Tag: god

Companions

I was welcomed as a Companion into the Northumbria Community last Saturday (October 4, 2025). For those unfamiliar with Northumbria, it is a semi-monastic, dispersed Celtic Christian community. It is small, and members are scattered worldwide. Its home is the Northumbria area of Great Britain. The “mother house,” Nether Springs, is situated halfway between Newcastle and Lindisfarne (the Holy Island). You can check out the community online here.

In 2002, I came across the book Celtic Daily Prayer on a bookshelf and decided to purchase it. It had a glowing review by Richard Foster, and you cannot go wrong with him. I took it home, put it on my bookshelf, and it remained unopened for a little over ten years.

For about 40 years, I had been starting each day using readings from one of Reuben Job’s Guide to Prayer books. They served me well for those years, but it was time for something new. I had been interested in Celtic Christianity for a long time, so I pulled CDP down and began to explore it. Soon, I looked up Northumbria, contacted them, and Catherine, one of the resident staff, responded. It turns out that this fine Celtic woman was from East Tennessee and attended college in upstate South Carolina. She invited me to investigate Northumbria and encouraged me in my spiritual walk. I became a “friend” of the community, which meant I was on their email list.

I started practicing their daily devotions (morning, midday, and evening prayer) and was drawn to the community. After attending an online introductory retreat, I became a novitiate, undergoing a series of studies and times of prayer with a mentor to determine if the Spirit was leading me to become a deeper part of this community. Catherine told me not to hurry, to take my time, to listen, pray, and think about it. Most novitiates took between nine months and a year. I took about 4 years.

My mentor, Craig, was incredibly patient with me. He walked beside me at my pace. He did not push or guide me as much as he explored with me. At the very beginning of our time together, since he was my mentor and I was his mentee, I sent him a bag of Mentos as a gift for the journey. Along the way, I made friends with other members of the Community, all of whom were online and living in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. I now have a group (Ann, Alan, Sarah, Chris, and Ali) who are spiritual traveling companions with me. We are spread out from Madagascar to England, New York, Washington, and down to Florence.

After finishing my novitiate, I was accepted as a Companion in the Community. Companions make a vow to live according to the Rule of the Community.  Rule here does not mean regulations, like the rules of a game, but rather, in the orthodox sense, a way of living. The Rule of Northumbria is Availability and Vulnerability. “We are called to be AVAILABLE to God and to others… We are called to intentional, deliberate VULNERABILITY…”You can check out more about it here.

Although Northumbria is a religious organization, it is not a church. Most of us in the community are members of other churches, various denominations. I am still a member of the United Methodist Church and an ordained elder within it.

The Welcoming Ceremony was a simple online service attended by my mentor Craig, Catherine from the Mother House, my group friends, and a few individuals Craig had invited. Prayers were said, blessings bestowed, testimonies shared, and gifts exchanged. It was a genuinely nice ceremony. I knew I would like it, but I was surprised at the effect it had on me afterwards.

When it was over, I signed off the meeting and stepped outside to do my regular Saturday errands —wash the car, fill it with gas, and buy groceries. As I walked off my front porch, I had a sense I was not alone. These people I had grown to know and love, though all living hundreds and thousands of miles from me, were somehow with me. And not just them, but others who had committed to this Rule of life, to availability and vulnerability. The saints I had been studying —Aiden, Cuthbert, Finan, Boisil, Brigid, Patrick, Brendan, Ita, Samthann, and so many more — surrounded me. They were with me as I washed the car, spoke to the people at the gas station, and chatted with the woman at the grocery checkout. They were reminding me that every step was walking on holy ground and that I was never alone. They were my Companions.

Companion comes from the Latin and Old French words that mean “one who breaks bread with another.” Better translated, one who shares your life, because breaking bread is what we do to live. Companions walk with us, share their experiences, and explore our path. When I was ordained an elder in the UMC, I had a vision of all of us working together, sharing our lives, and being fellow travelers on the Way of Jesus. However, we quickly discover that it is less of a path we walk and more of a job we do. Numbers measure us. All meaningful, but still numbers. The number of new members, people attending worship, people involved in ministries to the community and the world, and dollars given to support ministries around the world—essential numbers, but still numbers. And we are judged and measured by them, by some of the people who were ordained with us. It quickly becomes a formal and informal hierarchy. We are no longer sharing bread; we are earning it.

But in my new community, none of us work for it (or very few do). No One exercises authority over others. We travel together, being available to God and others. We are open to questions and do not have to answer or defend anything. A song from my late teen years says.

“…he walks in quiet solitude, the forests and the streams.
Seeking grace in every step he takes
His sight has turned inside himself to try and understand
The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake.”

