Christ hanging there outstretched cross.
Christ hanging here in shame and loss.

Christ unproductive just needs a job.
Christ no english only a nod.

Christ ever thirsting for next drink.
Christ turning tricks. Seductive wink.

Christ dandelion unsightly lawn.
Christ of the dark long before dawn.

Christ gang graffitti brick wall of church.
Christ annoying screams. Makes ears hurt.

Christ illegal. Christ detained.
Christ defeated soaked in rain.

Christ reservations unfit for farming.
Christ mouthing nothing profound nor alarming.

Christ causing distance smells so bad.
Christ twitching awake bad dreams had.

Christ will work for food and anything helps.
Christ needy intimacy. Lacking love felt.

Christ between thieves executed sinner.
Christ mentally ill always beginner.

Christ locked up then deported.
Christ knocked up had her aborted.

Christ chain smoking sucking a drag.
Christ in a name. Queer. Fag.

Overlooked. Irrelevant. Christ remains.
Walking from tombs of loss and shame.

Ryan Taylor is a Hoosier by birth but now lives in Denver and works with Mile High Ministries. He’s learning how to be incarnational with himself and others. Find more of his thoughts at his blog tall monastic guy  where this post was first published on March 8 2013.

As a kid I ran from brokenness. Whenever a fight broke out at school while some excitedly gravitated toward it I’d subtely turn tail and literally walk away in the opposite direction. I remember doing this often. Whenever I found myself in proximity to deep hurt, sickness, or wreckage my sensitive psyche wanted nothing to do with it so in my fear I’d flee.

The front yard acts as dinner room and homework lounge after 2pm.  The first and second grade classrooms become dorms after 7pm.  Precious Moments is the most space-efficient school I have visited in Guatemala. There is always something going on; people in the neighborhood know the school and the family running it well because of their enthusiasm, energy and faith. And their marching band.  That was where I met Danilo, playing the drums in addition to running around, coloring, doing his homework and goofing around with the other kids after school. A teenager acting like a young boy. Maybe he was trying to make up for time lost to a hard life.

Martha has a sweet heart and spirit. On a normal day she is a wife, a mom, a cook,  a counselor, a friend, a salesperson, a devoted Christian AND the school director at Precious Moments (that also includes an after-school program and foster home.)   She is also part of the CTM network in Guatemala City.   She has hosted interns, vision trips and local leaders in her ministry, and melted our hearts every time with her incredible life and devotion to the Lord, and the kids in this community in zone 13.

Danilo went to live at Precious Moments after his mom couldn’t provide for him anymore and because of the danger of the zone where they lived.  Martha took him in as her own child and raised him for almost 10 years. His mom stayed in the picture, but Martha and her family became a new concept of “family” for him.

So I went pale when I first read the short message that Danilo had been shot and killed.  I couldn’t believe it.  No way… Not him… Retaliation for something that his cousin did… Refusing to join a gang… The versions of the shooting were confusing and often incomplete, but he had died in front of the school, in the middle of the day in front of friends and family. As hard as it is, this type of death has become a new “normal” for young men that live in hard places.

After a few weeks of mourning and trying to make sense of this tragic loss, our staff suggested the Moment of Blessing Liturgy as part of our commitment to suffer alongside our friends and to join them in the midst of their pain.  I showed up for the reading and a bunch of young kids jumped around me chanting “Miss Liz! Miss Liz!”.  “Uh oh…”  – I thought to myself. “Who is going to stay with the kids while we have the liturgy?”  I was trying to come up with ideas when Martha showed up.  She instructed the kids to make a circle with chairs and seconds later we had 15 kids sitting around and paying attention. These children were going to be our Moment of Blessing participants! Five adults joined shortly after.

I wasn’t sure how to proceed.  The Moment of Blessing talks about death, about tragedy, about justice… words that are hard for adults to process, and even more for kids.  But they paid attention.  They followed the reading with their little fingers.  Their eyes opened wide when I read Danilo’s name on the page.  They started coloring and making hearts and little stars around his name on their copies of the blessing.  Talk about a precious moment.   That was the Moment of Blessing for them – a way of learning and praying in the midst of death.  A little heart by his name, a smiley sheep next to Psalm 23. They remembered a life lived with love and the Scripture reminded them not to fear in the face of the valley of death. The drawing of their brother, their friend, their teacher, connected with words and prayers of hope for a difference in their street, in their neighborhood and their lives.

