This is an odd Sunday as it falls between the Ascension (Jesus is gone) and before Pentecost (the Spirit has not yet come).

Next Sunday, on the Day of Pentecost, we’ll move from the first half of the Christian year to the second half. During the first half of the year, from Advent to today, the lectionary tells the story of Jesus.

During the second half, from Pentecost until the final Sunday of the year, in a single, unbroken season, the lectionary tells the story of us — those who wish to follow Jesus.

This week is the hinge between the two stories. And today’s readings emphasize our oneness with God, creation, and each other.

*****

Next week is also the time to start reading “PENTECOST,” the second half of A Beautiful Year!

During the summer, I’ll be sharing more about the book and exploring the overall theme, “The Story of Us.” How do we live now, in our time, trying to follow a path of loving God and neighbor in a world that insists on valorizing power and wealth?

We’ll have some special guests during the summer to help us think about the themes in the second half of A Beautiful Year — empire, the meaning of parables and the power of storytelling, spiritual practices, and creation. Up first? I’ll be announcing a day shortly when Dom Crossan will come to the Cottage to talk about parables.

This year, I hope you’ll discover the importance and spiritual wisdom of the many weeks after Pentecost, the church’s longest season of the year.

We can’t let Pentecostals have all the fun! Believe me, these weeks have a lot to say to the rest of us.

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John 17:1-11

Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.

I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.

And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

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MUSING

On a recent trip to New Brunswick, my host arranged for me to meet Freeman Patterson, a world-renown Canadian photographer.

I confess that I hadn’t heard of him. But my friend knew how I love art, gardens, and theology — and that Freeman’s interests combine all three. And so I did what any decent person would do in advance of such a meeting. I looked him up on the internet.

Richard was also on this trip. As we pursued Freeman’s website, the photograph above caught his attention. “This looks like an illustration of your work,” Richard said. “You could have used it in your powerpoint in last night’s lecture!”

He passed me his phone. On the screen was a breathtaking image of a spiral, whirling oranges, yellows, and greens with a single cobalt blue crescent at its center. “You’re right,” I said. “It is stunning. What do you think it is?”

We didn’t know. We couldn’t figure it out.

The next day, we had the privilege of spending an afternoon at his home and garden in rural New Brunswick. The conversation was delightful and wide-ranging, and, as often happens, we discovered threads that connected our seemingly very distant lives. I finally asked him about the spiral photograph we’d seen online. “What it is? Something like a fiddlehead fern?”

He laughed. “No. It is a maple tree!”

“A maple tree — one maple tree?” I asked incredulously. “Yes. A maple tree in the autumn, taken in a series of exposures, moving the camera slightly in each frame. The blue is the sky above.”

He shared with us a little bit about how he creates his photographs, with double and multiple exposures, slight camera movements, and widened apertures. We looked at the prints he had displayed in his home, thumbed through his books, and walked in his woodland garden. Inwardly, I marveled. This wasn’t about just making photographs or creating a garden. This was his vision of both everything and himself. It wasn’t just about a camera. It was about his open aperture. He could see deeper and further and differently. The spiral was far more than a cleverly exposed maple tree — it was his journey, wisdom and wonder, and an image of the oneness of all things.

That maple tree was a living spiral, an entirely different vision of the Tree of Life. There, in the garden.

We didn’t really want to leave.

*****

Does the Gospel of John ever drive you crazy?

It probably should because today is one of those days. This is not the work of a linear thinker. The text whirls about with words, pulling ideas from here and there, weaving them together to create an effect, an experience, an uncommunicable vision. The Jesus in John’s story doesn’t tell parables. He doesn’t offer sermons or moral lessons. Instead, he roams about in mystical experiences and waxes poetic. Some scholars refer to John’s style as paroimia (παροιμία), a Greek term for “sideways” truths usually expressed in allegory, riddles, or metaphors.

What is this? All these words about glory and the world and oneness?

I mean honestly: What is this?

You could try to explain that in a thousand ways and probably never come close to what it is. Who is this Jesus? Who is going where? What, truly, is his relationship with “Holy Father”? And who is one with whom?

I’ve heard genuinely tortured sermons on this text over the years. Some poor pastor trying to make sense of this as narrative, a story with a beginning, middle, and end, with an arc and plot lines, and clearly drawn characters. But it is not that.

It is, instead, a sideways truth.

More like a spiral.

That recent visit, surrounded by photographs and woodlands, books and water vistas, opened my soul-aperture a bit wider. I wasn’t just meeting a well-known photographer; I was encountering a gifted teacher, a seer the world. As we talked about all manner of things and walked in the garden, he was showing me how to appreciate small movements, to see differently, to layer multiple views, and to let more light in. It wasn’t narrative; it wasn’t didactic; it wasn’t polemic. It was sideways.

A spiral.

I think that is the Gospel of John. Like “Maple Spiral,” the whole thing is a series of multiple exposures by modest repositioning to create a single image. From John’s magisterial opening:

To the moment when a grief-stricken Mary tries to embrace her dearest friend:

And the blue clearing in the sky? The central point of the image:

Love.

Love is the oneness, the still center of the spiral. The blue dot. Love, love, love. Love is the origin point of creation; love is Mary reaching to hold the body of Jesus. For God so loved the cosmos that he gave his only Son…. Love is the Alpha and Omega. The “I am” and the “You are.”

Do you see it? Tilt your gaze sideways, open your eyes just a little wider. One maple tree, spiraling through time and space. One whirl of love sweeping every frame toward the same focal point, the heart of it all.

One. Love is the center. Love winds to the One.

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INSPIRATION

Intergalactic Love
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you, and if you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.
—The Gospel of Thomas, verse 70


There is a galaxy in my heart,
a vastness that surprises me
each time I dare look—
my god, it’s so much larger
than I could ever explore.
Filled with dark things that defy
investigation and dead places
where nothing can live and brilliant
places so radiant I’m unable to look
straight on. There is a galaxy
in my heart so expansive it sometimes
frightens me — what does it mean
to not know my own bounds?
What if I never live into my capacity to love?
There is a galaxy in my heart
that knows itself by spiraling,
swirling out from its own center,
and forming new stars.
Did I ever believe it was limited
to hold only so much?
The galaxy in my heart
invites me to remember
I am made of mystery, and
whatever theories I have
of how and who I love
are always being changed.
Even now, it stuns me,
how galaxies sometimes merge.
Imagine, if your galaxy
and my galaxy come together,
my god, how much vaster
our hearts can become.

Why I’m in Awe of the Spiral
by Thomas Centolella

When, in the science museum, I arrive at the overview
of our galaxy, with its tiny arrow pointing to You are here
(which really ought to be We are here), and see
that the two to four hundred billion stars of our local cluster
are drifting or chasing or dreaming after each other
in circles within milky circles, I can’t help but think

of those ancient paintings and rock engravings,
discovered all over our celestial body,
of that one line which begins at whatever point
it can, then curls outward, or inward, toward nothing
anyone can define—the oldest shape revered
by Aborigine and Celt, by mathematician

and engineer and Burning Man reveler alike,
and even accorded a place of honor among the mess
of thoughts on my desk, as a nifty paper clip of copper.
But it’s already there in the florets of the sunflower
crisscrossing with the precision of a logarithm,
and in the pin-wheel shape of the Nautilus shell,

and in the coiling neurons of the cochlea
that let us tell Art Tatum from a three year old’s improvisation.
Call it what you will—“God’s fingerprint,” “the soul
unfolding through time,” “the passageway into the Self”—
I can’t help but admire, even fear, something as mundane
as a flush of the toilet, when its swirling is a variation

on our sidereal drift, our existential pain.
And then there’s that famous falcon, “turning and turning
in a widening gyre,” a portentous symbol of our own
circling into some dread, some pernicious chaos
we thought we had just escaped, one town burning
a decade behind us, a millennium before that,

and into next week, next year, next whenever.
And when the two of us took that winding road
an infinity of others had wound down before us
and would wind down again, our spirits hushed
by the crosses and bouquets at each dead man’s curve
and just burning in the dry heat to touch each other,

wasn’t that a wondrous and terrible turning?

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One of my life constants has been my curiosity about and love of history. Last week, I was in Canada. When I returned to the United States, I realized that my own country is running full-tilt toward July 4, the 250th anniversary of its political birth. The contrast between that trip away and the return home has been unsettling — and has me thinking about history.

I invite you into these historical musings as I try to make sense of my own internal disorientation. This essay begins with an overview of religion in American history and then delves into the contrast with Canada.

It’s a little longer than usual. But I hope you’ll read, mark, and inwardly digest its message. Share this post with anyone you think may need it.

Love relentlessly,
Diana

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On May 17, the White House will sponsor a nine-hour festival of “prayer, praise and thanksgiving” on the National Mall to kick off the religious story of America’s founding. The Rededicate 250 speaker lineup comprises mostly white evangelicals. There are two Catholic bishops and a couple of rabbis. But there will be no Black church leaders and no mainline Protestants, no Hindus, Muslims, or Buddhists, and no humanists or agnostics or anyone else.

Here’s the organizer’s vision for the day:

Honestly, I have no problems with people praying. Even people who I disagree with praying in public. But I do take issue with using federal money and the support of the White House to hold such a meeting in a National Park (the Mall) and inviting only a very narrow list of presenters who meet with their theological approval. The whole thing violates one of America’s most long-standing constitutional commitments, the only clear directive regarding religion from our founding:

And Rededicate, in effect, elevates MAGA Christianity to a de facto religious establishment and limits other religious Americans from participating freely in the celebration of their own national birthday.

*****

When Trump was elected in 2024, I worried about the upcoming American anniversary because of these legal and Constitutional concerns.

In his first term, he surrounded himself with religious leaders who had expressed both skepticism about and disdain for the separation of church and state. These leaders were eager to receive federal dollars and wanted complete impunity from preaching partisan politics in their pulpits. They dreamt of silencing the religions they deem “heretical” or “demonic” (all of the excluded groups are on this list). And they want to enforce their particular moral codes on everyone.

Two years later, here we are — at the nation’s 250th birthday. Rededicate 250 isn’t a celebration of American faith. It is a national revival meeting, planned and shaped by only one American religious group: white evangelical Protestants, with a few fellow political travelers invited as mere religious tokenism.

Back in 2024, however, I also worried about an additional dogma of Trumpian faith leaders. All of them, without exception, believed that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. This belief is an old American trope, dating at least back to the New England Puritans, one of the settler groups who actually did think they were founding a Christian nation (a few other groups also believed the same but in very different theological ways), and became a foundational dogma for centuries of revivalists. (I’ve written on the idea of a Christian nation HERE and HERE.)

The idea was simple: America was founded as God’s “new Israel” with a special mission to be God’s city on the hill, a light to enlighten the nations. As was the case for ancient Israel, God laid before the people two ways — a way of life that entailed following his commandments and a way of death that turned away from him. The first way would result in blessings and prosperity; the second would incur judgment and misery.

Puritan governorJohn Winthrop laid out this vision in his 1630 sermon, “A Model of Christian Charity,” a text widely quoted by Christian nation proponents:

In the decades following these words, Puritan preachers would use the “two ways” to, in effect, theologically threaten their communities. When things were going awry, like raids from the native peoples, or the failure of a crop, or children seemingly lax about Puritan doctrine, the religious leaders would prophetically remind their congregations of God’s judgment on those who walked away from God.

To the Puritans, turning away was never just an individual sin; they believed that the sin of one single person could take the entire congregation or village down the wrong path, the way of death. It was an urgent matter to ensure unity and uniformity in God’s will, and the preachers took great care to ensure this. These “jeremiads” (named after the prophet Jeremiah) were not just intended to correct personal sin but they were intended to rouse communal faith and rededicate the gathering to God’s intent and purpose for them.

In a strange way, Rededicate 250 is an ancient American practice. Overzealous pastors have been doing this for a long time.

*****

But just because something is an old practice, it doesn’t mean it is necessarily a good one.

Winthrop’s words are lyrical, with their call to neighborly love as a foundation for the community in the world they were making. Who could disagree with the sermon’s point? Love of God and love of neighbor do make for a society of blessings. It isn’t good for a community to be seduced by “pleasure and profits.” In effect, don’t I preach the same? Isn’t James Talarico in Texas running a campaign on some of these very principles?

Maybe we should rededicate our lives to love God and love neighbor!

The theory is really pretty great. But the Puritans quickly ran into a two-sided problem: What God and which neighbors?

Eventually, it became clear that God was the Calvinist God interpreted in a very narrow framework of Puritan theology. Within several decades, the New Englanders would have to content with other gods — the Inner Light of the Quakers, the Kingly Anglican God, the questioning God of rebels like Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams. Loving God would prove harder than the founders imagined as the “new” world offered so many tempting theological rivals to their tidy Calvinist one.

And neighbor? The native people proved an immediate problem to the Puritans since, even in this lovely paragraph, Winthrop insisted that part of the mission was to “possess” the land. The Puritans didn’t recognize Indigenous people as “possessing” the land. Unlike Europeans, they’d never bought it or held title to it or marked it with walls and fences. Tribes had villages and hunting grounds and ancestral gathering places. But Europeans recognized none of this, seeing the land as vacant and ready to be claimed by them. How can you love your Native neighbor while their children were dying from your European diseases, and you were occupying their homelands and killing their leaders resistant to your new political and religious order? They failed the very first test of loving their neighbors when they refused to see the native people as fully human. They didn’t “count” as neighbors.

And once you reject one group, it becomes increasingly easy to reject others as not worthy of neighborly love (ask the Quakers or Catholics or those whom they enslaved).

The historical record is pretty clear — the Puritans failed miserably at Winthrop’s call to love God and neighbor. Even when they believed they were succeeding. They interpreted both God and neighbor too narrowly, and in ways incongruent with even the Bible itself. They couldn’t (or wouldn’t) ever recognize any God different than their own and they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) see people who were different as worthy neighbors.

Yes, Winthrop’s words may have proved an admirable basis for a new community. Under different circumstances, perhaps. But words are often just words, lyrical or visionary or inspiring though they may be. The deeds in the historical record are something completely different.