Though I am far from the Rocky Mountains, as mentioned in this song, with my Companions, I am seeking grace in every step I take, and my sight has turned inside where Jesus said the realm of God is.

Into My Heart

“You should think about getting a calcium score test.” Don, my general practitioner, was not only my primary physician but also my friend. And his advice had always been good before, although I had not always heeded it, so I said yes. He set up the scheduled test.

A calcium score test utilizes a CT scanner and is a quick and easy procedure. You do not have to undress, remove all metal, or go into a long tube, unlike with other tests. It measures the amount of calcium buildup in your coronary arteries. The information can help you determine what you can do to ward off further heart problems. Mine took about 5 minutes.

Scores from 0-50 are considered good; scores from 51-400 are considered moderately risky; scores over 500 are highly risky. As soon as he got the results, Don called me. “Yours is right at 2600,” he said. “You should see a cardiologist.” He set up the appointment.

A calcium score tells you that calcium buildup is there, but it does not tell you where. For that, they have to go in and look. My cardiologist, the newest addition to my medical team (I now have enough to form a football team), said I needed a heart cath. He would go in through my wrist, but if something kept him from doing that, he would go in through my groin. The procedure date was set.

I arrived at McLeod Medical Center at 6 a.m. and was quickly taken back to what my sister-in-law (who was there with my wife) called “the getting ready room.” Nurses and techs began coming in. An EKG was done, probably the most painful part of the whole day, but only because they had to push the wand hard against my ribs. While it was uncomfortable, it was not very painful. My arm was shaved, along with the area on my groin (in case they needed it). One nurse, Paige, was with me the whole time I was there. She was great in caring for me and very comforting to Cathy, who was worried but trying her best not to show it. About 9:30, they wheeled me back to the procedure room. As I was being wheeled into the room, one of the nurses, Misty, recognized me. “Pastor Mike!” she said. “I saw that name and hoped it was you.” I had been her pastor for 9 years, had baptized her child (now a middle schooler), and gotten to know her and her husband. It was good to have someone you know in the room.

I slid onto the OR table. They strapped my body down, then pulled out arm extensions, and strapped my arms and hands down to keep me from moving. I lay there in cruciform, looking up at the devices over me. They explained that they would put an IV in my left arm and then a catheter in my right. They would give me something to dilate the artery so the cath tube could go easily up to my heart (this was the shortest route), and I might feel some burning for a few seconds as they did that. (I did not.)

I was not worried. I don’t worry about much these days. Somewhere along my spiritual journey, I have become something of a Celtic Buddhist Stoic Christian, accepting each day as it comes. If they found blockages and needed to use stents or a balloon, I would be okay with that. If things were terrible and I needed heart surgery, I would be OK. And if I were one of the sporadic cases where I died, I would still be okay.

As I lay there, strapped down, waiting, praying, another image came to mind. I was in the same position- cruciform and strapped down- that people being executed by lethal injection are put. You are laid out, the needles used for injecting the deadly chemicals are hooked to your IV, and you wait.

This, of course, was the form Jesus was in when he was executed, only he was upright. More people could see him, and it was more torturous.

I remembered years ago when a person was being killed in Texas. There was a group of anti-death penalty folks protesting outside the building. There was also a group of females dressed as cheerleaders holding up a giant syringe and cheering for the procedure.

An old song from my teenage years came to mind. “Lift Jesus higher. Lift Jesus higher. Lift him up for the world to see. He said, ‘If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me.’” We used to sing it as loud as we could, pouring our hearts and souls into it. We thought it meant singing praise songs, telling others about him, wearing crosses, bracelets, and t-shirts with Jesus on them. Eventually, I read the Bible. Jesus did say that. But it wasn’t a praise thing. He was talking about his death, specifically his death on a cross.

Then it dawned on me. Maybe the easiest way for Jesus to “get into our hearts” was when we were like this—strapped down, immobile, unable to do anything. So many of us are raised thinking that we have to get our lives straight, give up our sinful ways, and become something new before Christ can come to us. But maybe it’s when we aren’t able to do anything that the Christ of the cross can get to our hearts. Perhaps that’s when it is easiest.

A couple of weeks after the procedure, I was having coffee with a friend. I told her my thoughts, and she said, “You know, that’s the same position they put you in when you have a child by C-section.” I did not know that. But now I do.

Perhaps it is all connected. When we cannot do anything, when we are without control of even our own life, then death and a new birth can come. Another song from years ago came to mind. “Into my heart. Into my heart. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus. Come in today. Come in to stay. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.”