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Last Advent was unlike any other Advent before. I spent it on a three week solo intensive that was isolating and illuminating. This is one of many poems birthed during that time.

And here it begins
at the end of a remote island road
lit only by dusk,
the night held close by maritime air
crisp with its watery wind.

Here is a place that holds
inspiration without art;
inhabited by tokens of the primal child
screaming and weeping towards freedom.

Gone are the church and its city lights;
gone the table of remembrance,
the chapel lit by candlelight,
the piano playing pretty songs of longing
with a key that sticks.

Gone the floor that creeks,
replaced by stone steps into a forest,
lit by leaves colored in fire,
strewn upon soil, rich and dark,
like a woman’s blood.

This too is Advent.

Filled with rudimentary paths no better than another,
lost and found like all of us;
in a forest on the edge of death,
like all of us.
Tall enduring trees,
snapping, broken, laid bare to waste;
like all of us.

Shhh.
Here he comes,
the little boy with trembling fear
and sadness runs the gully deep.
And picking up the axe he swings
at every wretched word,
at every fist to harm.
he swings to kill,
he swings for freedom.

The heavy wood breaks.
The ground is strewn with all that remains.

Now with strong relentless hands,
buried in red dust and bark,
a man is kneeling in what is left,
I am holding what is left.

With what is left I will begin.

Tad Monroe works with college students at Seattle University, he’s a pastor, poet, storyteller, and football coach.                                                                      He agrees with Thoreau, “life is for living”. More reflections can be found on his website tadmonroe.com where this was first published on December 3.

“I only need to get through the day.”  I say this every day, and so today became a long season. And the “right now” that I can’t stand, also can’t fit into a day.  Hours and minutes can’t explain this today.

Today I cried. I cried a lot.  I cried, and the more I tried to stop, I couldn’t.  And I tried to pray while crying, and wasn’t able to articulate a word.  I was angry and frustrated, and then exhausted of being angry and frustrated. And then I started crying again.  I wasn’t even weeping; I was bawling. It almost felt as it was a tantrum, on why, oh, why can’t things be a little better, just a little?

Today I fell down the stairs, and when I was writing about it, the words that came out changed ‘fell’ into ‘failed.’  Rolling down the stairs wasn’t as painful as the idea of not being able to stop at the bottom of the staircase. And I cried again.  The more I cried, the more I realized that the pain from falling and failing has become too familiar lately. And the scratches and bruises are hard to see from the inside… so I didn’t realized I was as hurt as I was.

I got lost today.  I got carried away while fighting with my thoughts and next thing I knew, I was in the middle of nowhere, not knowing where to go. This is a recurrent feeling in my life lately. I just don’t know how or where or when to take the next step.

Today I tried to read a little, but tears were wetting the pages.  Then I tried with a different book, but even just flipping the pages was painful and exacerbating.  I wanted to find some clarity, but the letters were as blurry and dark as my heart is right now.

So I tried to read a softer bible verse – just one. Maybe one that was easy to digest.  One that wouldn’t require me to hold onto something that is too far away.  I just needed something for the “right now.” Something for today.  And there it was, the one that has come over and over in the past months, from the voice of good friends, in an old bookmark and a couple of other random places. “Be still and know that I am God.”  The words said, “don’t move” as they saw me in pain.

And the irony is that “stillness” is not the word that caught my attention this time but “know.” And as I defragment this season of ‘today’s’, I can only smile and know the one thing I should know.  And maybe hope and dream a little for tomorrow, or the day after. Meanwhile today, I just sit with these thoughts.

Liz Herrera loves to learn, read, have a good cup of coffee and find creative ways to combine her passions: communications, urban ministries, social action and mixed media.  Liz is a journalist and has served alongside the team of CTM Guatemala since 2006 and worked for over 12 years among marginalized populations with churches and non-profit organizations.