*****

Thus, I’m worried about the history behind the revival. Prayer is fine and good; even public prayer for a nation can be fine and good. But the prayers of American revivalism always derive from a particular view of American history, because a “revival” is always based in a story of decline. A revival must, by its very nature, be about returning to a golden age or the “faith of our fathers.”

History is the rocket fuel of revivalism; without a story of the past, there can be nothing to revive!

The history of a Christian America is based on scattered texts and some colonists with religious intent. But the intent of some texts and some groups does not a nation make. The texts themselves conflict; the religious groups were diverse.

But Rededicate 250 won’t recognize this. Instead, they will quote Winthrop as if his sermon was a history of Puritanism, leaving out the missteps and mistakes and outright contradictions of the New England colonists. On Sunday, they will tell half a story, embellished with myths and historical half-truths, and then proclaim that God wants us to return to a glorious and faithful Christian past.

A past that never existed outside a few ironic episodes and the beautiful words on a piece of paper.

And that brings me to Canada. Up until 1776, the countries we now know as the United States and Canada existed, in part, as British colonial ventures (and in conflict with similar French and Spanish efforts). Americans forget that Canada shares early colonial history with them. I can’t speak for Canadians on this point, but my sense is that they largely remember. So, the Massachusetts Puritans are their problem, too. And, we Americans should probably know that some of the very same companies that settled our Eastern seaboard were also at work establishing colonial outposts in Newfoundland, Maritime, and inland Canada at the same time. Indeed, George Calvert, later Lord Baltimore, initially founded his Catholic haven colony, “Avalon,” in Newfoundland. After a decade there, many of the settlers found the winters hard going and moved south to Maryland.

Americans and Canadians share a common history of British colonial imperialism. In 1776, we had a great sorting — some stayed here and supported the rebellion; others went north to support the Crown; and many just went with whatever wind blew their the neighborhood as political revolution unfolded around them.

When I was in the art museum in Fredericton, New Brunswick, I couldn’t stop staring at this large-scale painting (84 x 132 inches):

Look at it carefully. You’ll see that it depicts the terror of Canada’s residential school policy and system. In it, agents of church and state literally rip children from their mothers’ arms. Guns and the cross create a scene of historical horror, children kidnapped from the homes and culture, leaving the screaming, weeping, and wounded women behind.

My soul welled up. The painting brought to mind images of the Holocaust. And I thought of this photograph from American history, of an enslaved man:

Both the Monkman painting and the “Peter” image depict 19th century horrors inherited from the shared history of British imperialism in Canada and the United States. Both tell the story from perspectives of the victims of that history — and cause distress, grief, pain, and remorse in the descendants of the victors. They both tell a hidden truth and reveal a moral challenge.

And so what is the difference between the two?

Canadians are trying to uncover the history, figure out how to deal with it, and address what it means to be a nation and a people now. They don’t do this perfectly. But they are doing it. And they are calling the institutions of both church and state to account. In July 2022, Pope Francis visited Canada, called the schools evil, and apologized for the Catholic church's abuse of native children. No formal apology has been forthcoming from the English crown. But King Charles has both recognized the suffering of Indigenous Canadians and publicly offered a native land acknowledgment in a Canadian Throne speech.

In the United States, just in time for our 250th celebration, President Trump has ordered all copies of “Peter” removed from national historical sites and museums. He has also reinstalled statues of Confederate leaders and Christopher Columbus that had previously been removed. He has ordered a federal review of every removed Confederate statue and renamed military bases for Confederate leaders. And, to celebrate American history, he has commissioned a “garden” of 250 statues of feel-good American heroes to be erected along the Potomac River.

250 years after the Great Sorting, Canada has chosen to reveal difficult history long hidden; the United States is doing the opposite by storing hard history away and replacing it with pious fables and half-truths.

I can’t help but think about the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark:

And, instead of recognizing history’s humanity and inhumanity, its justice and injustice, its complexity and moral clarity, America is busy putting forward myths as it they are real and calling people back to a past that never existed.

All nations have histories that are painful, contradictory, paradoxical, and complex. And all nations have myths that serve political and social ends. We need to wrestle with the first, giving the project of understanding our national histories with honesty and integrity.

And the second? We’ll always have myths. We’re just human and we humans love to tell stories that inspire us and make us feel good about ourselves and our ancestors. Myths are not dreams or visions or hopes or possibilities. They are mostly the stuff of our imagination, what we’d like to believe happened before we came here.

Investing our hearts, our lives, and our future in myths instead of history is a perilous thing — because some myths are designed toward bad ends, even when they valorize us. In the telling of our stories, myth serves a purpose. But myth must always be the servant of the hard truth of history.

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People are always shouting they want to create a better future.

It’s not true.

The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.

― Milan Kundera

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INSPIRATION

from “At This Precise Moment of History”
Thomas Merton

1. At this precise moment of history

With Goody-two-shoes running for Congress
We are testing supersonic engines
To keep God safe in the cherry tree.
When I said so in this space last Thursday
I meant what I said: power struggles . . .

11. Voice of little sexy ventriloquist mignonne:

“Well I think all of us are agreed and sincerely I my-
self believe that honest people on both sides have got
it all on tape. Governor Reagan thinks that nuclear
wampums are a last resort that ought not to be re-
sorted.” (But little mignonne went right to the point
with: “We have a commitment to fulfill and we better
do it quick.” No dupe she!)

All historians die of the same events at least twice.

My Country ’Tis of Thee
by W.E.B. Du Bois

Of course you have faced the dilemma: it is announced, they all smirk and rise. If they are ultra, they remove their hats and look ecstatic; then they look at you. What shall you do? Noblesse oblige; you cannot be boorish, or ungracious; and too, after all it is your country and you do love its ideals if not all of its realities. Now, then, I have thought of a way out: Arise, gracefully remove your hat, and tilt your head. Then sing as follows, powerfully and with deep unction. They’ll hardly note the little changes and their feelings and your conscience will thus be saved:

My country tis of thee,
Late land of slavery,
Of thee I sing.
Land where my father’s pride
Slept where my mother died,
From every mountain side
Let freedom ring!

My native country thee
Land of the slave set free,
Thy fame I love.
I love thy rocks and rills
And o’er thy hate which chills,
My heart with purpose thrills,
To rise above.

Let laments swell the breeze
And wring from all the trees
Sweet freedom’s song.
Let laggard tongues awake,
Let all who hear partake,
Let Southern silence quake,
The sound prolong.

Our fathers’ God to thee
Author of Liberty,
To thee we sing
Soon may our land be bright,
With Freedom’s happy light
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God our King.

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Easter is about God’s comings and goings. On Good Friday, Jesus was murdered and buried. On Easter, he returned! For several weeks, we read stories of friendship and encounters — the joyful reunion of Jesus with his followers in the most unexpected ways.

Now, however, the narrative has shifted. Jesus is about to go away again. On May 14, Christians mark the Ascension, the story of the risen Christ leaving this world for full union with God. The lectionary is preparing us for that eventuality by going back to Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse.” His words that night, on the night of the Passover meal before the crucifixion, speak to his coming absence.

In today’s reading, the disciples are worried. They don’t want to be left alone. They have questions — lots of them.

And Jesus answered them in a surprisingly straightforward fashion (“straightforward” for John’s gospel at least!) and offered a little spiritual grammar lesson along the way.

*****

A big thank you to my Canadian hosts and readers who made this past week’s visit to Fredericton, New Brunswick, so memorable! It was a pleasure to meet both Cottage readers and those who have read and loved my books over the years. You made us (both me and Richard) feel so grateful and loved — and you opened your arms as wide as your hearts. It is important to remember that we are still good neighbors even in these difficult days. (Also, we loved the Beaverbrook Gallery! What a treasure you have in your backyard!)

Happy Sixth Birthday to the Cottage! 🎂

For the month of May, The Cottage offers the deepest discount of the year to celebrate our birthday month — 25% off an annual subscription for new subscribers. And that discount will continue FOREVER. When you renew in the future, you’ll pay the same price.

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TODAY’S READING

John 14:15-21

Jesus said, ”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

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MUSING

Have you ever dropped into a conversation and misunderstood what was being said around you? Hearing only part of it, you’ve missed the context of the discussion — and because of that you don’t get the point. And, finally, you come to the wrong conclusions about what was said and perhaps even the intention of the speaker.

I have made this mistake. I’ve also been on the receiving end of this as well. It can be maddening, and sometimes result in harm.

Occasionally, the lectionary drops us into the middle of a conversation. One of those “occasions” is today.

When we enter today’s story, we hear Jesus utter a conditional statement, ”If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

It seems so stark. Maybe a warning? A threat? If you don’t keep my commandments, I won’t love you….? Is Jesus really an “if…then” sort of guy? Isn’t God’s love unconditional?

John 14:15-21 can be easily misunderstood without last week’s reading of John 14:1-14. The passage, spread out over two weeks, is a single conversation. Indeed, the discussion really began a few verses before that — around John 13:33.

Jesus’ if-then about love and commandments stands out because the lectionary draws attention to it by seemingly to make it the beginning of a conversation. In reality, however, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” is only one of four if-then statements, all in an extended conversation prompted by three questions asked by the disciples.

The setting for this conversation is the final meal between Jesus and his followers, the Passover supper. The context? Judas had just exited the table to betray Jesus. And Jesus knew that this would kick off the series of events that would result in his arrest and execution.

At the table, he sadly informed them that he, too, would be leaving. But he also gave them some final words:

Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the other Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

The disciples seem not to have noticed the new commandment part. Instead, they are very upset by Jesus’ departure and drill him with panicked questions, and Jesus answered them in turn:

Simon Peter: “Lord, where are you going?” To that he added a second question, “‘Lord, why can I not follow you now?”

Jesus answered, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places.” Then Jesus added an if-then clause, “If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?”

Thomas: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

Jesus replied, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” As with the previous question, Jesus finished with an if-then, “If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him” (if you missed last week’s musing on this text, you can find it here).

Philip asked a question in the form of a request: “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” (Could be rephrased “Will you show us the Father?” or “Where is the Father?”)

Jesus responded with another if-then, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

Jesus is trying to calm these folks down. They are very upset at the prospect of him leaving! Yes, they will miss him. They love him. This has been an extraordinary adventure. What will they do?

But they are probably also wondering what this will mean for them. If Jesus is arrested, will they be next? He won’t be around to protect them.

They don’t want him to go.

And he attempted to focus them with this series of if-thens.

“If-then” statements are always contextual. There are four different types of if-thens:

Zero Conditional: General truths
First Conditional: Possible future events
Second Conditional: Hypothetical/Unlikely scenarios
Third Conditional: Unreal past situations

From the context, all of Jesus’ “if-thens” are of the first two types. He’s restating something true that they have already learned and he’s also suggesting that these if-thens will be true in the future. Jesus has prepared a place for them in the Father’s “house.” That place will be there always. Jesus has shown the way and he will be the way. Jesus has revealed the Father and will continue to do so. If these things have been true (as the disciples have witnessed), then they will continue to be true.

This passage is all about comfort, assurance, and companionship — even through loss, absence, and death. Today’s reading is the coda to this long discourse reminding the disciples that what they have experienced with Jesus is all true — God is with them, they have seen God, and God loves them. If these things are true, then they will always be true.

It must have been comforting to the disciples. Deeply comforting.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments is both a reminder of what is true and a “first conditional” of what will always be true in the future. It is not a hypothetical or an option (If only we loved Jesus, we’d all love our neighbors); it is not a past regret (if only we had loved Jesus, we would have kept his commandments). It is the truth of what is — and what will continue to be.

This is the if-then of finding one’s identity in and with Jesus.

Loving Jesus means loving God and loving our neighbors. Period. Loving God and loving our neighbors is the very definition of following Jesus.

That’s it. That is the truth and always will be the truth. It is already so and will be so. It is as it is.

This is the way, the truth, and the life — the way of love. That’s the Easter promise. Christ is alive in us, those who love him and as we walk in the commandments he gave to love God and others.

It isn’t a threat or a condemnation. And the conditional statement isn’t really conditional! Notice it doesn’t say, if you keep the commands, God will love you. Nope. It is the reverse — If you love God, you will keep the commandments to love God and neighbor.

It is only conditional on US! If we fail to keep the commandments — rebelliously, consistently, willingly, making the choice to constrain love and harm our neighbors — that is evidence that we don’t love Jesus. We can turn our backs on community and reject this way of love.

But God does not. What was true for God — love — is always true, always present, always was and will be the case. Even when we choose not love.

Love lasts. Love is the point. Love is the way, the truth, and life. It is always reassuring and comforting.

And it is always with us. Indeed, that’s a promise. That’s the risen life of Easter. Not a single day, but a way of being in the world.

Jesus also insisted that we would not be alone on the way. There’s another companion, a helper. The “Advocate” is coming — but that’s only a hint of the story ahead.

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INSPIRATION

Tonight your absence
is a long-haired cat—
circling me, nudging me,
curling in my lap
and deciding to stay.

Is it strange to say
I love the presence
of your absence—
not the fact you are gone,
but the way it reminds me
I have made a life
of loving you—a choice
I will again and again make.

This is what I want:
To be awed by how
you still teach me
to love;
to be inspired
by how you still insist
I meet life as it is,
not life the way
I wish it would be.

I want to hold out my arms
and lean into the spaces
you’ve left behind.
I want to be as close
to your memory
as this cat in my lap—
how it molds to my shape,
how it makes of my body
a home.
— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “If I Can’t Have You In Person, Then”

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The Cottage reader is an occasional newsletter for Cottage subscribers, written by Richard Bass, Diana’s spouse and co-conspirator. It’s usually only for paid subscribers, but since we are in the midst of our May Blowout Sale, we’re sending this issue to everyone. I hope that those who can will join in supporting the Cottage.

MAY BIRTHDAY BLOWOUT

My ramblings here are really the least of the benefits of the Cottage Reader. I do tell you about what I’ve been reading and why, and I also talk about what I wish I were reading and what I plan to read. But the best part of the Cottage Reader is the comments from you, the readers, where you talk about what you’ve been reading. My reading list has been shaped by those comments for years now. Thank you!

