Welcome

Primitive religion is not believed, it is danced!

Arthur Darby Nock

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Browning



Wednesday, July 14, 2021

God wears our skin! (Incarnation)

God of those who suffer

You wore our flesh

And in the terror of the cross

You wore the outrage of our pain

                     Jan Richardson, In Wisdom’s Path, p. 126

_____________________________________

 

just how far can we take this “incarnation thing”?

I mean seriously!

the very idea!

 

I think most times we shy away

from the radical identification of God

with our often miserable state

 

think of our metaphors and images

footprints in the sand

 

God with us, sure

but not in us

still outside us

deigning, perhaps, to carry us

or not

 

but how satisfying is it to think of a God

standing there, outside

watching our pain and choosing

to respond, or not respond?

 

I remember hearing of a person in an addictions group

sexually, emotionally, and physically abused

recoiling from the footsteps in the sand story

 

“I didn’t want God to carry me” she cried

“I wanted God to make it stop”

 

and yet the idea that God was in her

woven into the fabric of her being

incarnate

going through the pain with her

was something richer and deeper

 

God in her, as she was abused

a new moment on the cross

a kind of death

and yet out of that death

because of the presence, possibility

 

that she could and would rise

 

ah!  present One

ah! Love!

 

You do not merely stand with me

You dwell in me

You are woven into me

enfleshed

 

what I feel, you feel

what I think you experience

 

my pain, my joy

my love

my all

 

sometimes I am your joy

sometimes I am your cross

but always I am yours

and always

I am you

working your purpose out

 

be ever present

incarnate if you will

we are in this

together

 

whatever may come

No comments:

Post a Comment