 

i like christmas.  i am not crazy about the commercialism and try to avoid stores at all costs starting from thanksgiving on, but i do love the season.  i love the story of Jesus because of its upside-downness & the wild and wacky ways he entered into the world as God-in-the-flesh.  i love the intentional focus and celebrating each week of advent.

at the same time, i deeply respect that it is a time of year where things start to go haywire for a lot of people i know.  in fact, thanksgiving begins one of our darkest seasons at the refuge.  while other churches are getting geared up for the awesome christmas service ahead, ours is feeling the reality of depression-and-loneliness-for-many to start setting in.  it’s an interesting phenomenon and in talking to others who intersect with the margins, many say the same thing.  while the rest of the world is spinning toward the holidays singing christmas carols & going to fun parties, there are a whole bunch of people hanging on by a thread.

at the same time, regardless of life-struggles-in-general, throw in spiritual shifts and “i don’t even know what to make of Jesus anymore” and it’s even more complicated.  and lonely.  and a reminder sometimes of how much we’ve changed.  when i wrote when easter is hard earlier this year i had no idea it would stir up so many feelings far & wide.  my guess is that christmas isn’t quite as hard as a holiday as easter for a lot of people in the midst of changing faith, but it still can be tricky.  at christmas we sing more songs about peace on earth and good will to men and less songs about blood and the lamb so that might make it a little easier for some.

no matter what our circumstances are–practical or faith-based– i want to honor that these times in the year can be extra hard, extra weird, extra lonely.

the christmas season can remind us that:

we aren’t where we wish we were.  we don’t have money, partners, kids, health, security, friends, community, healing, sobriety, you-name-its that we thought we would at this point and that can feel so discouraging.

we feel alone.  some of us feel lonely in the relationships we are in, while others feel lonely because we don’t have them at all.

our families are tricky (or i am guessing you might have other words for it, ha ha!) or nonexistent.   no matter how we slice it, holidays are a time where we intersect with family.  for some, it is a happy time and you are happy to see each other while for others, families bring up feelings of dread and anxiety.  for many, there’s no home to go to and we are painfully reminded of our orphanness or the harsh realities of divorce and single parent-ness.

life is flying by.  another year has come and gone and here we are, one year older and one less year left to pursue some of our dreams. and then sometimes we wonder about our dreams.

we want more connection with God but we aren’t sure how to get it anymore.  we might not have a church or community that feeds us like before or feels safe enough to even walk into.  often, we can’t seem to muster it up on our own so our connection with God just feels…empty.

we are scared of hope.  this season is a time of hope & anticipation and for a lot of us, hope feels dangerous.

i am sure there are many others, but these are some of the top of my head today.  i promise no trite answers or simple advice but i do have a hope for those who struggle with christmas–that some how, some way, more light can seep in.  i have hope that all of us experience more slivers of joy & peace & love & hope & grace over the next month.  slivers of light are sometimes small miracles in and of themselves, God’s little revelations and reminders that we’re not alone, that he is with us.

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yeah, that’s a big word usually associated with life science class & people in the hospital with heart troubles.  if you don’t know what it is, it’s the sac around our heart that protects it.  if a pericardium is too weak, it’s not good for our hearts because it makes it too vulnerable.  if it’s too tough, it’s not good, either, because it chokes off life.

a few months ago my acupuncturist who is part-spiritual-director-part-therapist-part-healer told me i needed to strengthen my pericardium.  she was right when it came to a particularly hard season in an important relationship.  there are times that i give too much of myself, take things too personally and make everything about me, and just don’t have enough heart protection.  at the same time, it’s also easy to swing the other way & harden and protect my heart against pain, suffering, and intimate relationship and hide behind “strong boundaries.”  the reality is that there’s a very fine line when it comes to pericardiums; a healthy pericardium means we can feel pain & engage in the realities of real life but not have it completely devastate us. 

i continue to learn what it means to develop a healthy pericardium as a pastor, mommy, wife, and friend.  it’s an art, not science. it requires faith not formulas.  it requires time & God’s grace & lots and lots of exercise and practice.

and the thing i keep learning is that a healthy pericardium does not protect us from pain.  it’s not supposed to.   it’s purpose is to give us enough protection to not let the pain overtake us & shut us down completely when it gets really, really tough. 

this week, my heart hurts.

like really hurts.

while i was in nashville speaking at outlaw preachers, i got news that one of my dearest refuge friends, an amazing & brave & survivor-of-all-kinds-of-atrocities single mommy had died.  i had broken one of my most basic speaking rules and had my phone with me on the podium because it had a quote on it i wanted to use and was too lazy to write it down.  i saw the missed calls & knew, somewhere deep inside that i can only attribute to the holy spirit, that something terrible had happened.  i knew who the calls were from.  i knew who they loved and cared for at the refuge.  i knew something had happened to jessie.  i just knew.  so when i split everyone up into small groups to process some of the material on safe people, safe communities from down we go i had to make a decision.  do i wait until i wrap up my presentation in a neat & tidy bow and pretend like something bad didn’t happen, or do i listen to the message and open what somehow i knew was going to be a flood of pain?  i knew i couldn’t wait & i listened to the message in the hallway.

it felt like my pericardium burst completely and my heart was going to stop.