It’s all a lot, isn’t it? Politics, the news, the evil buffoons running the U.S. government.

It’s oddly compelling to see what fresh thing will enrage us each day, but also repulsive. I find it very difficult to look at or listen to our president, so I’ve been avoiding the news, especially now that baseball is back. A modestly entertaining and successful Washington Nationals team is preferable to a sickening Washington political establishment. This all has implications for my reading.

Reading can take many forms: it can inform, inspire, make you think, or offer an escape. Although I often hope for the first three, I more often find myself using my reading to avoid the unpleasantness. And what better way to escape than to immerse yourself in yet another murder mystery (or three) in the quaint Quebec town of Three Pines?

Yes, dear readers, I spent the month of April watching baseball and reading three Chief Inspector Gamache novels by Louise Penny (with a side trip to Boulder, Colorado, that included participation in a truly inspiring No Kings march).

I don’t like to give away too much about the books—they are well-plotted and worth the time to discover the secrets hidden within them. This trilogy of books departed from the earlier ones in the series because characters we have come to know well are now suspects in murder cases. Bury Your Dead continues the case begun inThe Brutal Telling, so I couldn’t stop after the first book. The fact that they are set in a different country at a different time was also appealing. I enjoy these books are I’m sure I’ll return to the series again soon.

And here’s a little dose of reality via The New York Times: The Last Days of Butter Ridge (gift link). “Brad had supported Donald Trump in 2024 in part because Trump promised to change all that by becoming “the most pro-farmer president you’ve ever had.” Instead, new tariffs had cut into Brad’s potential export market and the emerging war in Iran had sent gas and fertilizer prices surging by as much as 70 percent. He was losing thousands of dollars each month and falling behind on his feed bill, until he made the call he’d been dreading his whole career. He dialed up an auction house to arrange the Watson family’s final dairy sale last month.” A heartbreaking read on many levels.

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But here’s what I really want to talk about in this issue. What are you reading and what should I read next?

The Environment

I recently met Bee, a Cottage reader, who expressed the wish that I focus on some books about environmental issues. A great idea, but I wouldn’t know where to start aside from our friend Bill McKibben. I still remember how, back in 1989, everyone was talking about The End of Nature, his important book that argued human activity had overwhelmed and shifted the course of nature. He’s followed with other important books, most recently Here Comes the Sun, as have others.

Here’s your chance, Cottage readers, what should I—or we—read to fully grasp, and perhaps even inspire activism, about what is happening to our environment and not be overwhelmed by the apparently intentional efforts by the Trump administration to undo environmental regulations and disinvest in technologies that could help slow the degradation of the Earth.

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Transcendentalism

Ironically, perhaps, I’ve been gearing up for a deep dive into Transcendentalism, which I think of as the first, and perhaps greatest, American intellectual movement. I’ve engaged it off and on for years, and read Walden many times. But I don’t think I’ve put it all together yet, and, of course Walden is a very different book to a 70-year-old than it is to a 15-year-old. But it still calls.

Is Emerson’s “Nature” obsolete now that we’ve reached the End of Nature? Is Self-Reliance a virtue in today’s atomized world? Etc. I’ve got books and collections, biographies and studies, and perhaps most important to the Transcendentalists, my own personal experience. We’ll see what happens.

Do any of you have any advice for such an excursion?

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Ireland

Diana and I are going to Ireland this summer. It will be my first trip there. I love the music and the beer and whiskey are pretty good, too. I love Once, Angela’s Ashes, Derry Girls, U2, Stiff Little Fingers, and the Pogues. I’m reading Colm Toibin’s The News from Dublin and picked up From a Low and Quiet Sea by Donal Ryan on the recommendation of a bookseller in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where we are currently

So what do you suggest? Must reads to get a feel for the country? And once I’m there, what must I see?

Among my hopes is to meet a Glen of Imaal Terrier in the home country. That would be great fun.

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MAY BIRTHDAY BLOWOUT

A week ago, a friend sent me a copy of a sermon preached by the Rev. Sarah Thomas at Trinity Episcopal Church in Santa Barbara on the Sunday after Earth Day — and I wanted to share it with you!

I typically write a post on Earth Day (what do you expect from the author of Grounded?). However, this year I was traveling and didn’t publish a piece. I suppose that’s a good excuse, but I also have a confession: I’m depressed and angry about the current dismantling of environmental policies and laws. The feeling of going backward when we should be moving forward is often debilitating. It is hard to share anything hopeful or helpful these days.

But this reflection is both hopeful and helpful in a surprising and roundabout way. The below meditation — including Acts 2, a journey around the moon, and words from my friend Bill McKibben — delighted me! And it made me put down my woe for a bit to ponder the wonder of being a “crew.”

Maybe this belated Earth Day message will lift your spirits as well. It really isn’t just for Earth Day. It is for everyday in these difficult times.

We could all use a crew hug right about now.

***

Long-time readers will know that Trinity is my “home church,” and I frequently wrote about experiences there in my early books. The sermon was written and preached by Trinity’s assistant pastor, the Rev. Sarah Thomas who, as its happens, is also a Cottage reader. She’s part of the Cottage crew. Leave her a comment after you read! 🙂

And I can’t resist mentioning Bill McKibben’s recent book, Here Comes the Sun. Bill shared an excerpt here at the Cottage when the book was published last summer.

Acts 2:43-47

Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.

All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.

And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

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Sermon for the 4th Sunday of Easter
Preached at Trinity Episcopal Church, Santa Barbara, on April 26, 2026
by The Rev. Sarah D. Thomas

“Awe came upon everyone” – these people were experiencing a spiritual high. They were becoming a new kind of community in those post-Easter days. They called themselves “the Way.” A Greek word used to describe their life together is koinonia, which means fellowship, communion, shared life. To our ears their new way might sound simple, quaint, or idealistic. But to Jesus’ early followers, it was electric. Risky. Brave. Awe had come upon them and they were reoriented to living differently.

We have all just lived through something like this, something electric, brave, and risky.

During Holy Week this year, four humans left Earth, launched into space at 25,000 miles per hour to achieve a first for humanity: a mission around the back side of the moon. Some of you followed it closely. Some of you may have missed it in the flood of everything else. I’ll admit, I was captivated. I marveled that I was able to watch live video footage inside a space capsule floating 250,000 miles away from Earth.

The first thing that really hit me wasn’t the technology, but the conversations that took place between the astronauts in space and the scientists on the ground. The way they spoke to each other was respectful. Attuned. Intelligent. Kind. Even though I didn’t understand any of the scientific language they were using, I was riveted to the live feed because the way they were all speaking to each other was so different from what I’ve become accustomed to hearing in public discourse. Apparently, I have become accustomed to snark. Mistrust. Disrespect. Competition. But now I was hearing something different. There was humor. Competence. Supportive, clear communication. Real teamwork. The mere words “copy that” made me tear up a little. (They said it a lot.) “Copy that”: “I hear you. I believe you. I will address that.” The Artemis II mission didn’t just show us space, it showed us our better selves.

And then there was a moment I can’t forget: As the crew passed the farthest point from Earth any humans have traveled (a record set by Apollo 13 over 50 years ago), they paused to mark it – not with data or achievement, but with love. They wanted to name two craters on the moon. One they named “Integrity,” after the spirit of their mission. And the other they named “Carroll,” after the late wife of one of their crewmates, who had died a few years ago. “Copy that,” said mission control. At the moment they were the farthest yet from Earth, their first instinct was to care for one another.

I pulled my car over and watched them. Their voices wavered and there were some tears. They formed an unplanned group hug and their legs drifted upward in zero gravity, forming a web of connection. This moment spread quickly on social media. Suddenly the whole world was paying attention. Because when humans act like this, it draws us in. Their survival depended on it. They needed each other. They shared everything: tight quarters, weird space food, exhaustion, wonder. Together, they looked back at Earth, just a small blue crescent as they drifted behind the moon. It did something to them. And by extension, it did something to us.

When they returned and spoke at a press conference one day after “splashdown,” their words were unpolished and emotional. Astronaut Christina Koch said this: “What struck me wasn’t necessarily just tiny Earth, it was all the blackness around it. Earth was just this life boat hanging undisturbingly in the universe.”

And then she said something that sounds remarkably like our reading from the Book of Acts.

Listen again to Acts: “Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

Awe came upon everyone. And it made them see life differently. Jesus’ followers experienced his risen presence in the days following that first Easter morning. It was shocking and surprising. And it changed them. It made them want to be together, to share all they had; to care for each other, to care for those in need. They had glad and generous hearts and had the goodwill of all the people. They became a crew.

This is what it means to be saved – not saved for some kind of afterlife, but to experience something in this life that leaves us in awe; to have our hearts opened to realities we often don’t see; to be filled with gladness and generosity; to let that spill over into the world. This is what being saved means.

On this Earth Day Sunday, could there be any better message for us to hear? We are here on this tiny lifeboat floating in space, together. One small fragile crew. And yet, we have a hard time living that way. Every day we see division, greed, violence, and systems that pull us apart.

But we’ve also seen something else: a mirror held up to us, reminding us of what is also true.

Bill McKibben, a famous environmentalist, spoke at UCSB a few days ago. While his talk was full of sobering and alarming science regarding climate change, his message was also hopeful. Solar and wind energy are accelerating at a very fast pace. He said that the past 36 months have made all the difference in ways many of us don’t really see. The earth is producing roughly a third more power from the sun this spring than it was last spring. China is at warp-speed-ahead on solar energy. We are almost too late, but if we can continue to speed this up, we have the ability to make a difference for the future. The problem is, the progress is being slowed by those invested in fossil fuels.

A journalist summed up McKibben’s main point: “Time is short. The technology is here. The obstacle is power. Fortunately, sunlight is much harder to hoard – or to wage war over.”^[1] A student in the audience asked, “What can I do?” And McKibben replied, “We need to stop thinking of ourselves as individuals, as an ‘I,’ and join others. Join a movement.”

In other words, become a crew!

Astronaut Jeremy Hansen, in his little speech right after splashdown, asked his fellow astronauts to stand up there next to him. They put their arms around each other as he said, “What you saw is a group of people who loved having meaningful contribution, and extracting joy out of that, and what we’ve been hearing is … that was something special for you to witness. If you look up here, you’re not looking at us. We are a mirror reflecting you. And if you like what you see, then just look a little deeper. This is you.”

The Artemis II mission became a mirror reflecting ourselves back to us in a way we needed to see. We saw teamwork, we saw sacrifice, we saw humble intelligence put to use for a greater good, we saw humans trembling with awe and wonder at the mystery of our universe, and we saw deep love. When I looked into that mirror, something in me shifted, and I haven’t been able to shake it for days.

We must take care as we look into the mirrors that are around us. There are plenty that distort, magnifying fear, division, and scarcity. But there are other mirrors that remind us who we are at our best, and mirrors that connect us to awe and the wonder of life itself.

When the church is at its best, it gets to be one of those mirrors – a people of koinonia: a community of joy and shared life, with glad and generous hearts, sharing presence and resources with those in need, and reminding the people of the world that it is a crew, held together in the love of Christ.

“Awe came upon everyone” and reoriented them to becoming a new kind of community.

Awe is a renewable resource! And one that we can easily harness if we cultivate it, if we become a crew. Our salvation depends on it.

Copy that?

^[1] Ella Heydenfeldt, “’Here Comes the Sun’ Author Bill McKibben Shares Climate Message, with Gallows Humor and Hope, at UC Santa Barbara,” Santa Barbara Independent, April 22, 2026.

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INSPIRATION

This planet will not
be healed
by powerful politicians
in big cities
who spend trillions
on a global strategy
that never quite begins.
They also burn
much fuel.
Earth will be healed
by villagers
who sing,
by backyard gardeners
like you,
who walk more slowly
right here,
who feel the green
through bare soles,
speaking fewer words,
cradling
each others anger
like mothers,
awakening
the heirloom seeds
of the heart.
— Fred LaMotte

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Easter is about God’s comings and goings. On Good Friday, Jesus is murdered and buried. On Easter, he returned! For several weeks, we read stories of friendship and encounters — the joyful reunion of Jesus with his followers in the most unexpected ways.

But now, the narrative shifts. Jesus is about to go away again. On May 14, Christians mark the Ascension, the story of the risen Christ leaving this world for the realm of God. The lectionary is preparing us for that eventuality. Christ is alive, yes. But Jesus is no longer here in a bodily way.

Are we really alone? What does it mean for us when Christ leaves? Why does God desert us?

For anyone worried about or feeling God’s absence, this week and next speak to the fear of loss and abandonment.

Happy Sixth Birthday to the Cottage! 🎂

For the month of May, The Cottage offers the deepest discount of the year to celebrate our birthday month — 25% off an annual subscription for new subscribers. And that discount will continue FOREVER. When you renew in the future, you’ll pay the same price.

You can also give a friend a gift of The Cottage at this rate.

MAY BIRTHDAY BLOWOUT! 🎂

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John 14:1-14

Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust* in God, trust also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not trust that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Trust me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then trust me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who trusts in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

*The Greek word, πιστεύω (pisteuó), is often translated “believe.” In contemporary American usage, however, “believe” too often implies either incredulity or intellectual assent. “Trust” is a better rendering of pisteuó in current parlance, and is equally weighted in terms of translation from the original Greek. The passage here is from the NRSV — I simply replaced “believe” with “trust.” Notice how it changes the tone (and perhaps the meaning) for readers.

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MUSING

I spent the last week at a meditation retreat. After one guided exercise, the teacher asked me, “How was that for you?”

“Fine,” I replied. “But why did you ask me about it? You didn’t ask anyone else the same question.”

She said, “I hoped it was okay for you — mostly since I quoted the Buddha at the beginning. I didn’t want you to be offended.”

I laughed and gently said, “Thank you for asking. I do love Jesus. But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate other teachers as well!”

