In their final evening together Jesus knelt before his friends and washed their feet. Though he was about to go to the cross he still loved and served his friends. May we too have strength to love those near to us in these difficult days.
A quiet meditation for Maundy Thursday.
A couple of years ago I did the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius with my spiritual director. I found as I set out on the journey to the cross that I didn’t want to walk with Jesus to the cross. I just wanted to be there on Sunday. It is something in me that still needs changing – this ability to enter lament, to be present to pain. May we all have courage to allow ourselves to enter pain and to receive love even there.
Miriam x
I don’t want to walk with you to the cross
don’t want to pass the jeering crowd
or be present to the lonely abyss of Gethsemane
I want to stand on Sunday’s horizon
and say
it’s okay Jesus
look resurrection will come
So, like the crowd I condemn
and the disciples I judge
I abandon you
on your walk to the cross
I leave you alone
so alone
human man
acquainted with suffering and grief
I really just want
the resurrection power
the triumph of the lamb
the roar of the lion
so I climb up to my privileged position
and wait at the dawn of Sunday
ready to sing my alleluias
where a stone is rolled away
and as I abandon you
I acknowledge I have abandoned others
on their difficult journeys through
death’s valley
preferring to whisper hope
from resurrection’s empty tomb
instead of being empty accompaniment
into the cave
where death seems
to have the victory
I am afraid of accompanying you
and afraid of accompanying others
I am a broken disciple
would you hold this unfaithful
uncomfortable hand in yours
as I attempt not to run away
to hold the course for
Gethsemane
Golgotha
and
tomb
for as long as my small strength holds on
I find myself, these days, unexpectedly in conversations with ancient women I never met.
I’m about to stand up and speak about Leah, the one Jacob didn’t want, and I stop and have a whispered conversation with her.
Not exactly to her or with her. But I hold her in my heart – hoping I will do her justice, this ancient grandmother of my Messiah.
I’m stitching thousands of words at the moment and they all belong to women. It’s a big project and it will take me a long, long time but it’s transforming me too.
Right now, it’s reminding me things like, the first person to name God is a slave woman. Isn’t that so beautiful? In the light of sexism and racism and all the awful things that people say about the rejected and the downtrodden, God, of all the universe, allows Godself to be named by a woman, a slave, sent out into the desert to watch her baby die.
Wherever your heart is at today. However you are struggling or rejected or looking at the tsunami of insurmountable opposition remember the One who has always held out hands, and noticed and listened and allowed the outsider to speak aloud the sacred name.
courage dear heart, courage
Miriam Jessie x
I was asked to give a talk on the value of creativity recently. I finished it with this poem.
May we all take up the room!
THE ROOM
we stand here on the edge of a room
this room, our lives
we observe the players
moving across the floor
admire their skills
the grace with which they carry themselves
their confidence
but this room is our life
this one wild life we have been given
with such generosity
to stand in the world at this time
on this whenua
with these skills
with this voice that might ring out and make its story heard
are you hanging out at the edges?
convincing yourself to shrink so no-one will notice what you lack
allowing the brilliance of others to loom large
overshadowing your horizon
throw off the cloak of small surrender
and waddle like the toddler you know yourself to be
stand
in the centre of your life
and sing
or dance
or build your sandcastle
will you fall and fail?
or hit a wrong note
or find you can only create something imperfect?
yes, you will
you will be weaker than you’d like to be
disappointed in the gap
but you will be growing steadily into
skills that will one day inspire others
every child must crawl, or bum shuffle, or commando their own way to walking with confidence
so it is with us
if we are to be more than outputs measured by economic scales
if we are to tell the story we would like to tell
let us start today
with one small thing that brings us joy
apologising not
for taking up space in this life
may we hold life with wonder
do our thing with bravery
let us be curious,
let us be joyful,
let us be courageously creative in a world that invites us only to small perfections
let us take up space
let us own
the room
miriam jessie
x
Dear creative hearts,
Today I want to bless you in your creative pursuits. I am so encouraged by the story of Bezalel – filled with the Spirit of God for the express purpose of creativity.
For Inspiration:
May you know the deep wellsprings of life that bubble up from creative expression,
May your creative works bring life and encouragement to others
and may your ear ever be tuned to whispers of life and inspiration in all you do.
Miriam Jessie 