Love your widow/ers, the world keeps turning

A number of years ago I picked up a second hand copy of the PTC course "New Testament 1". The copy previously belonged to an older man from the early morning congregation.

At the beginning of unit 10, about the betrayal and death of Jesus, the course had an introductory question
"What is the worst loneliness that you can imagine?"
Below, in an older man's small cursive script, he had written
"To be married for 50 years to your best friend and to suddenly lose her"
I knew he wasn't imagining.
There is a bit of a mood in our churches to resent the elderly for their demands on our time and energy. Yet these are the people on the front line with the reality of a broken world.
Death comes early to all the elderly, and possibly worse for those who live longest.
As one man in my church said "My world died decades ago, now there is a different world I don't know and doesn't know me".

Why do they need our prayers and time help and encouragement? I think Tom Waits puts it best
"They always say he marks the sparrows fall, how can anyone believe it all.
Well the band has stopped playing but we keep dancing,
the world keeps turning, the world keeps turning"

In a world of death, love becomes a poison and our good memories betray us.
The good of the world turns sour, however good it is.
We need a resurrection.

Jesus rose early, while it was still dark

Jesus rose early in the morning, while it was still dark.

I got up early this morning (4:30), for no reason, except that my body was ready to get up.
I pottered around the house a bit, the air was stuffy warm with a tinge of bloody freezing radiating off the windows. Made myself a cup of tea and took the opportunity to read some of Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology. I remembered that he is one of my favourite theologians. A lutheran, deeply influenced by the Cappodocians, who gets Thomas and loves Jonathan Edwards. And on top of that he keeps going back to the Bible and especially the resurrection. Beautiful. Today I was reading on God's relationship to time and space, as well as some stuff on sexuality and politics.

I felt particularly alive this morning. Every now and then I get these moments of clarity where I feel alive, normal, energetic. I've been pretty sick the last week or so, fuzzy head, no voice. And realistically, I've been pretty sick the last year or so. But every now and then, I snap out of it, the world seems, well, more real. I feel like a teenager again, I feel in the moment.
Often these moments come after sickness. I get a migraine that knocks me out for almost a day and I wake up feeling wonderful.
When they come, you realised how impoverished your perception of life is at other times.
I wonder if this is what the resurrection will feel like.
More aliveness. Like we have been sick the whole time and only now are well.

Jesus rose early while it was still dark.
True of the resurrection too.
It is still dark.
I have a funeral on Friday. An uncle died of cancer. He was a very lively man. He taught me how to make pizza.
I cant wait for the whole earth to wake up.

Holy Sonnets 4

HOLY SONNETS.

IV.

O, my black soul, now thou art summoned
By sickness, Death's herald and champion ;
Thou'rt like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done
Treason, and durst not turn to whence he's fled ;
Or like a thief, which till death's doom be read,
Wisheth himself deliver'd from prison,
But damn'd and haled to execution,
Wisheth that still he might be imprisoned.
Yet grace, if thou repent, thou canst not lack ;
But who shall give thee that grace to begin ?
O, make thyself with holy mourning black,
And red with blushing, as thou art with sin ;
Or wash thee in Christ's blood, which hath this might,
That being red, it dyes red souls to white.

Stuvac: Holy Sonnets

HOLY SONNETS.

I.

THOU hast made me, and shall Thy work decay ?
Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste ;
I run to death, and Death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday.
I dare not move my dim eyes any way ;
Despair behind, and Death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh.
Only Thou art above, and when towards Thee
By Thy leave I can look, I rise again ;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one hour myself I can sustain.
Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art
And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.


Source:
Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I.
E. K. Chambers, ed.
London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 157.