Most of the people I met last week had once been Christians but weren’t any longer. Or they were born in or embraced completely different religious traditions. I enjoy that — it is good for my soul to be in such diverse company. I hear questions and ideas that I normally wouldn’t hear. I see and learn new things. And that’s good and helpful to my own spiritual life. (Not to mention that forming community across faith divides is good and helpful for the world 🌍!)

But one thing wasn’t good. More than a few people there were surprised to meet a Christian — because they believe that Christians are narrow, exclusive, and unwilling to engage with those of different faiths. One person even remarked, “when I went to church, they taught me that Jesus was the only way.”

That makes me sad. It isn’t, however, an odd thing to have learned in church. I thought of the long history of Christian exclusion, much of it based in verses like the one we read today — “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Emphasis on the “THE.” As several of my teenage-years pastors pointed out, “It’s not ‘a way,’ but ‘the’ way.”

Thus, this week, I found myself quoting the Bible to these new companions. Whenever someone worried about Christian exclusion, I replied, “It is true that Christians often see it that way. But they also ignore other things that Jesus said — for instance ‘In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.’ If Jesus was open to multiplicity, his followers should be, too.”*

After reciting that verse, my companion would usually breathe! These few words opened doors to a deeper engagement and shared appreciation for our spiritual journeys.

I felt grateful that such a brief text would pave the way for new understanding. But something else happened as well — I don’t think I ever quite realized that the “many dwelling places” verse is the context for the often-quoted (and widely misused) phrase, “the way, the truth, and the life”!

The text most frequently used to prove Christian exclusion is framed by a poetic, even mysterious, inclusive invitation into sacred multiplicity! ‘In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.’

That’s where Jesus is going. To the habitation of God, where there are “many dwelling places.”

During every meditation session last week, those words came to mind — many dwelling places. I began to savor “dwelling,” as the word conjured homeyness, safety, and welcome. There was room for me, room for you, room for everyone. We all have a place in God’s house!

God’s spaciousness filled me with hope and tenderness and joy. I literally felt divine hospitality — invited to a place of dwelling with the sacred presence.

I remembered words I had myself written more than a decade ago:

Home is a central theme in the world’s great religions: Jews seeking a homeland with God; Christians proclaiming that God dwells within our hearts; Muslims facing home to pray; Buddhists finding a true home in enlightenment; Druids and Wiccans worshiping gods who make their home in the seas and trees. Human beings build temples to shelter God’s presence, we mark sacred places with shrines, and we bury or float or burn our dead that they might find their way home to God.

The overarching narrative of the Bible is that of searching for home. In the beginning, God created the beautiful earth as humanity’s home, but we carelessly misused it, resulting in our exile. The rest of the story recounts how we either faithfully tended to our earthly home or sinfully abused it, with consequences of blessing or curses.

Throughout, a spiritual interplay emerges: God not only creates our earthly home, but God is our home. A letter on Catholic teaching sums this up:

The whole universe is God’s dwelling. Earth, a very small, uniquely blessed corner of that universe, gifted with unique natural blessings, is humanity’s home, and humans are never so much at home as when God dwells with them.

It is a powerful story, rich in literary ambiguity – the earth, us, home, and God are almost interchangeable characters in this ancient record of humankind’s restless search to dwell.**

The seemingly exclusive words, “the way, the truth, and the life,” appear in the context of God’s vast dwelling and divine hospitality!

With this framing, the passage shifts.

When Jesus says, “I am the way,” he was referring to how he dwelt in God and how God dwelt in him. Indeed, Christians trust that God dwells with us and that Jesus embodied God’s dwelling in a distinctive way. This is an invitation to awaken to God’s always-presence, the “God-With-Us.”

“I am the truth” opens us to the grounding of the theological vision above: The whole universe is God’s dwelling….humans are never so much at home as when God dwells with them. This isn’t dogma. This is just the truth of things. Scripture whispers, teaches, and proclaims this from Genesis to its final page.

“I am the life” implies what our Jewish friends (remember: Jesus was a Jew) call shalom bayit, the “peace of the home.” Shalom bayit signifies the wholeness achieved through the loving-kindness of mutual dwelling with one another in God. Abundant life, so often promised by Jesus, is the gift of dwelling in kindness together.

“The way, the truth, and the life” isn’t a doctrine test or a missionary imperative. It is an invitation to gaze deeply into the Christ — the Easter Christ — and see the acceptance of God’s hospitality, the renewing and rebirthing love of God. “No one comes to the Father” reminds us that we really don’t know God until we understand the width and breadth and depth of dwelling — the spaciousness of the divine. God is in, with, and through all things. The sacred presence infuses everything and everyone. This is the foundation of the very cosmos, to have a place in the universe, a home in the Great Mystery.

“No one comes to the Father” is NOT a threat. It is a reminder of what the journey holds for us — there is a dwelling place of peace and loving-kindness, the long-promised hope of humankind. And, along the way, the God who makes that place also has made a dwelling place in our hearts.

What an absolute shame that so many Christians have been taught to read this inclusive, embracing, wonder-filled invitation through words that, when taken out of context, imply exclusion. We either forget the first words of this passage — do not let your hearts be troubled …. trust God …. there are many dwelling places — or relegate them to a lesser status. The guiding constellation of this chapter? “THE” and “NO ONE.” Those words have seared themselves in memory, shout from the page, flash warning lights in our souls.

But what if the history of Christianity had been the opposite? What if we’d been taught to read the seemingly exclusive through the first words, the vision of sacred dwelling — the many?

What if the first words that came to mind were always, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?”

When reversed, any specificity is framed by an expansive cosmic vision — many dwelling places, a sacred habitation as vast as the stars.

That’s the way, the truth, and the life. Openness. A shared search, a common hope. A home with and in God. A home with many dwellings, a multiplicity of habitation. A spacious God.

Assurance that Jesus already knows this path, guides us. He has gone before.

Trust the journey home.

—

* I might have also quoted John 10:16 — "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice.” But, since the “Father’s house” text was in this week’s lectionary reading, it was front-of-mind for me. It is, however, worth noting that in some lectionary years, Christians read the “other sheep” text on the fourth Sunday of Easter.

**This passage is from Grounded: Finding God in the World, A Spiritual Revolution (2015), pp. 169-170. If you’ve not read it, I invite you to consider adding it to your reading list! It is a rich journey, one of my own favorites. ❤️

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INSPIRATION

There was a time I would reject those
who were not of my faith.
But now, my heart has grown capable
of taking on all forms:
A meadow for gazelles,
A cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Kaaba for the pilgrim,
A table for the Torah,
My religion is Love;
Wherever its caravan turns along the way,
That shall be the path of my faith.
– Ibn 'Arabī, “There was a time”

This poem from the medieval Sufi mystic appears in many forms. This version is from Leading from Within: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Lead.

***

Sometimes when I deeply listen,
the seeds of another’s words
land in the soil of me.
Days later, the roots of what
they said are still tendrilling
into my dendrites, and
through synaptic miracle grow,
soon my whole neural network
has lit up, blooming with a new
way of thinking. Like last week
when I heard a man ask,
How does my rage help me
stay on the path of love?
He was responding to a question
he heard me ask in response
to a question I heard someone
else ask. And this is how listening
transforms the world. We adapt
through cross-pollination.
Your thoughts and my thoughts
breed something new — like
this love and rage hybrid now growing
in me. Diversity is the key to survive.
The paths are always changing.
— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “Survival”

(with Rosemerry’s thanks to Brian McLaren)

***

To you who say
God is not a person
I say God is my friend.
To you who say
God takes a human form
I say God is boundless space
in the brain of an ant.
To you who say
God is beyond the body
I say God is this breath.
I hold opposite teachings
in my chestful of wonder.
To you who say
God dwells inside
I say God spills over the rim
of the star chalice
like silence from an empty bell.
You say God is One,
I say God is love
longing for a companion.
You say God is your paramour,
I say yes, yes,
God hides in the plum blossoms
dancing as pure light
through the wings of a dragonfly.
— Fred LaMotte, “To you who say”

The button below also takes you to the May Birthday offer.

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In May 2020, The Cottage launched on Substack.

May is such a lovely month. I was born in February but always wanted a May birthday.

May 2020, however, wasn’t the greatest of all months. It was early in the pandemic. There had been a previous version of The Cottage (and some of you were on that list!) that was sent once a month before Substack even existed.

Back then, with some hesitation and a lot of hope, I decided to try out this new platform and see what would happen. I was worried and lonely and felt afraid. I wondered if anyone would like it. I wondered if anyone would even read it!

And now? Six years have passed! I thought I’d do this “for a year or two.” Just to get through the pandemic.

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Since 2020, Cottage posts have been read over 36 million times by 17 million viewers, with the biggest single post being “Mary the Tower” about Mary Magdalene.

The Cottage subscriber community has grown to include 80,000 readers in all 50 states (ranging from 4K+ in California to 81 brave souls in Wyoming!), every Canadian province, and 177 countries around the world (there are as many Canadians as Californians here — with 2K from the UK and Australia/New Zealand with nearly 1,500 readers!). You are Christians, Jews, Buddhists, post-religious, humanists, agnostics, and spiritual-but-not-religious. There are a lot of ministers and rabbis here. But there are probably an equal number who have given up on church. Most of us (including me) are lay folks. Some of us are still in the work force; others are retired. We’ve got twenty- and thirty-somethings at The Cottage. And it never ceases to amaze me how MANY of you are over 80! (I see those of you who are over 90 — there are at least two dozen of you. I don’t know if we’ve got any centenarians on board!)

And I’ve gotten to know many of you IRL (“in real life”), too. You’ve shown up at churches, retreats, book signings, and conferences. You’ve been so, so, so patient during book launches. You’ve both encouraged and corrected me. You’ve prayed for and with me. And you’ve done this for one another as well.

I guess you liked it. 🙂❤️

I never expected any of this. We’ve been through a lot. It has been amazing. And fun. It’s changed my life as a writer. Before Substack, I could only be with you through a book, article, occasional media interview, or an in-person lecture. Those things were mediated by publishers, editors, producers, and event organizers who shaped my material and decided how it would reach you. It was hard for you to respond to my work. It was hard for me to hear you.

But Substack upended that — and now we — me as an author and you as readers — have direct engagement without those middle steps.

I read every single comment posted here.

*****

Over the years, The Cottage changed, too. Instead of being an occasional newsletter to inform you about my work, The Cottage has become my work. It is now a full-time job — a genuine 24/7 vocation — writing, researching, connecting, managing subscriptions, learning new technology, planning upcoming seasonal specials (especially Advent and Lent), and (the best part) responding to you all (with help from my spouse, Richard).

And The Cottage has teamed up to form the Convocation Unscripted with Robby Jones, Kristin DuMez, and Jemar Tisby — as well as offering occasional joint events with Tripp Fuller and Homebrewed Christianity.

Whew! And I thought people RETIRED in their mid-60s! 😂😂😂

The Cottage may seem like magic. I hope it does. The real cottage in my backyard is pretty magical! But magic happens with commitment, practice, and hard work. By now, you know you can depend on me to keep with you on this journey through tough days and joyful ones. I hope you find my words from The Cottage faithful companions as we navigate a world we never could have imagined.

Richard and I so appreciate those of you who are paid subscribers — you make up only a small part of the Cottage’s readership — and yet you help keep the whole thing going for the many thousands who have found their way here.

And to all of you: Thank you for encouraging us, praying for and with us, and extending your friendship and love to support us. 🙏

You are the real magic behind the Cottage.

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MAY CELEBRATION DISCOUNT

For new paid subscribers only

For the entire month of May, The Cottage offers the deepest discount of the year — 25% off an annual subscription for new annual subscribers. And that discount will continue FOREVER. So, when you renew in the future, you’ll pay the same price.

You can also give a friend a gift of The Cottage at this rate.

MAY BIRTHDAY BLOWOUT! 🎂

THIS IS THE ONLY TIME DURING THE ENTIRE YEAR THAT THIS SPECIAL RATE IS OFFERED.

The offer can only be accessed through the button above,
“May Birthday Blowout!”

For paid subscribers only: BIRTHDAY PRESENTS FOR YOU!

May Book Giveaway

On May 31, we’ll give away a dozen signed copies of A Beautiful Year via an online drawing.

I’ve also got two free copies of John Fugelsang’s book, The Separation of Church and Hate, two of Wes Granberg-Michaelson’s The Soulwork of Justice, and one copy of Bill McKibben’s Here Comes the Sun.

All paid subscribers are entered automatically. We’ll contact you in early June via email if your name is drawn .

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THANK YOU FOR SHARING IN THIS JOURNEY

🎉🎂🥳🎈🎊🎁

By tradition this day is known as Good Shepherd Sunday. The biblical texts are familiar even to those who don’t regularly attend church — Psalm 23 and a portion of the Gospel of John: I am the Good Shepherd.

Notice that the lectionary shifts today away from the relational “we are” stories of the last seven weeks to an “I am” saying of Jesus. The reading is signaling a narrative change in direction as we move deeper into the Easter season — a direction that will make more sense over the next few weeks.

I’m actually on a retreat this weekend. Today’s musing was originally written in 2024 — and is one of my favorite Cottage reflections. I’m pleased to share it again with long-time readers and for the first time with new folks here.

If you are reading A Beautiful Year, you can also read the meditation, “Psalm 23,” on pages 290-295 in the Pentecost section. It is perfectly suited for this Sunday (as well as its later appearance on a Sunday in Pentecost!).

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I invite you to sign up as either a free or paid subscriber.

Thank you for your support.

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Psalm 23
Dominus regit me, Book of Common Prayer

The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not be in want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures
and leads me beside still waters.

He revives my soul
and guides me along right pathways for his Name’s sake.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I shall fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me;
you have anointed my head with oil,
and my cup is running over.

Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

John 10:11-18

Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away — and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”

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MUSING

Seventh grade was my first experience of gym classes with uniforms and showers. We were given lockers to store our clothes and, since there weren’t enough for every student, we had to share.

Thus it came to be that I was assigned a locker mate: Charlotte, the goat girl.

