Holy Week: Mapping the Soul’s Journey

Religion, despite its many problems—and the spirituality that keeps it fresh—holds the power to transform our lives. Take Holy Week, for example. Holy week is an ancient practice of soul-care. It is, at its core, a mapping of the human journey—from our grand entrance, through ups and downs of our lives, into suffering, death, and final transformation. Holy Week aims to teach us to walk our journey with courage and hope, no matter what may come our way. Holy Week is a crash course in being human, being human well, and growing our soul in such a way that we manifest the presence of God.

I don’t know where else we can go to school ourselves in what it means to live well. There are, of course, classes and books and teachers—many of them quite good and helpful. But over the course of my life and ministry, I’ve come to more fully appreciate this ancient practice as some of the best soul-care available, some of the best teaching on living and dying well that we can find anywhere. What’s more, it’s an annual ritual that we do together. Over and over, in the course of a life, we come to this annual renewal of our understanding and practice of what it takes to live well.

So I write to invite you into Holy Week. I invite you into all of it, all eight days. Here’s a little map for your journey:

The first day, Palm Sunday, we remember how we entered life—innocent, humble, and vulnerable, carried not by our own two legs, but by someone else, and into a life we cannot control. Palm Sunday, Jesus’ Triumphal Entry, teaches us what we all must do—enter the experiment and experience of our lives, show up, and face whatever will come our way.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are days without religious services. They map the ordinary seasons of our lives, those years that are easy to forget. Yet, God is there teaching in the Temple of our bodies, shaping our souls, even when we don’t know it.

Thursday comes. It’s the Last Supper; we feast on life itself, the gift of the life God gives us. And we take stock of those treacherous parts within us, the inner-Judas, the dark thoughts and impulses and fears that threaten our lives. The ritual of the foot washing reminds us that while there are unclean parts of us, we are, nevertheless, completely loved.

Then on Friday, which our tradition calls “Good,” Jesus dies in the service of love. We confront the forces of violence, greed, and evil in the world. We confess our complicity in them. We come face to face with our own mortality and ask new questions about what it means to live more fully now in the light of our coming death. But we also recognize that parts of our inner lives—the assumptions, behaviors, prejudices, masks, competing voices, and lies we’ve believed too long—all this must die in the service of something greater: love and the life love lives to nourish and sustain. In fact, we come to realize that only by suffering, by feeling the pain of life, the losses and trauma’s we’ve experienced, can the lifeblood within us flow freely and can our souls make the journey into the fullness of who we really are. The Good Friday service carries into the darkness the false parts of us that must die if we are to live.

Holy Saturday is a day of quiet. Jesus is in the tomb, and we reconnect humbly with the earth from which we come.

Then Easter comes. On Saturday night, at the Vigil, we carry the light of Christ back into the darkened sanctuary of our lives. We bear the sacred flame and chant the Alleluia , pressing back against the darkness and our fears, witnesses to the triumph of love and life and to the inner impulse of our souls that seek freedom and fulfillment. And then on Easter morning, Alleluias fill our ears, and we sense the soulful, irrepressible force of life within us—the glad truth that death is not the last word, nor is suffering. Life always breaks through the hard ground of our winters with a new springtime of wonder and hope, past the dark woods of our lives and into the bright meadow of our soul’s flourishing.

Our life’s journey is a journey through all the ups and downs and into the transformation of our lives.

We are borne along by the power of love and the irrepressible nature of our true selves, the glory of our God-breathed souls.

We glimpse what our lives can become.

New.

Beautiful.

Powerful.

Free.

Joyous.

We can survive the pain: Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonnet on suffering transformed

Here's my most recent translation of Rainer Maria Rilke's poem from his Sonnets to Orpheus, Part 1, Number 19.  Rilke writes during another time of cultural and political tumult.  This poem is part of a collection of 55 poems written in 1922 during what he called "a savage creative storm."  It's not strange that I'm drawn these days to writers and artists who worked a century ago (C.G. Jung, Herman Hesse, Teilhard de Chardin, John Muir, and so on); their experience companion my own.  

Orpheus ("God of the lyre" in this poem) is the legendary musician, poet, and prophet of ancient Greek religion and myth. Rilke, formed within a Christian milieu and who drinks from that source, broadens the spiritual journey and universalizes it bu his invocation of Orpheus.

Having lived with this poem for quite awhile, I'm drawn to its ability to describe my current experience of the crisis of our times, the effect of that experience on my inner and outer life, as well as the lives of those around me.  It permits, even reverences, the suffering while inviting me to see the way pain is gathered into Something larger and is eventually transformed.  For the Christian, there are, of course, echoes of the crucifixion and resurrection and consummation, giving shape to a hopeful narrative that can guide our lives no matter what comes our way.  

Here is it . . .

Like cloud-shapes, torn and molded by the wind, 

the world is being changed, and rapidly. 

What comes into the Fullness 

falls toward the Ancient Source, and gratefully.

Soaring over the tumult and the change, 

like some great bird, borne further and higher, 

intones the Song that pierced the dawn 

on that First Day, O God of the lyre. 

