Crossing

Noah rode the waters in a gopher wood ark,
Moses held his staff and told Yam Suph to part.
The Ark of the Covenant made Joshua’s way,
And Elijah’s old mantle held Jordan at bay.

With what talisman shall I command
The sea to roll back and give me land?
For the chariots of Egypt press this crowd
To the shoreline where the breakers break so loud.

The gulls cry like harpies, cycling through the air
And the wind pulls tangles in our tangled hair.
Children cling to mama’s skirt,
Wooden wheels traverse the dirt,

Till bird sounds are drowned by the charioteer’s lash
Whipping and cracking on horses’ muscled backs.
We know that sound; we are acquainted with that pain.
We’d rather drown than bow beneath the lash again.

Drown me, Lord, drown me in your gathered tears.
Carry me, current me, out past the piers.
Take me down deep, bury me whole,
Dig me into the silt below.

Cover my face with your cool, thick hand
There is no more sky, and no more land,
Only You in me, only me in You,
Floating serenely in a bath of blue.

Moses, Moses, in the water where you float,
With reeds for a curtain, and reeds for a boat,
Bearing a wound in your softest flesh,
A scar that marks you destined for death.

She found you wrapped in your cocoon,
She drew you out and cleaned the wound,
She trampled your basket, woven from reeds,
As a wasted thing you’d never need.

But here at the sea with Pharaoh bearing down,
A ship of reeds would be better than a crown.
Draw me out, Lord God, be a mother to me.
Reach down for the basket that floats in the sea.

Sweep me up before I go too far,
Or water seeps through the weakening tar.
Draw me out with hands both soft and sure,
And lay me down on a distant shore.

No longer a baby to be safely hid
In a woven casket with a little lid,
I lead these children whose faces go ash
At whirr of wheels and crack of lash.

The saved now savior, they look to me.
Save us, Mother Moses, from Pharaoh and sea.
The God of blood and locusts we invoke.
I am I am, who ripped you from the yoke.

Hear our prayer, while their voices fill our ears.
Blow upon the water and dry land appears.
Walls of water guard our backs.
Receive our prayer, drown our tracks.

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Cartam et Atramentum

This is what it’s like confiding
in one who does not reply.
This is what it’s like to invest
heart and hope in a letter no one reads.
To speak dreams into the air
and believe they will be captured,
nurtured, or at least beheld.
To whisper, How I love you,
Beloved, Beloved, how dearly I love you,
and believe the Universe embraces that devotion,
divides it into spectrums of light,
answers it on the voices of geese
and toads and locusts.

In the quiet spaces,
a coyote makes love to the moon
with a soul cry
that echoes off the ceiling
splattered with broken stars.
Ears pointed to the wet grass,
soft muzzle to the sky,
first a mournful solo
then the yipping of a lapdog
carries across the surface of the water
like a skipping stone.
Answer, all voices of the southern forest,
join the locomotive’s dragon blast.
Rise, rise to crescendo,
prophesy to me.

Now the train is coming,
coming, coming, coming,
here it’s coming, coming, coming
but from north or south I cannot say.

This is what it’s like to kneel
and stand and cross and bow
and recite to no one.
To say, The Lord be with you,
Then answer myself,
And also with you.

This is what it’s like to love
one unknown, unknowable,
yet all-knowing
and made known always
everywhere
in all things.
This is what it’s like to love a god.
This is what it’s like to love.

Speak to me through the songs of train cars
rushing north and south
between you and me,
with no cargo for us in their holds,
nothing to crate and load and haul,
only the message drawn from the tracks
the way horsehair moves over strings
trembling with hope and sadness,
visceral, compelling, seeming unceasing
for a while, it speaks,
Beloved, Beloved, Beloved.

Through the glass I see no steel, no crossties.
The train tracks lie somewhere else
across the creek,
beyond the trees,
past the ballfield lights
and the darkened school yard.
The train runs right through my
open chest.


JBT 03/2010

Crucified Woman

Lately I've had this image in my mind, of a woman on a cross. Since I am no artist, I hoped someone had done the work for me. A quick Internet search revealed that such images date back several centuries.

At right is a really gorgeous painting I found online, with no attribution. (If you know the title or artist, please do tell!)