Baltimore County was, even in the early 1970s, a pretty agrarian place. New homes often sat on an acre or more of land, often right next to old family farms. Urban kids like me, whose parents moved from Baltimore City in a fit of white flight, wound up in schools with rural children, whose traditional way of life was being overwhelmed by newcomers.

Unlike those of us in the fancy new houses, the farm kids had to help out their parents on the farm before coming to school. Instead of following teen-age fashion trends, they arrived in class wearing their chore clothes that were often covered with dirt and dung and whatever else they had to shovel or slop at dawn. The city kids in their bell-bottoms and minidresses, who mostly looked like extras from the Brady Bunch, bullied their farmhand classmates mercilessly in that uniquely cruel middle school way.

Charlotte was frequently targeted by bullies. Her before-school task was feeding her family’s sheep and goats. She was also in the “awkward stage” of girls, a little plump and wearing braces. In addition to that normal stuff, however, her clothes reeked of her morning flock, and she arrived at school every day perfumed with l’eau d’barnyard. The bullies christened her, “Charlotte the goat girl.” In a more romantic age, some pastoral painter might have dubbed her a shepherdess.

But this was 1971.

I groaned when I saw my locker assignment. Nobody wanted to be near her because the agricultural odor was so strong — that’s a nice way of saying that she smelled of manure.

Other girls told me they pitied me.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I reported to the gym, hung up my fresh clothes in the locker with Charlotte’s work clothes. After class, I’d take out whatever mod outfit I’d worn, now smelling of goat. The bullies started picking on me, too. Charlotte didn’t exactly become a friend but she may have counted me among hers. I did pick up a few tips about feeding goats and learned the difference between them and sheep.

I also learned that being a shepherd was dirty, smelly, and unpleasant work. It certainly wasn’t the stuff to make a girl popular — except maybe among sheep.

And Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd.”

I bet that didn’t win him any friends. I know for sure nobody wanted to share his gym locker.

It was a strange claim for Jesus to make. Being a shepherd in the ancient world was not that different from Charlotte’s experience. Few grown men were shepherds or wanted to be shepherds. It was a job for women, children, the enslaved, or the elderly — all people who were socially marginalized and considered to have less worth than the sheep they tended!

In the Bible, women often shepherded flocks. Rachel, the beloved wife of Jacob, was a shepherd: “Rachel came with her father’s sheep for she was their shepherd” (Gen. 29:6). The same was true of Zipporah, who became Moses’ wife: “Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock” (Ex. 2:16). The woman in the steamy Song of Songs also seems to have been a shepherd — her lover tells her, “Pasture your little lambs beside the tents of the shepherds” (Song 1:5-8).

The most famous shepherd in the Hebrew scriptures was David, a child, the youngest son of eight boys. Watching over sheep was the only job left for the end of the line children, those often troublesome younger brothers with no worthy occupation. Indeed, most of the patriarchs who were praised for their large families and herds didn’t actually do the work of either parenting or shepherding. They left that to their wives, children, and servants.

In the ancient Middle East, herding was the work of women and children. Not something that any respectable man would do himself.

Many modern notions of Jesus the Good Shepherd are shaped more by European romanticism than by any sense of historical reality. We hear “I am the good shepherd,” we might think:

But the people to whom he said this probably thought, what?

Because they were thinking of shepherds more like this:

We consider these cozy and comforting verses — and they are often read at Christian funerals. But the truth is that they are somewhat confusing to anyone seeking safety or comfort.

In the ancient world, sheep were important to their owners; sheep were important for the economy. They signified wealth and status. Despite their value, the job of shepherd often fell to society’s least important members. A shepherd tended sheep, guided and guarded them, provided food and protection and cared for them.

Sure, someone might do the job well, but shepherds themselves weren’t generally seen as good people, not as someone you’d want to hang around with or be your friend. They were expendable people in menial but necessary jobs.

Not that different from many jobs today:

I am the good migrant farm laborer.
I am the good dishwasher.
I am the good night security guard.
I am the good housekeeper.
I am the good sanitation worker.
I am the good meat packer.
I am the good day laborer.
I am the good shepherd.

Today’s texts are, of course, comforting. But they are also texts with radical implications. Everyone hearing these words understood that the sheep were valuable and needed attention. But God is a shepherd? Jesus is a good shepherd?

If we focus only on the sheep, we might miss the most compelling point. Psalm 23 states, “The Lord is my shepherd.” And Jesus identified himself with the shepherd. And shepherd was a job held by those unfit for any other occupation.

Respectable people must have winced.

Jesus elevated a mean occupation to sacred status, claiming it to be the very work of God. In effect, he extended dignity to all those consigned to such work by the powerful and wealthy. While criticizing “hirelings” who treated their work carelessly, he sided with those who did the good and essential work of community — tending, guiding, guarding, providing, protecting, feeding, and caring.

I am the good shepherd.

Suddenly, the sheep — although always financially valuable — become more than mere property. And the shepherd, the necessary but largely invisible worker is ennobled.

Jesus imagined an entirely different kind of flock, not one owned by some greedy and distant overlord, but an inclusive human family tended by the motherly care of God and led by little children.

I can almost hear Jesus saying, I am the good goat girl.

And I wonder what happened to Charlotte. She taught me more than I could have guessed back in that locker room.

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Lord of the sheepfold, whose love is not for hire,
who calls to himself the victims of the world:
we thank you that Christ laid down his life for us when we could not help ourselves;
in the weakness of his love give us strength to work for peace in the world to serve, through Jesus Christ, the good shepherd. Amen.

— Steven Shakespeare

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INSPIRATION

Resurrection is not just comfort,
it’s courage. It’s a signpost.
It points to the victory
of love and nonviolence
over evil, death and injustice.
It indicates the good path
where our good shepherd leads us,
through the shadowed valley of suffering,
to bring to the table of grace
even our enemies.
For, dying, love endures.
Failing, love wins.
So we follow good paths
with courage to live gently,
to serve humbly, to forgive freely,
to risk boldly for the sake of the vulnerable.
Such is the path to life
that can’t be taken from us, even by death,
an abundantly fruiting tree,
rooted in the eternal heart of God.
So nourished in this peculiar green pasture
of dying and rising,
and so gently led
by our dying and rising shepherd,
with love and courage we go.
— Steve Garnaas-Holmes, “Good Paths”

The traditional text for today is the story of two disciples meeting Jesus along the Emmaus Road — and they don’t recognize their Teacher and Friend.

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Luke 24:13-35

Now on that same day two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened.

While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?”

He asked them, “What things?”

They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.”

Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them.

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.

They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

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MUSING

Many Christians are familiar with “I am” statements in the Gospel of John, Jesus’ seven poetic self-descriptions: I am … the bread of life; light of the world; the door (or gate); the Good Shepherd; the resurrection and the life; the way, truth, life; and true vine.

With each metaphor, Jesus revealed something of his divine nature. The sentences, each in a mysterious and compelling way, introduce theological themes related to Jesus’ person — their poetry sparkles like a prism of the sacred, communicating the “I am” (itself a moniker of divine personhood) with great beauty.

And these statements have long been the focus of sermon series and bible studies. Even Christians who don’t know the Bible well often know them.

Since the second Sunday in Lent, the lectionary has presented readers with a different septet — seven encounters with Jesus. These seven stories slowly unfold who Jesus was in relation to other people. The encounters aren’t pithy theological pronouncements. Instead, they are long conversations between Jesus and those curious about who he was — and those people were from many different stations in life. Often, these encounters frame an “I am” statement, but not always. These conversations aren’t announcements of some theological position, an idea that stands on its own. Instead, they are legitimate discussions that lead toward genuine engagement and open the possibility of real friendship.

This season, we’ve not been through a seven-step list of “I am.” Instead, we’ve been invited into a sevenfold journey of “we are.”

Think back for a moment. On March 1, the second Sunday of Lent, we overheard a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, “a leader of the Jews,” who surely pondered what they had discussed — and he would show up repeatedly throughout the gospels.

On March 8, the third Sunday of Lent, we read the longest conversation between Jesus and anyone in the Bible — the Samaritan woman at the well. In this extraordinary meeting, Jesus extended her great mercy and compassion. And she, as well as her standing in her village, were transformed by the encounter.

On March 15, the fourth Sunday of Lent, Jesus healed a blind man at the pool of Siloam. We saw the man’s disposition change. We witnessed how his defense of Jesus got him — and his parents — run out of the their local community. On March 22, the fifth Sunday of Lent, we were invited into an emotionally charged encounter between Jesus and Mary Magdalene prompted by the death of Lazarus. Out of their frustrated, grief-stricken, and even angry exchange came the first unambiguous proclamation of Jesus — the “Christological confession” — in John’s gospel: “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

The fifth encounter is on Easter Sunday — in the compellingly intimate and powerful story of Mary Magdalene and Jesus meeting in the burial garden. The sixth is on the first Sunday of Easter: Jesus’ appearance to the other disciples, and most especially, the shocking moment of interpersonal intercourse with Thomas, when Jesus tells his friend to insert his fingers into the crucifixtion’s wound.

And today, we read the final story in this series — when two of Jesus’ friends walk with him on the road to Emmaus and share a joyful meal and profound conversation around a table.

My hope today is that you will think about all seven conversations, all seven encounters. I confess: I’ve never thought about them as a series or a group before! But, as I’ve stewed on this all week; I keep coming back to a surprisingly simple thing — about being “friends” of God.

Many years ago, I spent time in an evangelical church. Unlike the regal and reverent language for Jesus used in my childhood Methodist church, these evangelicals always spoke of “having a relationship” with Jesus.

The “relationship” thing flummoxed me. I wasn’t entirely sure what they were talking about! Eventually, I learned that — for them at least — a “relationship” with Jesus entailed a conversion experience (getting “born again”), reading the Bible, and having a “prayer life.”

As I re-read all seven “encounter” stories this week, I realized that, in the oddest way, they were sort of right. Sort of. To them, the “born again” experience was an immediate encounter of meeting Jesus “face-to-face.” Reading the Bible meant knowing Jesus’ story and the longer story of the God of Israel. And having a “prayer life” entailed daily conversation with God through Jesus. Encounter, story, conversation — that was a “personal relationship” with Jesus.

However quirkily those evangelicals may have interpreted this, isn’t it basically true? Most relationships involve these same things — the compelling encounter (whether of attraction or curiosity), getting to know the other person’s story, and continued conversation with them? Indeed, this is the recipe of friendship.

Shortly before his death, in John 15:15, Jesus said to his disciples, “I no longer call you servants…Instead, I have called you friends.” Jesus insisted that even his impending absence would not inhibit this. The fundamental, redefined Easter relationship (yes, there’s that word, relationship) with both himself and God would be friendship.

Taken together, these seven stories of encounter tell seven stories of friendship with God….of seven relationships with Jesus. They are all different, yet in some ways, very similar. The relationships are forged with questioners, people hiding shameful stories, those deemed sinners, the disabled, the brokenhearted, lovers, doubters, and those who don’t even recognize a friend who walks by their side. But every one of these people who encounter and converse with Jesus were transformed — and their relationships with each other were changed as well.

The late Frederic Brussat wrote, “Relationships are the spiritual web of our lives. The crucial strands of family, intimate relationships, marriage, friends, community, nature, and place and the wider world....The quality of our spiritual lives is measured by these essential bonds. Indeed, our relationship with God is reflected and expressed in these and other relationships....They are the essential meaning and miracle in our days. They are the arena in which we exercise our values and express our visions..”

Human beings need friendship. We need relationships. And the Easter story tells the continuing story of Jesus in a circle of friends. Jesus didn’t stay distant from those whom he loved. He visited them, he ate with them, he taught them still. The Christian tradition insists that for fifty days following the Resurrection, Jesus hung around. Sure, it was miraculous and, well, weird. But the most miraculous thing was, perhaps, that it is was so darn human. Jesus came back and didn’t flail his enemies or destroy the Roman Empire or get vengeance or whatever. Nope. He shared meals with his friends. Just as he had before the torture and execution and strange events of the garden tomb.

It was this ongoing friendship with Jesus that changed the disciples — and eventually empowered them to change their world. And it is worth considering that this friendship changed Jesus — changed God — as well. Friendship and relationship are ALWAYS reciprocal. That is the most shocking implication of Jesus’ John 15:15 statement: “I no longer call you servants… Instead, I have called you friends.”

Friendship is an invitation to a genuine, transformative encounter between all the parties in the relationship! It isn’t a one-sided thing. Some contemporary theologians refer to God as the “Deep Friend,” the “Holy Love” of the God who is Friend to everyone and everything in the cosmos.

In this exchange of love — through the sacred friendship — we change, growing into the likeness of the “Deep Friend.” And it is stunning to consider that God, the “Deep Friend,” also somehow “grows” and “transforms” as more and more of creation enters into the never-ending encounter and conversation of Holy Love.

Friendship, relationship, love — these things defeat death. These things continue beyond death.

This is why Lent opens the way for us to encounter Jesus. This is why Easter is a season, not a one-time miracle. Life comes to us all through relationship — through the eternal love that undoes the power of death.

Welcome, Deep Friend, you of the Easter journey, into my life. I recognize you along this way. Let us walk together.

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INSPIRATION

Jesus will have no hierarchies,
no separations or divisions,
not even between us and him.
“Call no one good but God.”
There are no greater and lesser,
no servants and masters,
no insiders and outsiders.
Not even believers and unbelievers.
Only friends, peers, siblings, companions.
Every stranger is a sibling.
Every person you meet is a friend
for whom you would lay down your life.
There is no “them.” There is only us.
In the love of Christ, befriend this world
and everyone in it;
you will never be alone.
— Steve Garnaas-Holmes, “Friends”

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A little news….

On Friday, it was an honor to be in Cincinnati to accept the Wilbur Award from the Religion Communicators Council for my new book, A Beautiful Year.

They recognized so many remarkable projects in books, journalism, podcasts, television, and documentaries. It was heartening to be in a room with creative storytellers who understand the importance of faith and religion and whose stories that inform and inspire — and who emphasize the beauty of the human spirit in these difficult days.

It was profoundly humbling to be part of this community. And encouraging.

