Category: Spirituality

Mushroom Vision and the Dance of the River

Sometimes I can’t see what is right in front of me.

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?”

Luke 24

Sometimes I can’t see what is right in front of me. Are any of you like that?

Mushroom vision

Some friends in Virginia had spectacular mushroom vision. They loved to hunt for morel mushrooms that grow wild in the woods, and they could spot them too! This, in my experience, was no easy task. Morels are masterful camouflagers. Often when I ventured out on a mushroom hunt with friends? My shoe was on top of the mushroom before I was even aware I had “found” one.

Morel Mushrooms

Sometimes I can’t see what is right in front of me.

But other things that I don’t see? I think I miss them because my eyes are focused elsewhere. Or perhaps my mind is. Or my heart. Sometimes I am just not looking. Other times? My perspective is off kilter.

Now, morels can be hard to see. Part of their mystery is that they pop up in the woods almost overnight and blend in with the other foliage.

A stranger on the Emmaus Road

In Luke 24, some followers of Jesus are headed home from the city. They are probably traumatized by what they have experienced, the violence they have seen done to their friend. They have also heard the unbelievable news that maybe Jesus is no longer dead.

Their heads must have been spinning.

So they don’t see what is right in front of them. They don’t recognize Jesus as he walks with them along the road.

The story is a mystery. Scholars and others have pondered for years why Jesus—someone they knew before he died—now seems an out of touch stranger to them.

But, then, the one they knew—Jesus—was killed. To walk with him on the road was the last thing they expected. Their conversation and their hearts were mired in disappointment: “We had hoped. . .”

“We had hoped—“

This text holds many messages for us.

The one I hear today—during this Easter season—is this: Whatever our hopes were or are for our lives and for our communities, God is with us on the road, even when we can’t see or recognize God.

During these social-distancing days, I am noticing things around me I have overlooked before. The birds seem more abundant and full-throated than usual, the irises bolder and more loquacious. I have enjoyed creation’s abundant beauty.

And I pray that we—the collective communal we—gain a new perspective both on our community’s overlooked gifts and on our societal brokenness. Once those followers saw that it was Jesus, they were forever changed. May we, too, be changed by what we see and encounter in these days. And may our lives—our actions, attitudes, and practices—be transformed.

Fried morel mushrooms, by the way, are a delightful delicacy, if you can find them. Of course, you have to know something about what you are looking for; not all mushrooms result in gastric delights!

Ode to the river
down the road that
I am getting to know again
as if for the first time

It’s been too long, old friend,
since I last saw you dance—
not because you weren’t moving
but because my ears
were too full of distracting debris
to listen for your music.

Ancient rocks welcome your embrace.
Pebbles laugh in sun-touched delight
as you slip and slide across their backs.
And trees lean in close
to hear you whisper
the secrets rivers keep.

Thank you for continuing
to twist
tumble
turn
to the music of the spheres.

Thank you—
for saving a dance
for me.

“Laugh in the Face of the Devil”

As our days of social distancing continue, how and on what are we to focus our daily journeys?

God will fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.

Job 8:21

risus paschalis: when dust laughs

spring has ambushed winter,
and the dust of the earth is, yet again,
transfigured into wind-dancing laughter.

laughing dust? not here
in this graveyard of abandoned joys
where dead-ended dreams whisper
like violated ghosts among tombs of those
too-soon returned to the earth.

you just smile and sink your spade
into the sun-warmed sod, costly
corruptions composted, turned, turned
again until soil recognizes soil.

then you wink, just once, and the
remembered dust, tantalized by the
tickle of a new feast’s first thin blade,
laughs.

Bright Week

This week is known in some Christian traditions as “Bright Week.” The week is considered “bright” because faith communities around the world have awakened on Easter Monday to continue to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection light.

In the Bright Week tradition, each day of the week following Easter Sunday carries the adjective “bright.” Bright Monday holds the additional distinction of being referred to by some as Risus Paschalis—Easter Laugh.

Early orthodox communities began a tradition of gathering on the Monday following Resurrection Sunday to tell jokes as a way of marking Easter as the ultimate joke God played on Satan by defeating death with life. Some observe the Easter Laugh by including jokes or humorous anecdotes in their Easter Sunday sermons. Others emphasize laughter on the second Sunday of Easter, sometimes called Holy Humor or Hilarity Sunday.

Now What?

In the wee hours of this particular Bright Monday, I pondered what may seem a mundane or even inappropriate (to some) question: “Now what?”

We in Christian communities have traveled Lenten roads by staying in place. These unexpected and unfamiliar Lenten traveling conditions have prompted impressive (to me) creativity. Theologies have been energized and deepened by religious leaders’ efforts to weave Lenten texts and liturgies together within the context of a pandemic.

I have listened to more Easter sermons and prayers than ever before in my life. These live-streamed and podcasted and Zoomed worship offerings have sparked for me new spiritual insights and invited renewed commitments to Gospel justice- and peace-making.

Yes, even in the midst of a pandemic, the Lenten journey has brought us to an empty tomb.

Still Journeying in Place

But the coronavirus crisis continues. We are still staying in place. And I wonder—now what? I hope to write a more extended blog about this in coming days.

For now, I invite us to ponder together. As our days of social distancing continue and with them uncertainties about jobs, stresses about illness, pressures to work and care for children—how and on what are we to focus our daily journeys?

What I hope is that Easter’s surprise—Easter’s reversal of all that we thought we knew and understood about life and faith and God and humanity—will keep dancing around and within us and motivating our thoughts and actions toward God’s love and grace.

The coronavirus has thrown into stark relief the realities of human fragility—the fragility of our bodies and the fragility and brokenness of many of our political, economic, and health institutions.

Coinciding with this, Easter reminds us—life has defeated and will continue to defeat death. This is the Gospel promise, a cosmic, beyond-human understanding promise that infuses even the most mundane dimensions of human life with radical hope.

This radical Resurrection hope that at times seems so absurd given the realities we witness all around us—this radical hope ignites laughter, the Easter laugh.

Let’s Laugh in the Face of the Devil

Sheila Hunter wrote a song about radical resurrection hope—“Laugh in the Face of the Devil.”

Is there a place deep inside you
that’s closed up like a tomb?

No light can get through to that dark place
for the Healer there is no room.

There’s no rock too big for God to move,
no night to dark to see God’s light.

So let’s join together and with God’s help
let’s push all our might—

Sheila Hunter—“Laugh in the Face of the Devil”

Resurrection life has defeated and will continue to defeat death. The promise is cosmic but infuses even the most mundane dimensions of human life. Together, empowered by God’s Spirit, we can roll away even the heaviest stones.

One of the most certain things about these days is that uncertainties will arise. When they do—when everyday trials make us want to give up, or when the going is tough and we are tempted to think the joke of life is on us, perhaps we can remember the contagious, life-giving gift of the Easter laugh.

So—on this Monday that may or may not seem bright to us, perhaps we can listen for the Easter laugh. Perhaps we can even join in—just a little—with Sarah who all of those years ago announced:

God has made me laugh. Everyone who hears will laugh with me.

Genesis 21:6