Garden of Earthly Delights

    Yesterday, I decided to take my daily walk before breakfast, since rain was likely at my usual walking time after midday prayer. And you know, it was just walking from delight to delight, and since I seem to write in here mostly about how hard it all is, and how much I struggle with myself, and how disappointed I get with my mere weak humanness, I thought I'd just change it up a little some reminders of why I changed my name to "Happiness" when I retired into the hermitage. And, you know, it's Spring, which is the Easter of the whole planet (OK, I know, the northern temperate zone). It's Spring, and new life is bursting out of the earthen grave of winter dormancy, and we sing our Easter liturgies of resurrection and rebirth, it's all just really exhilarating. 

Holy Saturday

    Jesus is dead. All our hopes are overturned, the kingdom is not about to be liberated from the forces of oppression and injustice and evil after all. That's not what Jesus came to do, it turns out. This world, this life, is still going to be hard. I don't like to anticipate Easter too much, I like to sit with the devastated disciples in their upper room, grieving the gruesome lynching of their hero, the man on whom they had pinned all their hopes, reeling from the loss of everything they had looked forward to: King Jesus on the throne of a free, just, and holy Israel, blessed by the God who had sent Him to lead them out of darkness. Now Jesus is gone, gone all the way into that darkness. We, the disciples gathered in that upper room, we don't know yet about the resurrection. The holy women haven't yet gone to prepare the body for burial, and found it missing, and angels telling them He is risen. We haven't heard the good news yet, all we know today is that Jesus has been overthrown, betrayed by a beloved friend, scourged (whipped bloody), mocked, tortured, shamed (stripped naked), and hung up to die. It's all over, as far as the disciples know. Our hearts are broken.