So you’ll know, my procedure showed one artery blocked at 50%. They do not need to take any action until it reaches 70%. All the rest were negligible. After the preparation, the procedure took only ten minutes. And all of the people at McLeod were great! My cardiologist said everything was okay and that he would see me in six months. He did tell me I needed to lose some weight. He agreed with my other nine physicians. “Ten out of ten doctors agree, Mike needs to lose weight.” I’m working on it. Since the procedure, I find myself singing more during my daily times of meditation and devotion. The songs vary, but always a verse of Into My Heart sneaks in.

A Life of Prayer

Celtic Christians, like the Celtic pagans before them, prayed continually. From the moment of waking in the morning until they fell asleep at night, their life was surrounded by prayer. Their faith was more passed on to each generation than discussed. Their prayers were about whatever they were doing. Stirring up the peat from last night’s fire, they would pray that the Lord of fire on the earth and in the heart would stir up a fire in them. As they baked bread, they would pray that the food would nourish them and that the world would be nourished. Working the farm, weaving the cloth, washing the clothes, or the body was all part of their prayer. Walking the paths, they would pray for guidance and give thanks for the earth beneath their feet.

This is not to romanticize those days. I would not want to give up all the advantages of modern life. Life was hard then, especially compared to now. But they did not know it was hard. It was just life. In a couple of hundred years, people may say the same thing about the way we live now.

But I do long for something of that life of prayer. To be connected through my spirit to what I do every day, to the people I see, to the earth around, underneath, and above me.

So while I do not have to stir the coals to warm the house, I can utter a prayer to God who has given me a warm place to stay, to Christ who cares for those who do not have the same, and to the Spirit that guides me in sharing warmth with others. While I do not pray to the Creator of all things to bless my fields, I can ask that my time at the computer be helpful, uplifting, and honoring of all who are creators.

I have a collection of Celtic prayers, Carmina Gadelica, that were gathered from the people in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales in the nineteenth century. These prayers have their roots in the ancient prayers of their people. Many of them speak to me, and I use them to say my heart. Here’s one for starting the day.


Bless to me, O God,
   Each thing mine eye sees;
Bless to me, O God,
   Each sound mine ear hears;
Bless to me, O God,
   Each odour that goes to my nostrils
Bless to me, O God,
   Each taste that goes to my lips;
   Each note that goes to my song,
   Each ray that guides my way,
   Each thing that I pursue.
   Each lure that tempts my will,
The zeal that seeks my living soul.
The Three that seek my heart,
The zeal that seeks my living soul,
The Three that seek my heart.

(From Catherine Maclean, crofter, Naast, Gairloch)

Alison Krauss and Union Station recorded a song, A Living Prayer. It speaks to me, too.

I long for a life of prayer, and I think the longing is a prayer itself.

A Reminder…and a Testimony

This morning I read John 12:44-50. Jesus says this wonderful thing in this passage. “I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world but to save the world.” (verse 47) But then he goes on to say, “The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge,…” (verse 48).

I sat in silence, trying to hear something profound in my heart, when a memory came flooding back from many years ago.

I went one night to hear a friend preach. I was always looking for a sermon idea to “borrow,” a good phrase or turn of words—maybe a story or image. But I also went because I had screwed up some things badly in my life. Nothing new, it seems. I had a habit of doing that. Ask any of my friends, and more of those who used to be friends. They will tell you. I was feeling pretty bad about it. Well, about myself.

It just so happened that my friend was preaching about screwing up. From the way he preached, I could tell that he had, too. Maybe we all have.

Near the end of the sermon, when I was beating myself up inside, he said, “You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting,” quoting Daniel. I thought that’s true right here. Then he said, “You have sinned and fallen short…,” quoting Paul in Romans. I felt another punch to my gut. A third hit came when he said, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil,” from 2 Corinthians.

He wound it up with this- “You have been judged by God and found guilty, and your judgment is this. You are judged to be loved by God forever, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.” Then, as he often did, he sat down.

This morning, I felt the tears of relief and joy again that I felt that night long ago. I remembered. God loves me and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

Happy St. John’s (the Baptist) Eve!

A little-recognized holiday in the US is St. John’s Day, which begins at sunset on June 23 and goes through June 24. It celebrates the birth of John the Baptist. According to the gospel story, Elizabeth, John’s older mother, was about six months ahead of her cousin Mary, who was pregnant with Jesus. Of course, we do not know the exact date of Jesus’ birth, but we celebrate it on December 24-25, six months from now. Hence, the date. This is one of two saints’ days that celebrate the saint’s birth, rather than their death. (The other is Mary, September 8.)