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I travelled to Romania for two weeks recently. Out of all my many remarkable experiences, the most amazing was walking into the home of a stranger and seeing at the kitchen table a young woman eating a bowl of soup. Just sitting there, calmly, spoon in hand, slurping soup! Though my heart was pounding at the sight, I held it together in that moment—saving tears of gratitude for later.

Today is Easter Sunday, so I’m writing in celebration of the resurrection of our Lord. No, a software glitch didn’t mess up the timing of this blog post. In the Eastern liturgical calendar, Easter often falls a week later than in the West. Some years I’ve attended Easter services in both USA and Romania on consecutive weeks. Of course in the Christian tradition, every Sunday commemorates the resurrection—celebrated from the early times as “the Lord’s Day.”

So today is simply an ordinary Easter, especially here in the West where it now falls in that long stretch of the liturgical calendar known as Ordinary Time. I’m reminded of Jesus’s post-resurrection appearances that were evidently quite ordinary in nature, according to Gospel accounts. Often he wasn’t even recognized as anyone notable, even by friends. Outside the tomb, Mary Magdalene took him to be the landscape guy. Emmaus travelers mistook him for a fellow pedestrian. Though he performed many spectacular wonders before his death, afterward he typically shared himself with simple touch, a meal, or tender conversation.

I’m not denying or dismissing the spectacular. As a recreational fisherman, I’d be thrilled with the help Jesus gave the disciples in the boat after the resurrection. And I’d welcome the miracles of the apostles in Acts. But I do have a growing awareness of the addiction we might have to the “amazing.” Some observers have even suggested we ban this word. We watch SportsCenter for the Blake Griffin poster jam, not the Steve Nash pick-and-roll play. (Non-sports fans, please resume reading.)

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Editor’s note: We follow last week’s word on the power of the poem by a powerful poem from Street Psalms Community member Sam Trujillo. To  read more thoughts on Advent by Sam go here.

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They are bleeding.
They are bleeding and you watch them bleed.
They are bleeding from the wounds of life
Caught between the crossfire of gang warfare
Shot down as a maddened animal in need of relief from itself
And yet you watch them bleed.
Tell me Holy One
Where do the wounded travel for a moment of blessing?
A moment behind the storage shed of life in the midst of the concrete universe they call home?

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They are bruised.
They are bruised and you watch them bruise.
They are bruised from the beatings life hails on their fragile bodies
Caught between the violence of the streets
Crushed bones by the weapons of breath
And yet you watch them bruise.
Tell me oh Holy One
Where do the beaten search for a moment of blessing?
A moment behind the soreness of flesh to find exquisiteness in their face within the walls of a prison they call home?

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They are shamed.
They are shamed and you watch them shamed.
They are shamed from the countless naked moments life rapes their souls
Caught between the language of love entangled with the thrust of lust
Forcibly taken against their will and tormented by a story of lies
And yet you watch them shamed.
Tell me Holy One
Where do the shamed journey for a moment of blessing?
A moment behind the veil of inhumanity where the purity of their soul can be saved while still they remain in this basin of poverty they call home?

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On May 12^th 2010, my Mom passed away. Her name was Elsa. She is the one who taught me in the ways of God and service to others. She helped me to find my own way to talk to and of God. The cancer was diagnosed as breast cancer stage 4 with metastasized bone cancer. I wrote the following reflection the day we took her into the hospital for her cancer treatment.

There I was, standing in front of a crucifix. Interestingly, I was not in a Church or other religious place. I was standing in line to pay for my mom’s medical care and cancer treatment in a hospital in Guatemala City. The place was not pretty, so to speak. It was not the kind of place where one wants to spend a beautiful summer morning. Sick suffering people and the smell of disinfectant solution in the air merged with people’s faces, fear and despair like in a surreal apocalyptic vision. The paradoxes of life started clashing with each other inside my mind, and the suffering reflected in the face of the crucified Jesus was the perfect sign of anguish f or the situation. For a moment I felt like time was stopping and that life was on pause for a few seconds, and my thoughts started spinning around in my mind. Nothing seemed to make sense at all. All the things I was taught to believe in were not making sense at all. My Mom was in a hospital fighting for her life.

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