Daria Fand's oil painting "The Last of the Believers" (at left) was banned by the city of Honolulu, even though the art exhibit featured many other paintings of nude women. Fand states that the painting was intended as a commentary on the feminine experience, not on Christianity.

In Melbourne, a bronze statue titled "Woman on Cross" has caused quite a controversy, with one local pastor saying:

It is a blasphemous insult to the image of Jesus Christ who was crucified on the cross. There is something wrong with an artist who produces something so insulting to Christians."

An interesting standard, considering the offense Jesus Christ himself caused to the dominant religious community....

Some modern depictions of female crucifixion are political, usually feminist, like this image which speaks to the exploitation of women through biological and legal means:

However, the image itself is not new. Artists have captured the image of the crucified woman throughout history -- probably because it was an experience common to religious martyrs, regardless of gender. We like to pretend that humans are too humane to torture women, but history demonstrates that the martyrdom of women has always been at least as cruel as that experienced by men. Witch hunts, inquisitions and other religious purgings have often targeted women specifically.

This statue is in Belgium.

Hieronymus Bosch's depiction of the martyrdom of St. Julia dates back to the 16th century.

In the 19th century, Gabriel Cornelius Ritter von Max offered up a prettier, more sterilized version of Julia's crucifixion, and titled it "A Christian Martyr on the Cross."

(Left) Saint Librada is the patron saint of working women.

Before someone asserts that the old examples are different (less offensive) because they lack nudity, consider this piece by Raphael Collin, painted in 1890:

"Crucified Woman" is just the image I was looking for. The motion and the values are evocative. The young man rushes in, light, ethereal, almost shadowless. By contrast, the woman is framed by darkness, her body on display but her face obscured.

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Jesus and Judas

Why did it have to be a friend
Who chose to betray the Lord?
Why did he use a kiss to show them?
That’s not what a kiss is for.

Only a friend can betray a friend;
A stranger has nothing to gain.
Only a friend comes close enough
To ever cause so much pain.

Michael Card
Copyright © 1984 Mole End Music (ASCAP)
All rights reserved. Used by permission.


We have all been wounded at some time, by one who should have only loved us. There is a Judas in every life.

His name is synonymous with betrayal. We like to vilify Judas, to make him the enemy of Christ and the Gospel. The other apostles recorded his damnation with the indelible ink of history.

The truth is, Judas was not the only traitor. The friends and family who accompanied Christ to Jerusalem basked in the cries of “Hosanna!” When he spoke of his coming kingdom, they argued who would sit where. Then it became clear that the kingdom would come to earth not through glorious victory but through suffering and death. Nobody wanted to be part of that.

Jesus knew. Tonight, he said, you will all desert me. He washed their feet anyway. He prayed for Peter, knowing he would deny ever knowing Christ.

Jesus knew about Judas, too. He knew about the thirty pieces of silver before he wrapped the towel around his waist and knelt on the floor before him like a servant. He knew it as he ran his hands over the man’s grimy feet, cleansing away the stain and stink of the journey.

Later that night, Judas burst into the olive grove with an entourage of soldiers, and betrayed Christ the Lord with a kiss. As his heart was breaking, Jesus called Judas “friend.”

It is easy to kneel before Jesus, who gave up everything for us. But can you kneel at the feet of Judas? Can you wash his feet, when you know his heart?

Jesus had already taught the disciples to pray for their enemies. Perhaps they imagined he meant the Romans or the Sanhedrin. They didn’t think of Judas. They didn’t think of Peter. They didn’t think of their own untrustworthy hearts.

When we pray for our enemy, we call down grace on their life instead of comeuppance. At first our prayer is born of sheer obedience, but if we pray for our enemy diligently — daily — a change begins to take place. Prayer may not change the betrayer, but it changes the one who prays.

You cannot whisper over and over, “Lord, heal her,” without developing a true and earnest desire for your enemy to be healed. You cannot keep asking God to put bread on someone’s table without beginning to think of the surplus in your own cupboard. You cannot pray morning after morning for your enemy, your betrayer, without beginning to fall in love.

How long must you pray for an enemy? Only until the enemy goes away, and you find yourself kneeling in prayer for a friend.

So pray for Judas. Wrap the towel around your waist. Wash his feet. Love him.