In places where it is celebrated, people build fires or carry torches, symbols of John proclaiming the light coming into the world. Often, baptisms are held on this day.

John was most known in the Gospels for his ministry of calling people to a new life, and his baptisms as a sign of that. Most notably, his baptism of Jesus. He was known for speaking out for the poor and oppressed and against the ruling government. Some scholars think that John did not baptize anyone after Jesus. Jesus introduced a new message and kingdom, and John’s ministry in that area was over. Yet others believe he continued, because the stories indicate that he continued his ministry. Still, that ministry could have been preaching against the corrupt government. For which he lost his head.

Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain was originally titled St. John’s Night on the Bare Mountain. It was based on Gogol’s story “St. John’s Eve”. The “scary” music is brought to a peaceful end with the sounding of church bells. Perhaps Mussorgsky was trying to illustrate the movement from a judgmental theology (John) to a theology of peace (Jesus). Though it is not precisely like Mussorgsky, Disney’s scene from the music in Fantasia, moving from the terror of the night to Ave Maria, conveys the same thing.

In the movie The Greatest Story Ever Told, John is played by Charlton Heston. There are some great scenes of him. When the soldiers come to arrest him at the Jordan River, he starts trying to baptize them, pushing them into the water and yelling, “Repent!” When Herod confronts him and says, “I am your king!” he responds, “I have no king but God!” And when Herod sends him off to die, you hear him yelling “Repent!” until you hear the thump of the executioner’s ax. Here’s a montage of the scenes.

How will I celebrate this day? I will listen to Mussorgsky. Maybe watch The Greatest Story Ever Told. I’ll shine a light for a coming kingdom, speak up for the oppressed, and speak against the corruption we see today. I hope to be more like John’s cousin, Jesus, but something of the passion in John appeals to me. I hope I don’t lose my life over it, but as John said to Herod (in the movie) when Herod said he was going to kill him, “No. You are going to set me free.”

A blessed St. John’s Day to you!

A Summer Solstice Meditation

Today, June 20, 2025, is the longest day of the year for those of us in the northern hemisphere. (I now have lots of friends in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and other countries on the other side of the equator, so I am constantly reminded that my “northern” view is not the only one. Thanks to them for helping me with that.) The sun rose at 6:07 this morning, and will set at 8:33 this evening- making 14 hours and 26 minutes of direct sunlight, and an extra half hour on each side of indirect. It’s a long day.

In my festering childhood days, I loved the summer! You could spend almost all of the time outdoors. As a matter of fact, parents would push us out the door if we stayed in. Shoes were optional. Even in the stores. If you didn’t get hot and sweaty and then cool yourself off with a spray from the garden hose, the day was not quite right. When the sun would go down and finally get dark, we would watch the fireflies- lightning bugs called them- blinking through the night. Kids in Inman would search through the night for the mythical lightning bug hive, a place that would glow all night because of the number of fireflies there.

We slept with windows open and maybe a fan in the window to cool things off, or we took blankets out in the backyard and “camped out” behind the house. Ancient communities used to dance around the fire at this time of the year, believing this special day to be one when the wall between heaven and earth became very thin. In the late-night cool air, we could somehow feel the breath of God blowing on us.

This year, we need God’s breath to blow on us again—to cool our fevered brows, reawaken our joy in everyday life, remove the heat, and let us enjoy the light. I see the light of God in the people working for justice for all God’s children. I feel the breath of God in the prayers offered by so many. I see the fire of God in those who call out for us to stand against the symbols of hate and division in our land.

But I see heat without light in so many, too. Those who blame the victims. Those who want to further divide people. Those who wish to use violence as a way to end violence. Even Jesus did not do that, though he could (see Matthew 26:47-53).

As the day is brighter, I pray for more light in my soul, for more fire in my heart, and for the breath of God to blow through me.

Today I found myself singing several songs. John Mellencamp wrote a moving song about the brevity of life. He had recently experienced a heart attack. He wrote a great song, Longest Days, with this haunting lyric, “Life is short, even in its longest days.” Take a listen.

I recalled that we kids used to sing while lying on blankets at night. We would sing the only three songs we knew—starting with Elvis Presley’s “You Ain’t Nothing But A Hound Dog ” and ending with Sheb Wooley’s “One-Eyed, One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater.” Between the two, we would sing “Beneath the Cross of Jesus.” 

O God, today we need a place to rest from the burning of the noon-tide heat, and the burden of the day.

