PLEASE PRAY....

From Mark at Enough About Me:

My Brother, Jeff . . .

. . is dying.

We got the news this weekend. The timeline is not certain, but the cancer is back and inoperable, his heart is not moving fluid out, the pain medication, which is necessary, cannot help but have a negative effect on the heart's action. He is realistic, but calm. He knows death is a certainty, but sees the gift of it in bringing his focus to doing rather than procrastinating.

And - of course - we all know death is a certainty, for each and every one of us. Rather gets lost in this season's preaching, doesn't it?

There has to be a death to be a resurrection.

How sad to receive the news any time, but especially now at Eastertide.

May God the Father bless Jeff, God the Son heal him, God the Holy Spirit give him strength. May God the holy and undivided Trinity guard his body, save his soul, and bring him safely to his heavenly country; where he lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.

(Book of Common Prayer)

May god give courage and strength to Jeff and to all who love him and care for him.  May the peace of God which passes understanding keep their minds and hearts in Christ Jesus.

Thanks to Paul the BB for the image at the head of the post. 

STORY OF THE DAY - BUFFER ZONE

buffered from almost every shock, 
unless the pole falls down 

From StoryPeople.

READ THIS HEALTH CARE STORY AND WEEP

'Down the Insurance Rabbit Hole'

 From Angela Louise Campbell at the New York Times:

ON the second day of oral arguments over the Affordable Care Act, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., trying to explain what sets health care apart, told the Supreme Court, “This is a market in which you may be healthy one day and you may be a very unhealthy participant in that market the next day.” Justice Antonin Scalia subsequently expressed skepticism about forcing the young to buy insurance: “When they think they have a substantial risk of incurring high medical bills, they’ll buy insurance, like the rest of us.”

May the justices please meet my sister-in-law. On Feb. 8, she was a healthy 32-year-old, who was seven and a half months pregnant with her first baby. On Feb. 9, she was a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the chest down by a car accident that damaged her spine. Miraculously, the baby, born by emergency C-section, is healthy.

 Read it all.  I wish there was a way to mandate that the conservative justices on the Supreme Court read the story, especially Antonin (Broccoli) Scalia, the clown on the bench.  

H/T to Charles Pierce at The Politics Blog.

'THE MEDIA DARLING'

MrC reflects on the candidacy of Mr Sentamu for ++ABC

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY FROM PAUL (A.)

EASTER SENILITY

One of the advantages of senility is that you can hide your own Easter eggs.


Cheers,

Paul (A.)

I ask you: Is Paul (A.) trying to tell me something?

Image from Wikipedia.

A VISIT FROM ST EASTER BUNNY

The little fella arrived in my inbox once again this year, and I just had to share.  Praise or blame Doug.

STORY OF THE DAY - PLUMBER

The plumber was digging around in the 
pipes & he saw something shine in the 
muck & it turned out to be the soul of 
the last tenant. He gave it to me & I said 
I wonder how we can return it & he 
 shrugged & said he found stuff like that 
all the time. You'd be amazed what 
people lose, he said. 

From StoryPeople.

RESURRECTION DAY AT ST JOHN

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Our 10:30 service at St John was a lovely celebration of Easter Day.  Our liturgy is what I'd guess most Episcopalians would place in the broad-church tradition.  Smells and bells, and long processions are the exceptions, reserved for special occasions, rather than the rule.  We are blessed that our priest-in-charge, Ron, believes in good liturgy, which suits me because I admire a well-planned and well-executed liturgy.  He preaches his sermon in the aisle, without notes.  Ron told me he writes his sermons in his head, beginning on Monday after reading the Lectionary readings for the next Sunday.  He may make a few notes, but, by Sunday, the sermon is done...in his head.  And fine sermons they are, indeed.  As I said, we are blessed.

We celebrated the return of our organist to playing the organ.  LaDonna fell and injured her leg, which required surgery to mend the leg, and she had been playing hymns and preludes on our grand piano, but she returned for the first time to our wonderful old organ today.  How fitting.

In addition to LaDonna's return to the organ, another wonderful surprise came during the second communion hymn, "Alleluia, Alleluia, Give Thanks to the Risen Lord", when two female voices in the choir soared into a lovely descant at the end of the two last verses of the hymn.  The sounds were so beautiful they gave me chills.

Pictured above is our Easter cross.  The small cross is made of wood, painted white, and covered with chicken wire.  It is not a pretty sight.  A former rector wanted to be rid of it, but the congregation clung to the cross and the tradition, and he decided to accept it as his cross to bear.  The unsightly cross is transformed when the children process forward at the beginning of the Easter service with fresh flowers to decorate the cross and make it beautiful.

I hope and pray that many in the congregation experienced the same sense of new life in Christ that I did today, and I hope and pray for the same for all who read my words here.

                                      Easter Song - George Herbert

I GOT me flowers to strew Thy way,
I got me boughs off many a tree;
But Thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st Thy sweets along with Thee.

The sun arising in the East,
Though he give light and th’ East perfume,
If they should offer to contest
With Thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this,
Though many suns to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we miss:
There is but one, and that one ever.

JESUS CHRIST IS RISEN TODAY - KINGS COLLEGE CHOIR

A BLESSED AND HAPPY EASTER!

NOLI ME TANGERE

GIOTTO di Bondone
No. 37 Scenes from the Life of Christ: 21. Resurrection (Noli me tangere)
Fresco, Cappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel), Padua

John 20:11-17

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'”

Why did Jesus tell Mary not to touch him? In my search for an answer, I found this article in The Smithsonian Magazine, titled "Who Was Mary Magdalene?" by James Carroll, who writes a regular column in The Boston Globe.

The multiplicity of the Marys by itself was enough to mix things up—as were the various accounts of anointing, which in one place is the act of a loose-haired prostitute, in another of a modest stranger preparing Jesus for the tomb, and in yet another of a beloved friend named Mary. Women who weep, albeit in a range of circumstances, emerged as a motif. As with every narrative, erotic details loomed large, especially because Jesus’ attitude toward women with sexual histories was one of the things that set him apart from other teachers of the time. Not only was Jesus remembered as treating women with respect, as equals in his circle; not only did he refuse to reduce them to their sexuality; Jesus was expressly portrayed as a man who loved women, and whom women loved.

The climax of that theme takes place in the garden of the tomb, with that one word of address, “Mary!” It was enough to make her recognize him, and her response is clear from what he says then: “Do not cling to me.” Whatever it was before, bodily expression between Jesus and Mary of Magdala must be different now.

After his Resurrection, Jesus has a body. He is the same Jesus, but, at the same time, he is different, and his physical relationship with his disciples had to be different.

Carroll's entire piece is worth reading as a counter-story to the nonsense floating around about Mary Magdalene.


Collect

O God, who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

Image from the Web Gallery of Art.