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From Ashes

Ash Wednesday. Standing in the nave at St. Martin, I gaze up at the figure of Christ that hovers between the wood-paneled eaves. His posture straight and his face serene, he seems not to hang from the cross, but to lift it with the backs of his hands.

Liturgical worship is brand new to me, so each season unfolds like a child’s first Christmas, first ride on the city bus, first visit to the sea shore. What will I see? What will I hear? What will I feel?

This is what I feel, kneeling at the communion rail with ashes drying into the creases of my forehead: I feel lost. Lost isn’t the right word, I decide later. Lost is when you don’t know where you are. What is the right word, when you know where you are, and you know where you have been – but have no idea where you’re going next? Perhaps the word is human.

I was born on Ash Wednesday. This bit of trivia emerges like a memory stored in the bones. Ashes for sorrow. Ashes for grief. Ashes for penitence. Ashes for loss.

We all have our own ashes. We politely brush them into the urns of our hearts, where no one has to look at them. The ashes settle into a black and solid thing, until some stray memory or fresh injury shakes us, stirring up the dust.

One day a year, we wear our ashes on the outside. We see each other as we are. We confess that we are dust.

Ashes look like devastation, but they produce cleansing and renewal. Our ancestors used ashes to soften lye soap. We still spread wood ash on the garden to fertilize the soil.

So I kneel beneath this levitating Jesus in a place still exotic with new words and practices, yet as warm as a little nest. I am still the stranger, the vagabond who wanders in off the street to eat and drink and find warmth. Always finding what I need, I offer back everything, though my “everything” is but rags.

I’m still surprised when no one asks, “Why are you here?” Maybe no one asks because we are all vagabonds. We have all found the same warmth in each other, the same meat and drink in his body and his blood.

So we share this journey through the hope of Advent, the joy of Christmas, and the wonder of Epiphany. Now we prepare ourselves for the journey to the cross.

The church seasons play out like a perpetual catechism. They school us annually in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ, and the birth and mission of the Church. We remember who God is. We learn again who we are.

In Lent, we begin with ashes, but God does not leave us there.

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A Hundred Voices Strong

(Matthew 1:18-25)

I grew up in the era before over-scheduling. My brother, sister and I were free to our own devices, and as a result we developed our own traditions and rituals.

Jonathan invented The Never-Ending Journey, a cartoon strip penned on continuous reams of perforated computer paper in which a tribe of stick figures sojourned endlessly over various types of terrain. For years we added to the journey, subjecting the tribe to inclement weather and impossible landforms, and recording their wisecracks along the way. They never quite arrived at their destination.

We had traditions for Christmas also. It began with the first nativity. Jonathan put on his bath robe and declared himself a shepherd. We cast Jillanna as the Virgin Mary. I was the angel, standing on a chair to loom over Mary with such an exuberant expression that it scared Baby Jesus – who, I’m sorry to say, was being portrayed by a large Siamese cat wrapped in a baby blanket.

Eventually we moved beyond crèche play and simulated the entire church Christmas program. We lined up the dining room chairs to make pews, and plopped our dolls and stuffed animals in the empty seats. Jillanna played the piano while we sang. After I took up the offering, Jonathan delivered a good Southern hellfire-and-brimstone sermon.

But how can three voices be a choir? The thin notes distressed us greatly, and we determined to make our choir a hundred voices strong. By next Christmas season, we had devised a solution. We set two tape recorders side by side. First we recorded ourselves singing Christmas hymns. Then we played the cassette, and recorded ourselves singing with it. Over and over, we sang with our own voices, adding harmonies where we could. We recorded it again and again, until our choir was a hundred voices strong.

If a child’s work is play, then we worked hard to teach ourselves life lessons that would sustain us. Like the stick people in the Never-Ending Journey, we still travel endlessly over uncertain terrain in changing weather. What makes the story is not the hills and valleys or the strange hail storms, but our response to it all.

Our Christmas program taught us that with a little ingenuity, we can operate beyond the scope of our own limitations. A child can preach the Gospel. A small band of siblings can create a choir a hundred voices strong.

We learned, too, that church is what you make it. I’m thankful that my mother laughed at our antics and did not scold us for being sacrilegious. The truth is, we were practicing. This holiday season, millions will gather in thousands of chapels and churches to celebrate Christmas. To some degree, we are all just playing at church. The closer we come to the throne of God, the more we see that we are unworthy imposters – mere children in religious vestments. Yet our God welcomes us, and perhaps laughs at our antics.