Praying for Donald Trump

It will come as no surprise to most of you that I am not fond of Donald Trump. I do not like the way he has been working to destroy not only basic democracy in our country, but basic humanity as well. Making fun of handicapped persons, ridiculing veterans, constantly putting out social media messages that sound like the rantings of a middle school bully has made the office he holds a laughing stock in the world. And his constant barrage of executive orders has done nothing to lift the poor, the needy, or even strengthen the middle class. I am not fond of him at all. That does not surprise any of you who know me.

Knowing that I pray for him every day may surprise you. Not like the Republicans and MAGA ranters who said they prayed for President Biden, quoting Psalm 109:8- “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.” That Psalm, which was quoted laughingly by Marjorie Taylor Greene and others, goes on to say: “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labor.Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children.Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.” I heard their prayer and thought, I bet Jesus himself turned away.

I am afraid to say that now I have heard a few left-leaning folks use the same prayer about Mr. Trump. In both cases, it is disgusting.

That’s not the kind of prayer that I offer.

Here is how I pray for him. I do not pray all of this daily, but it becomes a habit over time.

I pray for his safety and the safety of his family. There are a lot of crazy people in the world, and some would like to see him physically hurt. This includes political opponents and those who think he is not conservative enough. So I pray for his safety.

I pray that he will come to his senses and begin acting presidential, caring for all the people, not just the wealthy. I pray that he will learn that the poor, not only in our country but in the world, are God’s children, and we have a responsibility to care for them.

I pray that, for the first time in his life, he will remain faithful to his vows. He has admitted to not keeping any of his marriage vows and has shown that he does not intend to keep his vows to support and defend the Constitution. I pray that he will turn and keep his word.

I pray that he would understand that life is not a business transaction, and that “the one who dies with the most toys wins.” Life is about so much more than business.  He has a zero-sum gain attitude: somebody always has to win, and the other person has to lose. While this may be suitable for a football game, it does not apply to life. Eventually, people learn that. I pray that he understands it soon.

And I pray that he will be removed from office safely and legally if he does not change. I pray this not just for the country’s sake but for his sake as well. I believe that we will all eventually recognize the ways we have hurt others, and that we will begin to live differently. If that does not happen in this life on earth, it will happen in the next life. And the sooner we learn that, the sooner we can begin to change. The more damage he causes to people and our country, the longer it will take him to make amends.

So I pray for him every day.

A New Season/A New Chapter

“Those who lean on Jesus’ breast feel the heartbeat of God.”- Monk of Patmos

It was on Epiphany, January 6, 2020, that my doctor cut open my chest to see what was wrong. (Epiphany, by the way, means “unveiling” or “revealing.”) For the previous two months I had been in and out of the hospital and had several different specialists trying to figure out what was making me sick. Each path we took came to a dead end, a bad term to use when it seems that may be the actual ending. Finally, a couple of doctors thought they had a pretty good idea of what was going on. I had septic arthritis, And sepsis seemed to have filled my chest cavity. My surgeon, Dr. Holley, an expert in the area and a man I will be forever grateful for, was going to have to remove part of my sternum, clavicle, and first rib. Then he would clean out my chest. Cathy had been sitting by my bedside constantly for the weeks and helping me as I got weaker and weaker. They rolled me off to prep me for surgery while she wondered if I would live. I did not know how serious it was and would not find out until later when I was well on the way to recovery.

In the OR the anesthesiologist explained everything to me and began to do the things that would knock me out for the next few hours. His assistant talked to me and offered words of encouragement. I do not know if he knew I was a minister and a follower of Jesus, but he may have. My writings had appeared in the local newspaper for the previous seven years. It may have been because he was a follower of Jesus, too. Just before I closed my eyes and the anesthetic took over, he leaned down beside my head and whispered in my ear, “Just be like John and lean your head on Jesus’ breast.”

And that was the image I went to sleep with, just leaning my head on the breast of someone who loved me and whom I loved.

When I woke up, Cathy was there. They told me that everything had gone well, and that I would eventually be fine. The scar on my chest looked familiar to me. I realized one day it was the Hebrew letter daleth Icon Description automatically generated with medium confidence, which is often used to mean “door.” I told the few people who saw it that it was the door to my heart. What I have come to understand over the last few years is that it was a way of my heart being open to God’s heart. There are many doors to God’s heart, I believe. But for some of us, we must listen for the heartbeat to find it.

I am getting ready to enter a new season in my life. My friend Johnathon calls it a new chapter, which I like, especially since I plan to spend more time writing. I do not know what the next season, the next chapter, will hold for me. Whatever it holds, I’ll try to remember my friend’s words, and just lay my head on the breast of Jesus.

Holy Saturday

Eve(I wrote and posted this years ago. I wrote it for a Christmas Eve service, but it takes place on this day. I thought I would bring it out again.)