Last week, Trump decided to use Easter as a reason to escalate a war, kill innocent people, and insult Islam (see my post, “The Warmonger of Easter”).

And, in the days following, Pope Leo was having none of it and made a point of using his pulpit to put warmongers in their place. Throughout the last few days, Leo has consistently reminded the world that Jesus Christ said, “Blessed are the peacemakers” — and that is the call for every Christian.

Things must be pretty tense for Catholics in the administration right now. JD Vance had to distance himself from the Pope’s remarks, literally warning the pontiff to “be careful” when addressing theology, and ICE director Tom Homan told Leo to “leave politics alone.”

But the Pope has been perfectly clear and relentlessly single-minded on this. See this news story from PBS yesterday, Pope doubles down on message of peace and unity as Trump’s criticism continues.

The theological pressure on the White House continued today (without Leo ever mentioning Trump, Vance, or any other American politician by name) when the Pope took to X and posted this:

The X-post followed Leo’s speech to African Christians today when he said ‘world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants’

Click through the link and listen to the one minute clip. (It is really good.)

And now, in a great historical twist, the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion is backing Pope Leo and the Catholic Church (trust me, they haven’t always done so!). According to Reuters:

“The Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, threw her support behind Pope Leo on Thursday, urging 85 million Anglicans worldwide to speak out for peace after ​U.S. President Donald Trump attacked the pope over his criticism of the ​war in Iran.”

If you turn on the news or open your phones these days, there are stories about religion and politics EVERYWHERE. (And I didn’t even mention Pete Hegseth basing a prayer on a FAKE Bible verse from the movie, Pulp Fiction at his Pentagon worship service!)

This would be a terrific time to host a discussion in your church about the relationship between faith and public life. If you are a preacher, the Pope and the Archbishop have sent you a gold-plated invitation to sermonize on “blessed are the peacemakers.”

And, if you need a bit more prompting, some 60-70% of the American people are against this war. It is a rare day when the door is open quite this wide to explore an important ethical, theological, and political issue like this with church folks.

Don’t let the moment pass. Everyone is talking about his. Why not your community and congregation?

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The whole business prompted me and Tripp Fuller to revive our quirky and occasional RUINING DINNER podcast.

RUINING DINNER started during the pandemic — when Tripp was teaching at Edinburgh — and we had to do the live pod during the dinner hour (because of time zone issues). But now Tripp is in North Carolina, so we typically ruin lunch these days.

Paid subscribers to The Cottage and/or Tripp’s Process This newsletters are invited to the RUINING DINNER live broadcast and have access to later viewing.

This week, however, we decided to open RUINING DINNER up to EVERYONE through YouTube — mostly because we had so much fun.

Welcome to the RUINING DINNER “I Thought I Was a Doctor: Trump, the Pope & the Most Chaotic Week in Religion News” edition.

Tripp summarized our conversation:

We started where everyone started this week: JD Vance, a newly minted Catholic who received what sounds like the Peter Thiel E-Z Pass lane through RCIA, publicly suggesting that the Pope — the Pope — should think more carefully before opining about theology. The same Pope who then responded to a Pentagon threat referencing the Avignon papacy by giving an even stronger anti-war speech. We talked about Trump’s Easter posts, the Jesus meme, the “I thought I was a doctor” explanation, and the remarkable spectacle of evangelicals — evangelicals — saying the president might be demon-possessed.

But Diana being Diana, she kept pulling the historical threads, and we ended up somewhere genuinely useful: the long story of how American Christianity split the sacred from the secular, why that split is breaking down, what it means for a congregation trying to figure out what to do with the 250th anniversary of a nation that’s currently threatening popes and bombing people on Easter Sunday.

My summary? Lots of laughing, impromptu mini lectures from me, and Tripp’s chickens in the background.

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So, join us TOMORROW, April 15 at 1:00PM EASTERN/10:00AM PACIFIC — we’ll Ruin Lunch but Save Your T…

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Like Christmas, Easter is a day and a season. Unlike Christmas, however, with its twelve joyous and raucous days, Easter lasts for fifty miraculous — and thoughtful — days. It marks the end of the first half of the Christian year — the portion that stretches from Advent to Pentecost that emphasizes the life of Jesus.

And its moods are many — ranging from triumph to skepticism. The Easter season continues the longer story of the resurrection with a number of stories about the “post-resurrection” appearances of Jesus. It deals with questions of doubt, unbelief, meaning, and fear. It doesn’t hesitate to reveal the conflicts held by New Testament writers about the nature of the Easter miracle and the nature of a “bodily” resurrection. (Hint: they don’t agree.)

If you are reading A Beautiful Year this season (and I humbly recommend that you do), you’ll find five Easter essays covering these questions — as well as a beautiful, traditional poem on Easter by Christina Rossetti. And, if you are reading A Beautiful Year with friends or a book group, there’s plenty of fodder and lots of encouragement for people to express their own doubts and ask questions. Question-asking is a major theme of the Easter season! You’ll find a lot to talk about!

This year in Sunday Musings here at The Cottage, we’re going to explore the Easter vision of community, a theme that began back in Lent and anticipates the coming of Pentecost.

It is a liturgical tradition in many Christian churches to read the story of “Doubting Thomas” in John 20 on the second Sunday of Easter.

We read it during Holy Week for “Holy Thursday Revolution.” But who am I to buck tradition? (lol) So, here’s John 20 one more time — until next year.

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John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.

So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

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MUSING

I remember my first doubts.

Not about Jesus or the resurrection. But doubts I had about what was being taught at my high school youth group Bible study.

We had a new youth pastor named Tim. He was funny and kind and interesting. And he loved the Book of Ephesians. He especially loved teaching and preaching on Ephesians 5 regarding the divine order of the family, specifically the part about wives submitting to their husbands.

He’d give us all the same Bible lesson, but then divided up the group into “boys” and “girls” for the discussion part. I didn’t like that. And, since I’d actually grown up in a mainline church, I pretended not to know that I broke evangelical rules. Every Wednesday night, I stayed with the boys to talk about theology and steadfastly refused to go with Tim’s wife to another corner in the youth room to discuss stuff like Christian dating and modest dressing. I could never tell what Tim really thought — although he did once say that it was “too bad” that I was a girl because I would have made a good seminary student. I’m pretty sure that the girls’ group was talking about how to marry a pastor.

I noticed something odd. The boys seemed to like my company but didn’t quite know what to do with me. Should they be friends? (A few seemed quite willing to do so!) Could boys really be friends with girls? Or what, exactly? And the girls? They didn’t know what to say to me. Especially when I wondered about predestination and Romans 13:1 and women being silent in churches. I loved Jesus, yes. But even at 16, I asked a lot of questions. I didn’t believe much of what they were selling. And I certainly doubted that theirs was the only way to interpret the Bible.

I doubted their version of the story — because I was passionate to know more.

That “unbelief” was isolating. It separated me from the group. At the edge of the boys’ circle and given the cold shoulder from the girls, I didn’t fit. I asked too many questions. I doubted what leaders said. I’ve been that way for a long time. Most of my life, really. I’ve always seen things differently.

It was the beginning of the end of my relationship with that youth group — and with that church. Over the months, I realized that I was an outsider, not overtly shunned but quietly relegated to a “non-place.” They were nice enough to me. They didn’t really listen — or care about my concerns. I still believed in Jesus. Just not in the way they wanted me to.

Years later, my questions, my agility with doubt, and my willingness to not believe as others did would prove to be my downfall in evangelicalism more broadly. They said I wasn’t really a Christian, that I’d fallen away.

They didn’t understand that my doubts were really an expression of love for Jesus.

And that brings me to today’s familiar story about “Doubting Thomas.”

In its most conventional interpretation, this is an episode about proving the resurrection with physical evidence. Thomas is often depicted as a kind of scientific skeptic or university professor whose unbelief is overcome when confronted with the fact of Jesus’ body standing in the room with him.

What if the story is less about proof — and more about how doubt functions in our lives? Some people just ask questions. Some people are naturally skeptical. Some always doubt. Questions are good; skepticism often signals alternate possibilities; doubt nurtures intellectual creativity.

But the less-doubting, less-skeptical, less-questioning folks among us don’t always get that. They often think that if doubters just know their place, they’ll be happy. They don’t understand that consigning questioners to a particular corner of the room makes them even more skeptical!

Thomas did not not believe. He just didn’t believe the way the rest of the group wanted him to.

Thomas has a longer story in John’s gospel. In John 11, he’s the only one of the twelve disciples who shows up by name. When hearing of Lazarus’ death and that somehow his demise will demonstrate belief in Jesus, Thomas willingly volunteered to die for Jesus’ sake. A few chapters later, when Jesus said he would leave the disciples, Thomas was the first to cry out, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

Being willing to die, feeling the fear of abandonment, and wanting to follow Jesus on whatever the way ahead — this is hardly the stuff of unbelief. Thomas loved Jesus. He was so passionate that he couldn’t bear the idea of being separated from him.

Even after the crucifixion, Thomas loved so much that he didn’t hide in the upper room, cringing with fear that the authorities might arrest him, too. He did something else. He went searching for Jesus. We don’t know where Thomas was that night. Maybe Thomas went to the tomb to see for himself — to witness only an empty sepulcher. Maybe Thomas stayed with Mary and asked her more questions.

But he wasn’t cowering with the rest of his brothers behind locked doors.

Thomas did things differently. He pushed to the edges. Willing to die. Bereft with loss. Desperate to find a way to follow Jesus. It wasn’t a kind of intellectual unbelief — it was passionate love that drove Thomas. I must touch the body of my beloved Jesus. Only then I can trust that this story is true. That’s a very human instinct, to hold the one lost, an instinct of great love — to touch, to be present, is to participate in whatever has happened. This is the same kind of emotional energy that made Mary Magdalene chastise Jesus upon the death of Lazarus — If you’d just been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.

Thomas and Mary loved greatly. And that love made them question, made their search for answers harder, made them reach for Jesus differently than the others. They weren’t content with Jesus just appearing in a garden or showing up behind a locked door or saying “peace.” They wanted to touch and hold Jesus and never let go. They wanted to be with him always and forever, to be present with him, one in passionate divine belovedness.

This is what separated Thomas from the others. This is what drove his questions — what seemed like unbelief and doubt to others. Perhaps the others had convinced him that his questions amounted to doubt. Perhaps he’d even come to believe them. Perhaps he didn’t think he really belonged with them on that first night. He went outside the circle.

Yes, unbelief can be isolating. Mostly because other people feel challenged by it. Sometimes those we deem “unbelievers” are just annoying. But “unbelief” can wear many masks, including the face of passionate and misunderstood love. How often do we hide love under the guise of self-doubt or denial? How often does the doubter wind up being the most besotted lover? Doubt and love are intertwined emotions, they weave a single fabric. How many romances share this plot?

Perhaps this encounter between Jesus and Thomas was less about convincing Thomas and more about convincing the community that Thomas’s love — that questioning, relentless, annoying, and maddening love — needed to be the heart of resurrection life.

Jesus literally invited the one who was outside the circle to the most intimate experience of all the post-resurrection accounts. Thomas, absent from the first night of Easter, is the only biblical story about a disciple whose very body is united with the body of Jesus.

Jesus brought Thomas into the center of the story, back into the community.

Thomas, the outsider, certainly changed. But so did the other disciples who witnessed this moment. How shocked were they that their annoying brother, the one so often at the edge of their fellowship with all those questions, was actually closer to Jesus than they were themselves?

Thus, Thomas became the paradigm for all belief — not some intellectual assent or doctrinal precision about Jesus, but a wild, reckless, driving love that insists we become one with the very being of God. Not as a skeptic convinced by evidence, but as a brokenhearted lover seeking reunion with his beloved.

Look to the ones at the edge, to the questioners, to the skeptics, to the unbelieving. Those who have been pushed aside. You, too, might be surprised at Jesus’ invitation to those beyond the circle:

Reach out your hand and put it in my side.

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INSPIRATION

Today, I’ve included two poems on Thomas from the great poet Denise Levertov, an adult convert to Christianity. Thomas was Levertov’s patron saint. One poem reflects on the saint as her “twin;” the other imagines Thomas’s proclamation of belief, his credo. Notice how she draws on the relational, emotive, and experiential aspects of the Thomas story. She frequently quotes the line from Mark 9, “I believe, help thou mine unbelief,” in reference to Thomas (and herself).

*****

In the hot street at noon I saw him

a small man
gray but vivid, standing forth
beyond the crowd’s buzzing
holding in desperate grip his shaking
teethgnashing son,

and thought him my brother.

I heard him cry out, weeping and speak
those words,
Lord, I believe, help thou
mine unbelief,

and knew him
my twin:

a man whose entire being
had knotted itself
into the one tightdrawn question,
Why,
why has this child lost his childhood in suffering,
why is this child who will soon be a man
tormented, torn, twisted?
Why is he cruelly punished
who has done nothing except be born?

The twin of my birth
was not so close
as that man I heard
say what my heart
sighed with each beat, my breath silently
cried in and out,
in and out.

After the healing,
he, with his wondering
newly peaceful boy, receded;
no one
dwells on the gratitude, the astonished joy,
the swift
acceptance and forgetting.
I did not follow
to see their changed lives.
What I retained
was the flash of kinship.
Despite
all that I witnessed,
his question remained
my question, throbbed like a stealthy cancer,
known
only to doctor and patient. To others
I seemed well enough.

So it was
that after Golgotha
my spirit in secret
lurched in the same convulsed writhings
that tore that child
before he was healed.
And after the empty tomb
when they told me that He lived, had spoken to Magdalen,
told me
that though He had passed through the door like a ghost
He had breathed on them
the breath of a living man –
even then
when hope tried with a flutter of wings
to lift me –
still, alone with myself,
my heavy cry was the same: Lord
I believe,
help thou mine unbelief.

