The Master - In Augusta and in the Whole World

At the Catholic Churches in Augusta and Pebble Beach and Pinehurt and St. Andrews and around the world., an event like no other is now underway. The Church knows it as the Easter Triduum. 

Tulips in October

 It is late October and the air is crisp as the temperature jumps around the low 30s and high 20s. Last week we had around 6 inches of snow, which is unusual for this part of the state so soon. Two weeks ago I planted around 200 spring tulips and wondered whether I was early, as we were still on the warm side of autumn. 

These bulbs are seeds of a Spring to come. They will lie dormant from October through March. Dormant is not a good word, perhaps disguised is better. In the ground of October, they anticipate the cold of December and the thawing of February and March. While the grass is brown and snow covers the soil, down in the earth the cold temps launch a change inside the bulb. Never mind the botanical details. But a change that will cause a stem and flower to push out of the earth in April and May. For now they get no attention from me. No care, no water, no fertilizer. Only neglect and hardship. From this comes growth. Hmmm, a metaphor for something.

In planting tulips I am looking ahead...around the corner, behind the curtain, over the hill, down the street of time, to another spring. Past the laughs of Thanksgiving. Beyond the Gloria of Christmas and the Miracle of the Annunciation, they will be here to celebrate the Hosanna of Easter. 

Tulips are for time travelers. If you envy them in the spring because there are none in your yard, go back in time six months. Go to Home Depot. Buy bulbs. Plant them. 

If you are annoyed by the work involved in the fall, digging 200 holes, it must be because your body is getting old and is stuck in the present day. Your mind has moved on and is seeing beauty in things that will happen in the year to come. Things you are almost certain of. 

Come Winter!! 

In the name of the Father

Pondering the Trinity

One recent evening I was reading the Easter story to my granddaughter, Lilly, who is three. During the time in the Garden of Gethsemane, we read that Jesus prayed. “Why was he praying?” she asked. “What do you mean, why?” I replied. “He’s God isn’t He? What was he doing, praying to Himself !?” In this simple sentence she laid open one of the deepest questions of theology.  

The truth is we don’t know. We believe that Jesus was fully God and fully Man. We can write books about that and talk in our Bible studies about it, but can’t ever understand it. God as man is a glimpse of what God is like and what we are to be as sons and daughters created in his image. His life and love and pain here was a tiny peek at his nature. What does it mean when God takes on all the suffering of the human body? Not as a punishment but as a redemptive act.   

I tried to explain to her that we know God in three ways, or that he shows himself to us in three forms, but dumb down the Trinity and you find yourself wandering from one heresy to another. Fortunately she’d had enough and turned the pages of the story book, to his arrest and death and then resurrection.  

What our talk reinforced to me, is what CS Lewis said so many times, one of the reasons Christianity rings true, is that it is not something we humans would have come up with. The very fact that at times it seems to not make sense bears witness to the fact that it was not man made. 

Lewis said...

“Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is

one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have

guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected,

I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing

anyone would have made up.”

A three year old heart felt the tug that something fundamental to this story is very very different from every other story she's heard. It has no flying ponies, or talking rainbows. But something even more incredible. A God who is fully one of us and fully God. You need not ask her if it is true, just look on her face and listen to her voice when she says "He's alive!, that's my favorite part".