It was early Saturday morning when I went looking for Mary. Yesterday, Friday, had been the worst day of both of our lives. The past few days had been more than horrible. She had seen her first-born son die, and I had watched as my best friend, and the man I thought was God incarnate, give his life away uselessly on a cross. We had seen it all, some up close, other parts from a distance, but we had been there, side by side, watching it, thinking it would all change in a minute, knowing that something different, something wonderful, would happen.

But it didn’t. He died.

On Thursday night he had been taken away by the soldiers and brought before this mock trial in front of Pilot and Herod, since they were both in town. Now he’ll show them, I thought. After all, he had done that with the authorities before. We watched as he was beaten, and I held Mary as the tears ran down her face, seeing her son wear a crown of thorns, and people who he had fed and healed yell ‘crucify him.’ Crowds can turn so quickly. We had seen it before. We knew he would turn the crowds back to him. We followed behind as he was taken out to the hill to be crucified. Mary kept whispering, not to me but to herself, “I know he’ll come to save him. The Lord won’t let him down. God will come any minute now.” I felt it, too, but my hope died with each step he took. When they nailed his hands and feet to the cross, I heard Mary scream as if it were her hands that the spikes were piercing. She called out to God to come and save her son, and for a moment we thought he would. The skies got dark, the wind blew, and the earth shook. “Now God will come to us and save him,” Mary screamed through her tears.

But he didn’t.

You could tell the moment he died. His spirit had left his body. It just hung there empty, a shell of what used to be great, high on the cross for all to see. The wind stopped blowing, the clouds grew lighter, the earth stopped moving. Everything was back to normal. And we just stood there, looking at the body hanging on the cross. When a soldier rammed his spear into the side to make sure he was dead, when that spear entered his heart, Mary was leaning against me and I felt her heart break, too.

A few minutes earlier, before he had died, he had looked at his mother and said, “Mom, John will take care of you.” Then he looked over at me and said, “John, watch after Mom.”

So, while friends took the body off the cross, I held her close to me. Then, when the body was lying on the ground, she walked over to it, held it close to her, as only a mother can, and brushed the hair out of his eyes. Our friends wrapped his body and took him away to be buried before we had time to prepare him with the oils used for burial. It was getting dark, the Sabbath was about to begin. I took Mary back to Bethany to stay at home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. She didn’t go to the temple or the synagogue that night. She just sat there, numb. I left the house to stay with others.

This morning I found her in the courtyard, sitting on a bench, leaning against the wall of the house. I looked at her and she looked old beyond her years. For the first time, I could not see the young girl in her anymore. She must not have been more than 48, but she looked like she was 90, older than Sarah, Abraham’s wife. She was gaunt and wrinkled and hunched over and frail. You could tell she had not slept at all.

“How are you?” I asked.

“It seems like it was only yesterday,” she said, answering a question that I did not ask.

“Mary….it was yesterday,” I said. “He died yesterday.”

“No….not that…..it seems like it was only yesterday when the angel appeared to me.”

“What angel?”

“The one that told me I would have this boy if I wanted. That I could bear him into the world, but the choice was mine.” This was a story I had not heard, so I asked her to tell me about it. Maybe it would help her deal with her grief. I had said I would care for her.

“I was just a young girl, barely past the age of becoming a woman,” she said, “when I met Joseph. He was a few years older than me, and was learning his father’s trade as a carpenter. We used to steal glances at each other in the synagogue in Nazareth. We were almost immediately attracted to each other. We would ‘accidentally’ bump into each other in the market, and our hands would touch and I could feel a spark fly between us. This went on for months, and I thought I would die if I didn’t get to be with this handsome young man. I don’t know why, but something was happening between us. Finally….and I don’t know how he did it…..his father talked with my father and a marriage was arranged between us. We were engaged! We were promised to each other!” Mary’s face brightened as she recalled that time, her back straightened up, and it looked like some of the wrinkles left her face.

“The marriage ceremony was planned for 6 months later, so family would be able to save and take the time to get there. And each day just drug on forever. I thought they would never end! I could hardly wait for the day to come when I would be his wife. What could be more wonderful than marrying the person you love, spending the rest of your days with them!”

I know, I thought. I had never married, but I had felt that way before, wanting to spend every day with a certain person. But that didn’t work out. He was dead, now.