I needed
blood to tell me the truth,
the touch
of blood. Even
my sight of the dark crust of it
round the nailholes
didn’t thrust its meaning all the way through
to that manifold knot in me
that willed to possess all knowledge,
refusing to loosen
unless that insistence won
the battle I fought with life

But when my hand
led by His hand’s firm clasp
entered the unhealed wound,
my fingers encountering
rib-bone and pulsing heat,
what I felt was not
scalding pain, shame for my
obstinate need,
but light, light streaming
into me, over me, filling the room
as I had lived till then
in a cold cave, and now
coming forth for the first time,
the knot that bound me unravelling,
I witnessed
all things quicken to color, to form,
my question
not answered but given
its part
in a vast unfolding design lit
by a risen sun.
— Denise Levertov, “St. Thomas Didymus”

I believe the earth
exists, and
in each minim mote
of its dust the holy
glow of thy candle.
Thou
unknown I know,
thou spirit,
giver,
lover of making, of the
wrought letter,
wrought flower,
iron, deed, dream.
Dust of the earth,
help thou my
unbelief. Drift,
gray become gold, in the beam of
vision. I believe and
interrupt my belief with
doubt. I doubt and
interrupt my doubt with belief. Be,
belovéd, threatened world.
Each minim
mote.
Not the poisonous
luminescence forced
out of its privacy,
the sacred lock of its cell
broken. No,
the ordinary glow
of common dust in ancient sunlight.
Be, that I may believe. Amen.
— Denise Levertov, “Credo” from Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus

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Sometimes when you see something more clearly than you have before, its mystery and majesty deepens.

“Artemis” is, of course, the Greek goddess of the moon, the hunt, forests and its animals, and fertility — and she was thought to be a “sanctuary” of women. In Latin, she was known as “Diana.” As you might guess, I’ve spent a good deal of time thinking about her. She was a popular figure, even into the Middle Ages (when the church associated her with demons and witchcraft to diminish her).

I couldn’t just leave you with the “warmonger” post. So, please enjoy this palette cleanser of awe.

And remember the moon. Know who she is.

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When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;

what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?

Psalm 8:3-4

*Today’s title is from the Joy Harjo poem, “Remember.”

I wish I could report that the empty tomb had forced imperial powers to their knees and that the long-promised peace, the shalom of God, had become the song of all humankind.

But that’s not happening. Instead, we are shrouded by the wails of war.

Donald Trump is threatening war crimes and even genocide against Iran — “a whole civilization will die tonight.”

Only a narcissistic megalomaniac would say such a thing. I don’t post much about him because I know that many of you are traumatized and can’t bear even hearing his name. If you’ve watched even a little over the last six weeks, you’ll know that violent threats have been escalating, and seem to have reached a crescendo at Easter.

Below are two of his recent posts from Truth Social, one on the left was posted on Easter Sunday (the profanity is his and it is important to read his own words — yes, he posted that on Easter Sunday) and the second on the right is from this morning:

The promise of Easter is that empires of death hold no sway. A new world has been born from the depths and decay of human suffering:

Now the green blade riseth, from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

And that’s when the President of the United States has decided to destroy and murder — on EASTER. It is a moral horror on its own — a horror compounded by theological heresy, even blasphemy, during the holiest time of the Christian year.

During the Middle Ages, it was a sin to conduct a war during Lent and Easter. (FYI for Protestants: Easter is a fifty-day SEASON, not just a day.) A king or military commander who violated the “Truce of God” faced stiff spiritual penalties including extreme acts of penance — and the possibility of excommunication, the most fearsome tool in the church’s political arsenal.

The Catholic Church has stood firm this season against this war, insisting that Trump’s war falls beyond the traditional definitions of a just war. In an interview that aired on Easter Sunday (the same day as Trump’s offensive post), the Catholic archbishop for the military stated the church’s position clearly:

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services and one of the most conservative Catholic prelates in the United States, declared the Iran war unjust on CBS’s Face the Nation in an interview set to air Easter Sunday.

He told Ed O’Keefe that Catholic service members are not morally bound to obey every order in a conflict that fails the Church’s just war criteria — and that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s invocation of Jesus Christ to justify the war is “problematic.”

“Under just war theory, no,” Broglio said when asked directly whether the conflict with Iran is justified. The war, he explained, “anticipates a nuclear threat rather than responding to realized danger.”

….Pope Leo XIV mounted a month-long public campaign against the Iran war — calling aerial bombings a sin, demanding a ceasefire by Easter, and condemning what he called the “imperialist occupation of the world.”

Source: Christopher Hale, “Letters from Leo”

As Hale notes, Archbishop Timothy Broglio is not a liberal Catholic — he’s a conservative. And he’s not alone. Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, long-standing MAGA and Trump supporter, had had enough when she read the President’s Easter post:

“Everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshipping the President and intervene in Trump’s madness,” she wrote. “I know all of you and him and he has gone insane, and all of you are complicit.”

If noted religious conservatives — from radically different theological traditions — like Broglio and Greene are coming out to oppose the president, this is no mere partisan thing. What is happening is, of course, political. And it is terrifying and terrible politics.

But even more, for those of us who follow Jesus, this is a serious matter of Christian discipleship. For all of us. No matter what your political party, your 2024 vote, or your church membership.

Blessed are the peacemakers, not the warmongers.

And that’s exactly who Trump has become — a warmonger.

Warmonger is an ugly word. It refers to one who lusts for war. And Trump’s action and words of recent weeks certainly evidence his insatiable craving for violence and power, to the point of murder, civilizational destruction, and genocide.

This is in stark contrast to the vision of Easter, a vision so clearly explained in Pope Leo’s Easter sermon. Please read this section:

In the light of Easter, let us allow ourselves to be amazed by Christ! Let us allow our hearts to be transformed by his immense love for us! Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them!

We are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent. Indifferent to the deaths of thousands of people. Indifferent to the repercussions of hatred and division that conflicts sow. Indifferent to the economic and social consequences they produce, which we all feel. There is an ever-increasing “globalization of indifference,” to borrow an expression dear to Pope Francis, who one year ago from this loggia addressed his final words to the world, reminding us: “What a great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day in the many conflicts raging in different parts of the world!”

The cross of Christ always reminds us of the suffering and pain that surround death and the agony it entails. We are all afraid of death, and out of fear we turn away, preferring not to look. We cannot continue to be indifferent! And we cannot resign ourselves to evil! Saint Augustine teaches: “If you fear death, love the resurrection!” (Sermon 124, 4). Let us too love the resurrection, which reminds us that evil is not the last word, because it has been defeated by the Risen One.

He passed through death to give us life and peace: “I leave you peace; I give you my peace. Not as the world gives it, I give it to you” (Jn 14:27). The peace that Jesus gives us is not merely the silence of weapons, but the peace that touches and transforms the heart of each one of us! Let us allow ourselves to be transformed by the peace of Christ! Let us make heard the cry for peace that springs from our hearts!

I also know that on Easter Sunday many fine Protestant ministers preached bravely about God’s love and the peace brought through the power of resurrection. And millions of faithful Christians — like me — went to church with heavy hearts having read the profane post by Donald Trump. And today, we woke to the absolute horror of him threatening genocide unless his own desires are sated.

You can do something about this. You can pray. I’d suggest praying like you’ve never prayed before. And pray specifically for Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth to cease and desist through whatever legal and nonviolent means are necessary.

If you are a pastor, you might organize a prayer vigil. Perhaps write to your congregation about all this. People are hurting; people are confused; people are angry. Many are waiting for a word from their own church. I know, I know — this is your week off! But mass murder doesn’t wait on your post-Easter exhaustion. Go back and read those posts — this is a moral emergency.

If you have a GOP congress member or senator, call their office and tell them you are mortified by Trump’s behavior and the war — and tell them Congress must bring this under control. Tell them not in your name. Not in God’s name.

If you have a GOP congress member or senator, call their office and tell them you are mortified by Trump’s behavior and the war — and tell them Congress must bring this under control.

Call your Democratic reps and senators as well!

(202) 224-3121

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If you voted for Donald Trump, you can change your mind. You don’t have to stick with him. He’s claiming powers that belong to God alone. You know that is wrong. And, in the word used by Marjorie Taylor Greene, it is evil. You are a better person than this.

Don’t let the tomb overtake the resurrection.

What Christians — real Christians from across the theological spectrum — do right now matters.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

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INSPIRATION

Perhaps some part of me still believes
peace is a destination,
a place we arrive, ideally together.

I notice how shiny it is, this belief,
like a flower made of crystal,
beautiful, but lifeless,

devoid of the dust and scuff
that come from living a real day.
Meanwhile, there is this invitation

to grow into peace the way real flowers grow—
in the dirt. With blight and drought,
beetles and hail.

Meanwhile this invitation
to live in the tangle of fear and failure,
to be humbled by my own inner wars

and wonder how to find a living peace
right here, the peace that arrives
when we take just one step through the mess

toward compassion and notice
as our foot rises our heart also rises
and in that lifted moment

still scraping along in the dirt,
there is a peace so real we become light,
become the momentum that is the change.
— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “Toward Peace”

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World peace through nonviolent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed.

Thus we must begin anew… Those of us who believe in this method can be voices of reason, sanity, and understanding amid the voices of violence, hatred and emotion. We can very well set a mood of peace out of which a system of peace can be built.

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

I wrote on this same passage last July. To go into more depth on today’s subject of Mary and Jesus at the resurrection, you can read “Sunday Musings: Mary Magdalene and the New Creation.” (That July post includes both a video and a transcript.)

Happy Easter! The cosmos is born again!

John 20:1-18

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.

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 around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” 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.’”

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

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MUSING

This week, I immersed myself in all four gospel accounts of the resurrection. And, writer that I am, I became fascinated by the first line of each story:

• After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. (Matthew)

• But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. (Luke)

• When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. (Mark)

• Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb. (John)

As is always the case, John’s version is different. While all four gospels claim that the women who followed Jesus — notably Mary Magdalene — first discovered the empty tomb, notice the time of their arrival. Matthew, Luke, and Mark specifically mention “dawn” or say that the “sun had risen.”

Not John. John insists that Mary Magdalene arrived “while it was still dark.”

It would be easy to overlook this small detail, one that could be simply dismissed with the old cliché: "It's always darkest just before the dawn.” After all, by the time Mary ran off and came back, the sun had probably risen.

But John is purposeful. Words and images matter to the author. Nothing in the book is there by accident — all of its symbols carry multiple dimensions, often signifying other stories from scripture and wisdom literature.

When we read the gospel episodically (as is the case in church), we miss its narrative arc. John’s book is a new creation story. Its thesis is announced at the outset: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

That’s a clear allusion to Genesis 1:1: In the beginning when God created^* the heavens and the earth…

There’s nothing radical in this observation — most contemporary scholars interpret John through this lens. Sometimes, however, the thread isn’t carried through the whole book, comparing only the first chapter of John with the first chapter of Genesis.

But the allusions to Genesis continue throughout John, as the gospel writer picked up images from the Edenic creation incorporating and sprinkling them — almost as mystical hints. The author clearly wanted readers to keep referring back to Genesis and see the connections between the first creation and the new creation through Jesus.

Back to Genesis 1: In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep…

And on to John 20:1: Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb…

Do you see why John insisted on “while it was still dark”? The writer wants you to remember the dark, the chaos, the formless world before creation. The gospel is announcing that the dark is about to lift. That the confusion and chaos of the universe is being remade. It is dark, the tomb stands empty. Mary is confused. The scene itself is chaotic. Nothing makes sense.

But this is the moment … the moment when the world is reborn.

The Easter story isn’t just about a single man rising from the dead to save other single individuals from their individual sins. No, this is the moment when the entire universe is birthed a second time. We might hear Nicodemus’ revised question in our ears: How is this possible? How can a universe be born again?

But, in the darkness, Mary faced the chaos of the old creation — grieving the torture and execution of her beloved Teacher and Friend — and was disoriented by the empty tomb. She may have been confused, but she didn’t run home as the men did. She sat with it all, felt it all, there in the darkness.

And then it happened. Genesis put it thus — A wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

Mary first saw two angels. And then she saw the gardener. He called her by name. Perhaps that was the instant when darkness turned to light, when it finally dawned on Mary that Jesus was alive: She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).

Morning, the first morning of the new creation, had broken. The sun has finally risen. Mary saw Jesus. From darkness to light….What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

Do you see?

A woman and a man in a new garden, one teeming with life.

Mary and Jesus in John’s garden represent the reversal of Eve and Adam in Eden, as the place of death becomes a fecund garden once again. Mary and Jesus together opened the way for blessing the world, seeding the New Creation. The curse of the old dissolves in love of rebirth. The cosmos is born again.

I have seen the Lord!

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INSPIRATION

Mary Magdalene bore his child.
She became pregnant by him.
But Christ did not fill her womb.
He filled her heart, which grew
infinitely round with his image,
like an egg.
She brought the pregnancy to term
by emptying herself,
and became a mirror to reflect
the Beloved, accomplishing
this secret work of yearning through
the fertility of silence, and the deep
companionship of solitude.
Thus, Mary gave birth to her own anointing.
She exchanged a life of hollow things
for living no-thing full of bliss, and whole.
You too are a Magdalene
walking on waves of the Moon Path,
keeper of the Sun’s likeness.
You too enfold the luminous egg,
the round and silent work
of mystic motherhood.
It is no small accomplishment of your shadow
to give birth to the radiance of Christ.
Hidden beams from your conception
penetrate all other souls.
Each of us is a hungry mirror,
yearning for reflection, longing to contain,
by means of our emptiness,
the beauty of each other’s face.
— Alfred LaMotte, “Kenosis,” from his book, Strangers and Pilgrims

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If you are reading A Beautiful Year, there are two reflections for this day — “The Cross and the Crossbeam” and “Via Dolorosa Now.” The first essay is a reinterpretation of the cross; the second reimagines the stations of the cross politically. You can, of course, read either or both today.

Below is a new poetic and visual meditation on the Seven Last Words of Jesus intended to widen your vision of the cross — by imagining these traditional words in new ways. Take time with the pictures and words, reflect and meditate and pray throughout the day.

Make sure to visit the websites of the poets whose works are below.