No one ought ever love their suffering, 

but no one ever loves without its pain; 

and as we die, we come to wondering 

if there was something we could not yet see— 

that winged Thing that merges with Earth’s suffering 

to make us what we otherwise would never be. 

At the Border: Why and How to Advocate for Children and their Families

The issues we face today are Goliath in nature—tensions on the Korean peninsula, conflict in the Middle East, the effects of climate change, and our complicity in practices that cause ecological destruction and aggravate the lives of people across the planet, especially the poor. Then there’s the scourge of racism, global terror, nationalism, authoritarianism, and now, the unconscionable travesty on our borders, where children of immigrants have been torn from their parents and placed in holding cells and detention camps. 

Many recognize that US immigration policies have needed reform for years. But this administration’s insistence on criminalizing immigrants, and using family separation as a deterrent to immigration—even those seeking asylum in the US—is immoral and contrary to our values. In the past, those detained were typically people identified as a threat—gang members, drug smugglers, and human traffickers. Ordinary people, fleeing violence or poverty were welcomed and given the opportunity to present their case for asylum. 

While the President has appeared to soften this approach, there is no plan for the reunification of families, children are still farmed out across the country in foster settings, and parents are still detained or even deported. While it appears that children crossing the border with their parents may no longer be separated from their parents, these families will all be held in detention facilities. 

The world knows what detention facilities mean, they are concentration camps—they’re never good for adults, let alone children. Detention camps are shameful symbols of the kind of dehumanizing practices most people have later come to abhor. 

This weekend, Pastor Mary (Davis Community Church) is helping lead a group of several dozen advocates from our area to the border. Our faith-based network through Sacramento ACT ?and the newly formed local coalition we’re calling ACT in Yolo) will join thousands from California and other parts of the country to express our values and advocate for humane treatment of those coming across the border, especially those seeking asylum who have been criminalized by our government. 

And here’s what they are advocating for:

• The immediate end of the inhumane and immoral practice of separating children from their parents
• The immediate reunification of over 2,000 children who have been torn apart from their mothers and fathers
• To end the inhumane practice of incarcerating children in our country
• To replace the current system of childhood incarceration rooted in punishment and profit with a new system rooted in restorative justice and healing

This is God’s work. It is the way of Jesus. 

The best of our religious values, across the faith communities, urge people of faith to provide sanctuary for those in danger, hospitality to those seeking comfort, and dignity to all God’s children regardless of race, religion, gender, age, ethnicity, or national identity. 

How is it that we have departed from these values? 

And where, in particular, is the church’s voice protesting such abhorrent practices, and especially the twisted and blasphemous use of biblical texts (Romans 13.1) by this administration’s spokespersons as they attempt justify adherence to abhorrent policies, while ignoring the higher biblical mandate that “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13.10).

Gratefully, more and more people are rising up against this tyranny. 

And there are things you and I can do. But there’s no one best thing. Do what you can do; what’s within your particular reach. Pastor Mary and others will be on the border, performing non-violent, direct moral action to bring light into this darkness. But other ways are just as important and effective, no matter how small they may seem.

Here are a few:

1. Write letters and emails to editors, legislators, and politicians (DCC will have action tables at church this Sunday helping you do just this)

2. Attend vigils, actions, and rallies. There is one tonight (Thursday) here in Davis at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, 640 Hawthorn Ln, Davis, CA 95616, from 7:30-9:00pm. It’s the longest day of the year, the summer solstice, and accordingly, we want to bring as much light on this issue as we can. This will be a long struggle for change, reform, and transformation of our nation. There will be many other opportunities.

3. Engage with local immigrant rights and advocacy groups. Our affiliation with SacACT and ACT in Yolo is an important way to work for justice locally. We have a detention center right her in Woodland. Let me or Pastor Mary know if you with to be involved in this work.

4. Contribute funds for family reunification. Here’s one: https://togetherrising.org/heres-how-you-are-serving-the-s…/. More will come our way, some through the Presbyterian Church USA.

5. Register voters, campaign for and elect candidates you know will lead and serve with moral courage especially in these midterm elections.

6. Keep connected with the local church. A strong, healthy, and financially sustainable congregation is a moral and spiritual necessity in these years. There is a long and winding journey ahead of us as a nation. The local church and its partnership is a socially responsible way to engage in reforms that are progressive, inclusive, and oriented to biblical justice. 

7. Stay centered and nourished spiritually. Keep to your practices of prayer, study, meditation, and community, as well as to our congregation’s Three Practices of Sabbath, Self-Care, and Service. And participate in courses through Integrated Spirituality that can keep you grounded for the long haul.

8. Be kind. Remember that every person deserves dignity. No one is a monster, even if you consider them an enemy or if they vote differently than you do. Anger, belittling, name-calling or finger-pointing helps no one and only adds to the divisions, hurt, suspicion, and violence.

9. Breathe and pray. Pray and breathe. And most of all . . . love one another.

#ReclaimJesus from white nationalism

Jesus is being used today for purpose antithetical to the trajectory of Jesus' way of life, the implications of his message.  The #TimeIsNow to #ReclaimJesus and rescue the gospel from the ideologues who turn Jesus into an acolyte of nationalist religion, those who promote the idolatry of white supremacy.