r e f i n i n g - t h e - s i l v e r

somehow it's not the backbreaking procession to that fateful hill, nor the bloody flogging or the grotesque disfiguration of human sanity in nailing living flesh to once living wood and leaving both to rot and die that is most shocking. Nor is it the way stones cut to pieces His tired flesh or thorns tore open His sweaty brow or the extreme difficulty in drawing each precious breath of air.

What is most heartbreaking is the way Judas embodied all of us in that crooked kiss and the way we recognize in ourselves the roman soldiers that spat on Him and divided His clothing by lot. And even as we were doing so the sacred temple curtain tore in half, top to bottom and revealed for all the holy of holies, the most sacred place, where we can meet with Him face to face. The door is open, He says. It's not by birthright that we are saved but by torture and pain and death...and life.

tonight is the night where we feel the unbearable weight of the enormous cross on our shoulders, the cross that means a stumbling procession through the city amid curious onlookers and jeering pharisees with the harsh, solid wood pressed against our shoulders. the whipping, the humiliation and defeat, hanging by nails in wrists, struggling to breathe. tonight is the night we celebrate the death, so that on Sunday we may celebrate the life.

I can't imagine how it was, not even the half of it. For those who have watched the Passion, maybe you can identify because coincidentally, i haven't. But the Passion doesn't show, cannot show, one thing. The fact that I myself celebrated His death. That I put the cross on His back and cut His flesh with thorns and nailed His hands and feet to the cross and finally pulled on the ropes that raised that cross. And all the while, He was watching me. And all the while
He
loved
me.

now this is getting freaky
a white easter lily, fresh, sitting on my shelf in my locker.
now tell me, who on earth knows i love lilies and irises? or flowers for that matter?
so confused.

it feels like the world's turning and i'm standing still.
and you can stretch out your hand and feel the grains of time
sliding through your fingers
and there's nothing you can do to stop it, or slow it
helpless. sorta. you watch it all slide by.
gosh it's april already.

the past week's been pretty sick for me. homesick that is. you'd think that after 2 years 8 months and 5 days i'd get over it. someone tell me why i'm here.