I didn't keep up notes in February or March, but in April I made up for that lapse with two envelopes full of notes, front and back.
In some meditations, scripture reminds Nakamara of her involvement with people on the margins of life. Christ's call from the Cross, "Why have you forsaken me?" reminds her of many services she has led for unhoused people, especially memorials for those who died of overdoses and related problems. Her efforts to alleviate pain in that population were never enough. No happy reassurances, here, just that Christ's suffering, too, was not alleviated.
In Acts, Peter and John "look intently" into the face of a lame man at the gate called "Beautiful." They heal him. She recalls a difficult man in the psych ward who was pacified when someone engaged him one-on-one. He got to detox and came back full of gratitude. Nakamara concludes, "Simply seeing God's people as beautiful and worthy is what we're called to do. Miracles... can follow later."
Why are there two angels at Christ's tomb on the day of Resurrection? Nakamara thinks that sharing news is "inherently relational," whether it's good or bad.
Nakamara has a lighter side. She observes that movie heroes never eat on screen. She's right: Mr. Darcy? James Bond? Bruce Wayne? Sherlock Holmes? We don't want our heroes to be too human. But the resurrected Jesus in Luke 24 asks his apostles, "Have you anything to eat?" Awestruck, they watch him chew pan-seared fish. I love that. I imagine the only sound was his contented "Mmm-hmmm."
Like Nakamara, I'm always pained by the drowning of the Egyptians and their horses. A lot of dads, brothers, sons, and animals who have no choice but to pursue the Hebrews go on to perish in the Red Sea. According to Nakamara, the Talmud says that angels did NOT rejoice with the Israelites. Can we, too, hold both gratitude for triumph for "us" AND empathy for "them?"
She is intrigued by the past tense in Col 1.20: "God was pleased to reconcile himself to all things." At this time, as we feel estranged from earth, family, friends, even our own capacity to accept and give, it is a comfort that God already reconciled us. "The question," she asks, "is whether we can believe and trust this enough that we can go and be reconciled to one another, to the earth, and to ourselves?"
Nakamara finds something good in Psalm 119, the most tedious of the Psalms. It's verse 64, "The world is full of your love; instruct me in your statutes." The beginning of discipleship is to slow down to notice this ever-presence of God in all things and people."
No comments:
Post a Comment