There isn’t much to tell, tomorrow when I go down to Goodmorning and How are you what I really need is this bread of the stories, of the songs . . . –Pablo Neruda, in The Sea and the Bells Bread is so much a part of the stories of Easter we hardly notice it.  There are so many extravagant details, after all, and bread is ordinary.  Yet when Jesus appears to people, bread is there .  And his final request was that... Read more

My faith is a great weight hung on a small wire, as doth the spider hang her baby on a thin web . . — Anne Sexton, in  Small Wire Like a breath of fresh air, Doubting Thomas enters the over-lilyed atmosphere of Easter.  He’s reliably among us on the Sunday after Easter — and on every Sunday.  He’s part of us, steadily, reassuringly.  He anchors us. Sitting next to every true believer in the Easter pews is a doubter, whose... Read more

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood. How grass can be nourishing in the mouths of lambs. How rivers and stones are forever in allegiance with gravity while we ourselves dream of rising. How two hands touch, and the bonds will never be broken. —Mary Oliver, in Mysteries, Yes.  There’s a Russian Easter tale, how it was that the wonder of Easter entered the heart of the world:  Mary, Jesus’ mother, stood weeping at the foot of... Read more

The legends of Judas are burned into the story of Holy Week unforgettably.  Over the centuries their meaning has changed, along with the imagery associated with the Betrayer of Christ.  More than any other figure, Judas is the repository of Christian anti-Semitism, the fire that has flamed out in acts of cruelty for centuries and came to its fullness in the Holocaust. For a thousand years, from c. 900 to the mid 1900s,  Holy Week was a dreaded time among Jews,... Read more

Please note:  Unless otherwise cited below, this service was written by, or adapted from the Haggadah by, Nancy Rockwell. Maundy Thursday The Night of the Beloved Community        (This service is set around tables and includes a simple supper of chicken noodle soup, people signed up to bring a pot for eight, and a veggie soup, and a gluten free soup.  We also served bread, cheese, and fruit, and everyone was satisfied.  Attendance went way up for this service, compared to the older, more... Read more

Readings A Reading                                                          from Markings, by Dag Hammarskjold* I don’t know who – or what – put the question, I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone – or Something – and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal. From that moment I have known what it means “not to look back,” and... Read more

“. . . . once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much.” ― Arundhati Roy in The God of Small Things It’s a week before his death, and John has written that Mary, whom we already know loved Jesus intensely, is immersed in an ocean of feelings about his approaching doom.  Jesus has come to her house for dinner, an intimate meal with her, her sister Martha and her brother Lazarus.  Mary brings... Read more

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me, I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself. . . –Thomas Merton Lost is unforgettably lonely, a vale of confusion, dense with thickets of regret.   Lost is a wilderness. The Oxford English Dictionary:  wilderness is a neglected or abandoned place, inhospitable and uncultivated.  Jesus was led by the Spirit in a wilderness and... Read more

Everyone knows the great energies running amok cast terrible shadows, that each of the so-called senseless acts has its thread looping back through the world and into a human heart. -Mary Oliver, in Shadows Jesus was teaching, as he always did, in the streets, teaching ordinary folks who had never seen the inside of a school to hope in a world they had not seen, a world not run by street bosses, price fixers, Herod with his huge building program,... Read more

The field tells none of its turned story                  it lies under its low cloud like a waiting river The dead made this field out of their hunger out of what they had been told out of the pains and shadows out of turning and coming back singing about another time. — W. S. Merwin   Run Jesus!  Herod wants to kill you. In Scripture and in art there are images of Jesus doing so many things – praying, walking, knocking on doors, gathering... Read more