“Then it happened,” Mary said. “One evening, about 4 months before the wedding, I was behind our house in Nazareth. It was a bright, clear, star-filled night, when suddenly there was a brilliant light that flashed, almost blinding me. I thought at first it was some sort of lightning, but when my eyes could focus again, there was a giant of a man standing before me. I couldn’t tell if he was 7 feet tall, or if he just seemed that way because everything else seemed small in his presence, including me. There seemed to be some light that shone from within him, some sort of reflection of the light that had just flashed before me. He was dressed in a robe that reached the ground, but didn’t seem to be dirty anywhere. He had dark brown eyes that didn’t so much look at you as look INTO you. He stood there for a moment, and I began to back away, not looking back up at his face. “

“Then he spoke. His voice was deep. He had no question in his voice, no wavering. He said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Mary. I am Gabriel and I come from the throne of God. God has seen you and chosen you. You will have a child, a boy, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.’”

“ ‘How can this be?’ I asked. ‘I’ve never….been…with a man.’ He told me that the Holy Spirit would do something wonderful, something miraculous in me, and that way I would know it was God’s son. Then he just stood there, like he was waiting for me to say something, those dark eyes looking into my soul. It was as if he had to have my permission for this to happen.”

“What did you think?” I asked.

“Everything went through me,” she said. “What would my family think? Would they believe me? What about Joseph? Would he still marry me? How can this happen? In a just a second, I thought of all the things that might happen because of this. Then I thought, say yes! Because who knows what tomorrow may hold! So I looked at the man…the angel….and said….yes. As a matter of fact, that’s what I taught my son for all those years growing up- always say yes, because who knows what tomorrow may hold.”

I had heard Jesus say something like it several times, and now I knew where it came from, He had put it this way, “Why do you worry about tomorrow, what you shall eat and drink and wear…. God loves you so don’t worry about tomorrow….who knows what tomorrow may hold. So that’s where he got it from, his mother.

“So what happened next?” I asked, trying for a moment to get her mind away from yesterday and the terrible things we saw. “Was Joseph excited?”

“No,” Mary said, laughing at the memory. “It wasn’t funny then, but it seems so now. He was furious, just knowing that I had…been…with another man. All this stuff of flashing light and angels seemed like a lie to cover up my sin to him. Even my parents agreed and were ashamed of me. But he loved me, and though he was hurt, didn’t want to shame me in public. He was going to break the engagement privately and send me away. But then that same man, the angel, showed up at his house and helped him to…uh…see the light. And though he didn’t understand it he decided to go ahead and marry me, but not until after the child was born.”

“What about your parents?” I asked.

“When I got to where I began to show,” she said, looking down at her stomach, “they sent me away to see my cousin Elizabeth. She was old, but somehow she was pregnant, too. And my parents knew that if I was around folks would talk. So I went off to stay with her for a while.”

“While I was there Caesar Augustus decided to have a census and a taxation of the whole empire. And to make it harder for everyone, he said everyone had to go back to their ancestral homes to be registered. So Joseph came and got me and took me to Bethlehem, because that’s where his family was from. His great, great, great, great, great granddaddy was King David, you know.” I had heard this from Jesus, that he was the ‘son of David.’ As a matter of fact, that’s what the people had yelled just six days earlier as we rode into Jerusalem, “Hail the One who Comes in the Name of David!”

“You ever been to Bethlehem?” Mary asked me. “I’ve been through it,” I said, “not much there. A Podunk of a town.” 

“You’re right,” she said. And when you fill it with people who are descendants, there’s no place to stay. When we got there I was about ’12 months pregnant’ and about to pop. Joseph couldn’t find a room at the only inn in town. The only shelter was a cave used as a barn for the animals. There I had Jesus, and Joseph put fresh hay in the feeding trough, and that’s where my son slept for the first time. It wouldn’t be the last time he would not have a place to lay his head.”

“Yeah, he told us who followed him to be prepared to have no place to stay,” I said.

“Shepherds showed up and told us what seemed like incredible stories of the angels appearing to them, but we both knew what that was all about. Jerusalem’s only 6 miles from Bethlehem, so when the time came a week later, we were able to go to the Temple and present him there, something we could not have done if we were back in Nazareth.  As we were coming out of the temple, an old priest named Simeon came over, looked at my baby, and said ‘this child will be a light for the Gentiles and glory for Israel. Then he looked at me, and a strange look came on his face, and he said ‘and a sword will pierce your heart, too.’ …. How did he know?” Mary said, looking down at her feet, tears coming again.

“Tell me more. I’ve not heard these stories,” I said.

“We went back to Bethlehem, and stayed there for a while. Then came the time of the massacre…” She did not have to tell me more. I had heard stories about Mad King Herod and his ordering of the execution of male children. “…so we escaped to Egypt. After a few years we heard that Herod had died, so we went back to Nazareth. Jesus was your typical boy growing up, obeying us most of the time, but occasionally going his own way. He got lost in Jerusalem one year when we went there for the Passover,” she said, a smile coming over her face. 