So I’m going to look for that old cassette tape. I suspect that if you listen closely, beneath the hum of over-recorded static and the cracking of children’s untrained voices, you can hear the breath the angels.

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What to give the children

There were three of us children, and my parents raised us with intention. They bought a set of encyclopedias while my big brother was still in diapers and dutifully put the yearbook stickers in place each year. We had swim lessons, homemade birthday parties, and we were even on TV with Miss Marsha.

Despite all this attention to planning, the most important thing my parents ever did for us was done for someone else’s benefit.

When we were about 6, 8 and 9, my parents sponsored a refugee family from Cambodia. I do not remember the family discussions we must have had before their arrival. What I remember is a young woman clutching a toddler in an oversized dress, with her husband and brother at her side. Not one of them knew a word of English. They were at once frightened, and incredibly brave.

We children lost our basement playroom, where we had once been allowed to develop empires of Lego blocks and cardboard boxes for our marble people, or to drag out our mad scientist experiments for days or weeks with no clean-up call. The new people descended into this abode, and slept for most of a day. I perched on the steps, watching their brown feet for any sign of movement.

They smelled like spices I did not know, and they spoke volumes with dark eyes and timid smiles. I loved them right away. I was glad to give up my basement. I’d have given them my bedroom, my playhouse, and all my toys, too.

My mother prepared food she thought our guests would appreciate – chicken, rice and vegetables. The Cambodians sat around the table, staring. They would not eat. She called an interpreter, who looked at the spread and laughed softly.

“They’re confused,” she explained. “You’ve served an entire chicken. They’re probably worried this is all the meat for the next week. And that bowl of rice on the table – that’s only enough rice for one or two people.”

My mother took them to an Asian market. She stared wide-eyed as Len pointed to a fifty pound bag of rice. Soon Len was in the kitchen, treating us all to a sumptuous Cambodian meal. The rice was firm and dry, without the butter or sugar preferred here in the South. She spooned a steaming mound onto each plate, and garnished it with two bites of chicken cooked in ginger and a spoonful of steamed vegetables.

Our next task was to teach our guests English. When I remember my childhood home, I remember words taped all over the house: window, door, piano, and chair. My parents argued over “little tree,” which Mom worried they would assign to all pine trees. Dad compensated by labeling a dozen more trees.

We kids argued over weightier matters: Is it more Christian to teach Houn swear words, or to risk that he might not know if someone insults him at work?

Over time, our house guests learned the language and the culture. They worked hard, saved money, and eventually moved to Washington State to be near other family members. The experience was so positive, my parents opted to repeat it, later taking in members of Len’s extended family.

Although our Cambodian friends now live on the other side of the continent, they never forget to share their lives with us through calls, visits and photographs. Recently my parents were invited to a wedding, where they were honored as though their sacrifices had taken place only yesterday.

Of course, I do not remember any sacrifices. What I remember is growing up with an extra big brother to fend off the bullies. I remember holding a little brown baby and learning to say her name. I remember teaching a small boy to ride a bike. I remember Homp working in the garden and helping with the cows. I’m sure my parents (who will be embarrassed by this column) would say that everything they gave was repaid tenfold in terms of love, loyalty and generosity.

Because my parents were so intentional about our raising, they must have discussed the prospective impact of refugee sponsorship on their own developing children. They obviously believed the benefits to us children outweighed any risks. Still, I doubt they could have foreseen the impact it would have on us. Of all the things my parents did for us – the money spent on education, the hours baking in the sun to cheer us on at swim meets or freezing at football games, and all the shopping, chauffeuring, lecturing and worrying -- everything pales in comparison to this:

My parents taught us to love people before they have earned it.

Such unmerited love is the heart of Christmas. Not only can we say “God so loved the world,” (John 3:16) but also that “Christ died for us while we were yet sinners.” (Romans 5:8) God did not wait for us to realize we needed a Savior. God did not declare that in order to receive help we must first learn a language, or fill out the right paperwork, or be born a certain color or under a certain creed. Our Savior reached out to us in perfect love, not in spite of our destitute state, but because of it.

This is what we need to give our children. Give them a model of the world that empowers them to go forth in love, trusting the goodness of God and the resilience of the human spirit.


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