Dear All,
We hope you have had a good ‘Eastering’ week! Maybe for some it has been a bit of a struggle? This might be because we expect ourselves to enter fully into Good Friday and Holy Saturday and then, literally overnight, to jump into Easter – the season that is so full of joyous hope. Amongst our attachments this week are a couple of pieces that recognize that struggle and offer some help.
There are also two of Joyce Rupp’s reflections. She captures Easter particularly well, I think. We hope you will enjoy them.
For our blessing this week we have chosen an Irish Blessing from Sacred Weave. Wishing you, and those you love, many blessings,
With our love & prayer for you over these Eastertide weeks,
A reminder: zoomed Evening Prayer begins again on Thursday 16th next week. ‘In Person’ Evening Prayer as usual on Tuesday 14th & Wednesday 15th
A Better Resurrection
I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.
My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.
My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perished thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.
Christina Rossetti
Awaken Me
Joyce Rupp
Risen One,
come, meet me
in the garden of my life.
Lure me into elation.
Revive my silent hope.
Coax my dormant dreams.
Raise my neglected gratitude.
Entice my tired enthusiasm.
Give life to my faltering relationships.
Roll back the stone of my indifference.
Unwrap the deadness in my spiritual life.
Impart heartiness in my work.
Risen One,
send me forth as a disciple of your unwavering love,
a messenger
of your unlimited joy.
Resurrected One,
may I become ever more convinced
that your presence lives on,
and on, and on,
and on.
Awaken me!
Awaken me!
Awakened One
source of inner power
restorer of tombed vitality
giver of graced gusto
you who have been raised
from the cold stone of death
come and resurrect me
from my own entombment
repair what has weakened
in my spiritual endeavors
revive my mildewed
cobwebbed relationships
lift up my waning hope
when I wail with the world’s pain
restore my sense of oneness
with all your creation
refresh my daily call
to embrace the sacred
to find you in every gesture
that dances with your heart
push back the stone
of self-centredness
untomb my generosity
renew my dedication
raise up my dilapidated dreams
restore my ancient union
resuscitate my burning desire
re-establish my priorities
so you become the Centre
of all I am and all I do
Joyce Rupp
The Trouble with Easter
by Steve Garnaas-Holmes
When the light breaks in
at the break of dawn
things get broken.
My fear is shattered, anxiety demolished.
Death and suffering, those fine excuses,
stolen right out from under me.
A hard, crusty way of living, on the defense,
trying to stay one step ahead of loss,
all messed up now.
Into the shadows and their blind alleys
you come with your light, splitting the darkness
wide open.
You rise up out of the grave—sometimes
sneaky slowly, sometimes lurching—
and haul me out, like it or not,
robbed of old ways, that life
we have to leave behind, that safe, familiar life,
into this new, wild, free, scary one.