“Yeah, I heard about that,” I said.

“But I gave him a talking to that he never forgot,” Mary said, “and was no trouble at all after that. As a matter of fact, he was an incredible son. Joseph died young…” Mary said, a shadow coming over her face. Jesus had never spoken to me about his earthly father, only about what he called his ‘heavenly father,’ a term he used with great familiarity. I wanted to know, but didn’t push Mary about how Joseph had died. She was already in enough pain. “….and even though Jesus knew he didn’t want to be a carpenter, that didn’t seem to be what he was born for, he took over the family business until one of his younger brothers could do it and provide for us. We were all very poor, but we worked together. Then the day came when he took me outside the home, and said ‘Mom, it’s time for me to do what I was called to do.’ I remembered what the angel had told me, and I gave him my blessings. You know the rest of the story.”

Yeah, I knew it. As a matter of fact I had lived most of it. The healings, the feedings, the miracles, the teachings, the crowds. It was so exciting. We never thought it would end this way.

I looked over at the old woman sitting on the bench. Finally I asked the question that had been building up in my heart and mind. “Mary, if you had the chance to do it again, would you say yes? You know, knowing the joys, but also the heartache and the pain, knowing what would happen, knowing about….yesterday…..would you have born Jesus into this world?” I wasn’t really asking for her. I was asking for me. You see, Jesus had told me something strange one day, something I didn’t quite understand, not sure that I really do now. He told me that I…that all of us who followed him…had to ‘bear’ him into the world, to carry him within us, sort of like having a life within that is part of you but is still not yours alone. Almost like having a baby inside, but a grown up one. I know it doesn’t make much sense, but it seems like he was saying that somehow he could live in us and in this world through us. But I saw what happened yesterday. I’m not sure I could handle it. So I had to know. “Mary, would you say yes again?”

She looked up at me and nodded. “Yes,” she said, “because who knows what tomorrow may hold.”

We just sat there for a few minutes, not saying a word. Finally I said, “Get some rest today. I’ll get the ointments so that tomorrow morning we can go and properly prepare his body.” “Okay,” she said, and leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. 

I walked away, leaving her in the courtyard. I thought, “Would I say yes? Then I thought, “Who knows what tomorrow may hold?”

January 20, 2025

Well, it’s time for me to tick off a few people, disappoint a few, and most likely lose a few “friendships.” I put that in quotes very intentionally. After listening to today’s inauguration speech, I am more convinced than ever that Trump is president of the United States, but he is not my leader.

I do not say this because of his speech, which, by the way, was the most frightening I have ever heard. I say it because I am a follower of Jesus, one who accepts him as Lord of my life. And for the last 44 years I have become increasingly convinced that you cannot be a person who calls Jesus Lord and serve anyone or anything else.

Let me take you back to my early teen years, when I first decided to follow Jesus.

A side note: you will notice that I rarely, if ever, refer to myself as Christian. That term, which was originally used as a mocking term to describe followers of “The Way” who were being persecuted, has been co-opted by the right-wing political groups in America. “Christian” and “Follower of Jesus” seem to have two different meanings these days. I go with the second.

In my early teens I was pretty much lost in this world and a young ministerial student told me about Jesus. I fell in love with Jesus and decided I would follow him. I remember Jesus saying that you could not serve two gods, that there could only be one. So I took him literally at that and for years I would not say the Pledge of Allegiance. After all, after all, if I pledge allegiance to one thing, it takes precedence over all else. My allegiance was to Jesus.

Then there came a time when people began to convince me that you could have more than one god. That it would be like flags on a flagpole- which one was on top. (Oddly enough, most of those people would say that the national flag should always be on top, with the Christian flag underneath.) I tried that for a while, thinking that I could love Jesus and country, just as long as I loved Jesus just a little bit more.

But a few decades ago, I began to see disturbing things happening in the name of Christianity. It built up to  today when those things showed themselves in the awful prayers that were said at the inauguration. There was hardly anything said in them about what Jesus said was important. And the inaugural speech actually spoke against the very things Jesus said was crucial. “…I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me…” (Jesus, Matthew 25). It became clear again to me that you cannot partly follow Jesus. He said that in many ways.

I do think that today we saw what will be the end of democracy in America. The good news is that followers of Jesus have lived (and suffered) through times like this many times over the centuries. But the faith continues on. Many great nations, and a few empires, have come and gone in the last two millennia. And as much as I hate to see it, it appears that ours is on the way out. But the people of God, the followers of Jesus, will continue on.

So, while the speech was frightening and the prayers appalling, it has made me more committed to my leader than ever before.