Trusting because of how it has been to date
Reflections on Palm Sunday on line Quaker Meeting
Meeting for Worship was as it has been for the last two weeks on line although my computer is showing its age as I couldn't download zoom. Instead, I phoned in. I found it was more akin to sitting in the meetinghouse than watching the twenty-odd individual screens. I had nothing to watch so my eyes naturally closed and my ears were attentive to the silence and the phone on loudspeaker.
Out of the silence, I heard,
“This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.
JOHN O’DONOHUE”
Another ministry followed which reflected on a radio clip in which medics were discussing the ethical dilemma they may soon face of deciding who should have a ventilator or not.
I picked up a pen as I listened and began to write,
I wonder what this is doing to us? What is it revealing about us? What is it bringing to the surface?
Thinking of Christ on the cross or indeed any innocent person about to be killed. What is on their mind and in their heart will show at the point of death — what matters.
Like the seasons will reveal nature so these seasons of life reveal us.
Christ did not walk freely to the cross he sweat blood such was the impact of anticipating it.
His prayer was not, “ I am ready I am willing to die” it was, “ Father if there is another way please let’s do it but if there is not thy will be done.”
Trusting without knowing? No trusting because of how it has been to date.
Singing is an expression of the soul and so I took to the river to sing on Palm Sunday before the Quaker meeting.
best day,
g
