

Many years ago I came across this quote and used it without knowing where it came from. Today for spiritual reading I chose an old Easter sermon by Karl Rahner, published in "The Eternal Year"(English-1964;German-1953)and the quote was part of his sermon:
"His resurrection is like the first eruption of a volcano which shows that God's fire alrady burns in the innermost depths of the earth, and that everything shall be brought to a holy glow in his light. He rose to show that this has already begun. The new creation has already started, the new power of a transfigued earth is already being formed from the world's innermost heart, into which Christ descended by dying. Futility, sin and death are already conquered in the innermost realm of all reality, and only the "little while" (which we call history) is needed until what has actually already happened appears everywhere in glory and not only in the body of Jesus."
The resurrection, then, isn't just something that happend to Jesus as an individual. It has happened to all creation. The world may still look stale and sad, but new life is bubbling just below the surface getting ready to flow out bright and beautiful.

Deep Peace

"Peace" is the first thing the Risen Jesus says to the disciples on the evening of the resurrection in John's Gospel. Peace (Shalom) is the customary Jewish greeting, but to make it clear that he is not just greeting them, he repeats "Peace." (20:10-21) He is not wishing them peace, but telling them that his presence brings them peace.
The peace that Jesus brings is not the absence of war. His peace can exist even in the midst of war and suffering and disappointments.
The source of this kind of deep peace is our awareness of the presence of the Risen Jesus in us and around us and among us. The constant presence of the One who has conquered sin and death assures us that nothing can harm us in any ultimate way.
I have thought a lot about what peace means since my teen years. I remember asking myself when I was worried about a test how important this would be to me in ten years. A kind of stab at peace. Through the years, as more serious problems came up, I needed more than that kind of reasoning. I needed faith. Not just believing that Jesus was living within me, but believing in Jesus living within me. Learning to count on his gracious and all powerful love.
I found ways to pray that helped me to rest in this faith, especially centering prayer which has been an essential part of my life for more than 30 years now.
Music has also added to my peace. On a 1988 DVD "Jewel Lake" Bill Douglas put this Gaelic blessing to a lovely sort of chant that captured the deep peace of the words:
Deep Peace of the running wave to you
Deep Peace of the flowing air to you
Deep Peace of the quiet earth to you
Deep Peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep Peace of the gentle night to you.
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you.
Deep Peace to you.
(Even though the snow came on April 11, by evening this was the peaceful scene out my back door.)

Resurrection Appearances

"Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them." (John 20:26) This is the way John describes Jesus' appearance to the disciples Easter evening and a week later. I used to think that the risen body of Jesus was so changed that it would pass through the closed doors. As I meditated on this passage yesterday and today, I found myself thinking that the Risen Jesus passed from the heavenly dimension into the earthly dimension.
I looked back through the pictures I took in the Holy Land to find this one of a grove in Capernaum, the city in Galilee where Jesus lived. I remember thinking, when I took it, that Jesus might have gathered there with his friends, just as the people in the picture. If time is simply another dimension, I imagined that Jesus and his friends were still there in that other dimension. If I had a way into the dimension of time, I could be there in the grove with them. Standing exactly where I was, I would be back 2,000 years.
Decades of reading science fiction and seeing movies about time travel are what prompt these thoughts.
While we will never completely understand what the resurrection appearances were like, I am finding it helpful to think of Jesus moving back and forth between a heavenly dimension, similar to the dimension of time, and our earthly dimension. I think of the heavenly dimension as entirely God, the Spirit of Love. When Jesus dies and rises his human body and soul passes into God. For some time after that, the Risen Jesus occasionally passes back into this dimension where his followers can really see and experience him. He's not passing through doors; he's passing from one dimension to another.
Our human concepts will never be adequate to the reality of the resurrection appearances, but I am finding this dimensional way of thinking about them very helpful, especially in my prayer.

Easter Birds

This is the crippled female mallard who has made her home once more in one of the pine bushes near my house. She sits like this for the longest while, I guess making sure no enemies are watching, and then she flutters up a couple feet, slips underneath some branches, and disappears into the bush. The bush shows no sign of her presence. Her husband is huddled down on my dock, against today's windy, cool, rainy, even sleety, weather.
Easter morning my "gay" cardinal showed up with his wife! Big surprise! He brought her to the side mirror of my car to show her the cardinal that I thought he had been flirting with. It was funny watching her do the same thing he had done, looking into the mirror and then jumping on top of it to see the bird behind it who keeps mysteriously disappearing.
Watching birds has become a valuable part of my life here. I think even of my relationship with God.