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The Seven Last Words of Jesus

ONE: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”
(Luke 23:34)

Phase One by Dilruba Ahmed

For leaving the fridge open
last night, I forgive you.
For conjuring white curtains
instead of living your life.

For the seedlings that wilt, now,
in tiny pots, I forgive you.
For saying no first
but yes as an afterthought.

I forgive you for hideous visions
after childbirth, brought on by loss
of sleep. And when the baby woke
repeatedly, for your silent rebuke

in the dark, “What’s your beef?”
I forgive you for letting vines
overtake the garden. For fearing
your own propensity to love.

For losing, again, your bag
en route from San Francisco;
for the equally heedless drive back
on the caffeine-fueled return.

I forgive you for leaving
windows open in rain
and soaking library books
again. For putting forth

only revisions of yourself,
with punctuation worked over,
instead of the disordered truth,
I forgive you. For singing mostly

when the shower drowns
your voice. For so admiring
the drummer you failed to hear
the drum. In forgotten tin cans,

may forgiveness gather. Pooling
in gutters. Gushing from pipes.
A great steady rain of olives
from branches, relieved

of cruelty and petty meanness.
With it, a flurry of wings, thirteen
gray pigeons. Ointment reserved
for healers and prophets. I forgive you.

I forgive you. For feeling awkward
and nervous without reason.
For bearing Keats’s empty vessel
with such calm you worried

you had, perhaps, no moral
center at all. For treating your mother
with contempt when she deserved
compassion. I forgive you. I forgive

you. I forgive you. For growing
a capacity for love that is great
but matched only, perhaps,
by your loneliness. For being unable

to forgive yourself first so you
could then forgive others and
at last find a way to become
the love that you want in this world.

*******

TWO: “Today you will be with me in paradise”
(Luke 23:43)

A Vision by Wendell Berry

If we will have the wisdom to survive,
to stand like slow-growing trees
on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it,
if we will make our seasons welcome here,
asking not too much of earth or heaven,
then a long time after we are dead
the lives our lives prepare will live
here, their houses strongly placed
upon the valley sides, fields and gardens
rich in the windows. The river will run
clear, as we never know it,
and over it, birdsong like a canopy.
On the levels of the hills will be
green meadows, stock bells in noon shade.
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down
the old forest, an old forest will stand,
its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
Families will be singing in the fields.
In their voices they will hear a music
risen out of the ground. They will take
nothing from the ground they will not return,
whatever the grief at parting. Memory,
native to this valley, will spread over it
like a grove, and memory will grow
into legend, legend into song, song
into sacrament. The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling
light. This is no paradisal dream.
Its hardship is its possibility.

*******

THREE: “Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother”
(John 19:26–27)

Mother and Son by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Briefly, you were taller than I,
tall enough that when we hugged
my head rested against your chest,
your body lean from growing
so fast. My body remembers
how new it felt when you
gathered me in long, slender arms
the way I had once cradled you.
It is not the same to be held
by your absence, no warmth,
no scent. Still, I let myself
be held by what is here—
no heartbeat but my own,
but oh, the love still growing.

*******

FOUR: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
(Matthew 27:46)

from Crown by Danez Smith

& over the hill: a cliff, a fire, the awful mouth
of an awful river, a junkyard, a church made
from burnt churches – place for prayer
for those who have forgotten how to pray.
i stand by the river, the awful one, dunk
my head in the water & scream
for my river-bottom heirs – this is prayer
right? i fall & i drown & i trash & i burn
& i dunk my head in the water & i
call the children drowned in my blood
to come home – this is the right prayer?
lord, give me a sign, red & octagonal.
god bless the child that’s got his own.
god bless the father who will have none.

*******

FIVE: “I thirst”
(John 19:28)

Thirst by Mary Oliver

Another morning and I wake with thirst
for the goodness I do not have. I walk
out to the pond and all the way God has
given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,
I was never a quick scholar but sulked
and hunched over my books past the hour
and the bell; grant me, in your mercy,
a little more time. Love for the earth
and love for you are having such a long
conversation in my heart. Who knows what
will finally happen or where I will be sent,
yet already I have given a great many things
away, expecting to be told to pack nothing,
except the prayers which, with this thirst,
I am slowly learning.

*******

SIX: “It is finished”
(John 19:30)

How Sudden Dies the Blooming by Mari Evans

For Paula Cooper and all the other children on death row, cir. 1989

How sudden dies the blooming
One instant’s crass confusion
An err of hand
of heart and head
A bent decision then
and now
one instant in the past as
constant present
Rarely out of reach the act
Tethered to some unrelenting
infinite recall
Today’s reality
in yesterday’s precise and fine
detail
One moment’s cruel confusion
carved forever in the spirit’s
tender steel
How sudden dies the blooming
How withered lies the promise
lies the reach
the blind potential
All that lingers in the breathing
Is a warp of understanding
A fist of clear confusion
And a desperate
A frightened
Need
To live ….

*******

SEVEN: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”
(Luke 23:46)

Love Letter from the Afterlife, by Andrea Gibson

My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined. So close you look past me when wondering where I am. It’s Ok. I know that to be human is to be farsighted. But feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living. Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive? Ask me the altitude of heaven, and I will answer, “How tall are you?” In my back pocket is a love note with every word you wish you’d said. At night I sit ecstatic at the loom weaving forgiveness into our worldly regrets. All day I listen to the radio of your memories. Yes, I know every secret you thought too dark to tell me, and love you more for everything you feared might make me love you less. When you cry I guide your tears toward the garden of kisses I once planted on your cheek, so you know they are all perennials. Forgive me, for not being able to weep with you. One day you will understand. One day you will know why I read the poetry of your grief to those waiting to be born, and they are all the more excited. There is nothing I want for now that we are so close I open the curtain of your eyelids with my own smile every morning. I wish you could see the beauty your spirit is right now making of your pain, your deep seated fears playing musical chairs, laughing about how real they are not. My love, I want to sing it through the rafters of your bones, Dying is the opposite of leaving. I want to echo it through the corridor of your temples, I am more with you than I ever was before. Do you understand? It was me who beckoned the stranger who caught you in her arms when you forgot not to order for two at the coffee shop. It was me who was up all night gathering sunflowers into your chest the last day you feared you would never again wake up feeling lighthearted. I know it’s hard to believe, but I promise it’s the truth. I promise one day you will say it too – I can’t believe I ever thought I could lose you.

*******

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“Holy Thursday Revolution” is, I believe, one of the most important things I’ve written. It began as a sermon, first preached in a church in New York and then at the Wild Goose Festival. It appeared at the Cottage in 2022 and every year since. It has now been published in my new book, A Beautiful Year.

I share it with you in the hope that this message can transform both the church and the world. We are all invited to the table.

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Holy Thursday Revolution, from A Beautiful Year

I’m often asked to preach on the Sunday after Easter. The traditional passage for that day is always the same in liturgical churches — John 20:19-31 —­ the story of Jesus’s first post-­resurrection appearance, including the popular account known as “doubting Thomas.”

One year, as I struggled to come up with a sermon on that perennial text, my attention drifted away from Thomas and back toward the first sentence of the story:

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

“The house where the disciples had met” leaped from the page. What house? Of course! The house where, just a few days before, they’d had the Passover meal. The house where Jesus had washed their feet and called them his friends. Where they had shared bread and wine—­ the house of the “upper room.”

In the wake of Jesus’s execution and the strange reports from Mary Magdalene of Jesus in the garden, the frightened disciples had gone back to the upper room. Perhaps to grieve, perhaps to remember, perhaps to await what they thought would be their own arrest. But they had gone back to the room with the table, their last gathering place.

Thus, on the night of the resurrection, Jesus showed up there. With his friends. At the scene of the Last Supper. On Easter, Jesus goes from the tomb back to the table.

If you are writing a play about this, the scenes would be table, trial (with its various locations), cross, tomb (burial), tomb (resurrection), and table. The table is the first setting, and it is the final setting of the story. Indeed, when the disciples want to meet Jesus again the next week, they return again to the upper room to meet him at the table.

They never return to the cross. Jesus never took them back to the site of the execution. He never gathered his followers at Calvary, never pointed to the bloodstained hill. He never valorized the events of Friday. He never mentioned Friday. Yes, wounds remain, but how he got them isn’t stated. Instead, almost all the post-­resurrection appearances —­ which are joyful and celebratory and conversational —­ take place at the upper room table or at other tables and meals.

Table —­ trial —­ ­cross —­ ­tomb/­tomb —­ ­table.

What if the table is the point?

Every Holy Week, Christians move toward Good Friday as the most somber—­ and most significant —­ day of the year. Depending on your tradition, you may sit in silence, reverence a cross, listen to a sermon, recite the Seven Last Words, fast in quiet prayer. You may weep, sing mournful hymns, feel the weight of injustice. It is sobering business, keeping watch with the execution of an innocent man.

For centuries, Christians have been told that everything changed that day, the cross was the bridge between the sinful world and the world of salvation. The cross is all that matters.

Somber, yes. The most somber day. Of course. But what if it isn’t the most significant? What if the most significant day was the day before — the day of foot washing and the supper, the day of conviviality and friendship, the day of Passover and God’s liberation? What if the feast is the main event?

What if we’ve gotten the week’s emphasis wrong?

Christians mostly think of Maundy Thursday as the run-­up to the real show on Friday. And because the church has placed such emphasis on Friday, we interpret Thursday through the events of the cross. Thus, when Jesus shares bread and wine with his friends, it becomes a prefiguring of his broken body and the shedding of his blood for the forgiveness of sins. We return to the cross all the time. We see Thursday through Friday. From that angle, it becomes morbid. A doomed man’s final meal while the execution clock ticks.

But his friends didn’t experience it that way. They weren’t thinking about a cross or a blood sacrifice. They saw Friday through Thursday. They were celebrating Passover. They were in Jerusalem with friends and family (not just twelve guys at a long table —­ sorry, Leonardo) at a big, busy, bustling holiday meal to commemorate God freeing their ancestors from slavery. Passover is a joyful meal, not a somber one.

And because Passover was about liberation from a hostile oppressor, it was fraught with political expectations and possibilities. Would God free them likewise from Rome? Was the promised kingdom at hand? They were thinking about their history and their future, and they were enjoying the feast together.

Jesus loved meals. They knew that. They’d shared so many. Go back through the Gospels and see how many of the stories take place at tables, distributing food, or inviting people to a meal. Indeed, some scholars have suggested that Jesus’s primary work was organizing suppers as a way to embody the coming Kingdom of God.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus welcomed everyone—­ to the point of contention with his critics—­ to the table. Tax collectors, sinners, women, Gentiles, the poor, faithful Jews, and ones less so. Jesus was sloppy with invitations. He never thought about who would be seated next to whom. He made the disciples crazy with his lax ideas about dinner parties. All he wanted was for everybody to come, to be at the table, and share food and conversation.

“I think of Jesus,” wrote theologian Beatrice Bruteau, “setting up these Suppers somewhat on the order of the ‘base communities’ of liberation theology.” Gatherings of the Kingdom of God.

Bruteau continued the thought by quoting Rabbi Harold Kushner on Sabbath meals:

And the laughing. The sharing. And the singing. One melody is scarcely spent when another comes forward. We don’t even notice the racket of the children. There is a great holiness in this room. It grows with the sharing. [I take a large ceramic Kiddush cup, fill it with wine, offer it to my wife and then to the man next to me, who] hands it to his wife with the solemn instruction, “Here, keep it going.” And we do. From hand to hand. Drunk from and refilled. Time and time again.

Sabbath. A vision of the Kingdom of God. The meal reminds us and continues the promise.

What if Maundy Thursday was that? The Last Supper of the Old World. The last meal under Rome, the last meal under any empire. And it is the First Feast of the Kingdom That Has Come. Thursday is the opening meal of the new age, in a community of mutual service, reciprocity, equality, abundance, generosity, and unending thanksgiving.

Pass the cup, keep it going, hand to hand, filled and refilled, time after time. This night is the final night of domination, the end of slavery; and this night is the first night of communion, the beginning of true freedom: “I will no longer call you servants but friends.”

The table is the hinge of history. The table is the point. Thursday is the Last Supper and the First Feast. The Holy Thursday Revolution.

Pull up a chair. Bring a friend. Everyone is welcome.

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INSPIRATION

On the eve of a boldly political action,
an act of nonviolent resistance,
in a boldly political religious ceremony,
the Passover celebration of liberation,
a family meal and a public act
that defy power structures,
intensely political —
Jesus does something profoundly personal:
he offers himself.
He doesn’t say “This is my rallying cry!”
or “This is my belief.”
He says, “This is my body and my blood.”
In the place of honor, dipping bread together,
he welcomes the one who will betray him.
Because only something this personal
will overcome the world.

Only love, and nothing outside the human heart,
will defeat evil.

Our political actions require personal presence.
Our personal acts have political power.

Our salvation is not ransom paid
but presence offered.
— Steve Garnaas-Holmes, “My Body, My Blood”

This is the time when we must say to the stranger,
the other, sit here. Notice how difficult it can be
to even come to the same table, how hard
to look the other in the eye. Something in us screams,
“Right, I am right.” And it is hard to hear the voice
beneath that scream, a whisper of a gospel that says
nothing at all.

This is the time when we must say to ourselves,
I am also the stranger, when we must look
in the mirror and not know who it is we see—
someone capable of being more courageous,
more compassionate, more devoted, more
astonishingly vulnerable and connected
than we ever knew ourselves to be. Who
is that stranger in the mirror, we must ask,
and vow to never let her down.

This is the time when we must write the poems
our country needs, the poem that builds the bridge
from truth to truth and never touches the river
of lies. The poem that allows our country
to fall in love with itself again, the poem
with enough places set at its table
that everyone knows they have a place to sit
and the rest of us know when that person is missing
because their chair is empty.

This is the time for the beauty that passes
all understanding, a testament of goodness
that cannot be contained, a congress of delight.
This is the time to pick up your pen
and with your most tender, most beautiful,
most ferocious self,
fight.
— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “Who’s Missing at the Table?”

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In addition to today’s psalm, I also include a blessing from the poet and artist, Jan Richardson.

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