On Wonder & Wisdom
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“Wonder is the precondition for all wisdom.” 

Christian Wiman,
My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer

Christian Wiman

Eight years ago, Christian Wiman, a well-known poet and the editor of Poetry magazine wrote a now-famous essay about having faith in the face of death.

My Bright Abyss, composed in the challenging years since and completed in the wake of a bone marrow transplant, is a moving meditation on what a viable contemporary faith―responsive to modern thought and science and religious tradition―might look like.

Joyful, sorrowful, and beautifully written, My Bright Abyss is destined to become a spiritual classic, applicable not only to believers but to anyone whose experience of life and art seems at times to overbrim its boundaries.

How do we answer this “burn of being?” Wiman asks. What might it mean for our lives and deaths if we acknowledge the “insistent, persistent ghost” that some call God?

My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Common Believer is available on Amazon and through other retailers.

A Prayer in Spring

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“Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;

And give us not to think so far away

As the uncertain harvest; keep us here

All simply in the spinning of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,

Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;

And make us happy in the happy bees,

The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird

That suddenly above the bees is heard,

The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,

And off a blossom in mid-air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,

To which it is reserved for God above

To sanctify to what far ends He will,

But which it only needs that we fulfill.

By Robert Frost

About Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost (1874 – 1963) was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New England in the early 20th century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. Frequently honored during his lifetime, Frost is the only poet to receive four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 for his poetic works. On July 22, 1961, Frost was named poet laureate of Vermont.

 

It Is Well With My Soul in English, Spanish, Russian, and Ukrainian

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Rooted in Christ is a Christian music group from the beautiful Pacific Northwest with Ukrainian roots. However, they profess their true roots in Christ. The group recorded “It Is Well With My Soul” in English, Ukrainian, Russian, and Spanish a year ago. This rendition of a traditional hymn seems especially appropriate with recent current events. The video has been viewed 105,845 times since October 2021. May it speak to your soul as it did ours. 

Pax et Bonum,
Mary Pandiani
Executive Director
Selah Center

Praying Stations of the Cross, a Primer for Protestants

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As a protestant, I had heard of the Stations of the Cross but didn’t know anything about it until I decided to investigate it this year.

The Stations of the Cross or the Way of the Cross, also known as the Way of Sorrows or the Via Crucis, refers to a series of images depicting Jesus Christ on the day of his crucifixion and accompanying prayers. The stations grew out of imitations of the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, which is a traditional processional route symbolizing the actual path Jesus walked to Mount Calvary. The objective of the stations is to help the Christian faithful to make a spiritual pilgrimage through contemplation of the Passion Story of Christ. It’s one of the most popular devotions and the stations can be found in many Western Christian churches, including Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, and Roman Catholic.

The Stations of the Cross originated in pilgrimage to Jerusalem and a desire to reproduce the Via Dolorosa. Imitating holy places was not a new concept. For example, the religious complex of Santo Stefano in Bologna, Italy, replicated the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and other sacred sites, including the Mount of Olives and Valley of Josaphat.

Usually, a series of fourteen images will be arranged in numbered order along a path, and the faithful travel from image to image, in order, stopping at each station to say the selected prayers and reflections. This is done individually or in a procession usually on Good Friday, in a spirit of reparation for the sufferings and insults that Jesus endured during his crucifixion. As a physical devotion involving standing, kneeling, and genuflections, the Stations of the Cross are tied with the Christian themes of repentance and mortification of the flesh.

The fourteen Stations of the Cross

  1. Jesus is condemned to death 
  2. Jesus carries his cross 
  3. Jesus falls the first time 
  4. Jesus meets his mother 
  5. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the cross 
  6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus 
  7. Jesus falls the second time 
  8. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem 
  9. Jesus falls the third time 
  10. Jesus’ clothes are taken away 
  11. Jesus is nailed to the cross 
  12. Jesus dies on the cross 
  13. Jesus is taken down from the cross
  14. Jesus is laid in the tomb.

The style, form, and placement of the stations vary widely. The typical stations are small plaques with reliefs or paintings placed around a church nave. Modern minimalist stations can be simple crosses with a numeral in the center. Occasionally the faithful might say the stations of the cross without there being any image, such as when the pope leads the stations of the cross around the Colosseum in Rome on Good Friday.

Protestant puzzlement

Obviously, as a Protestant, I was puzzled about station six. Who was Veronica? According to Catholic tradition, Veronica was a pious woman of Jerusalem who was moved with pity upon seeing Jesus carrying his cross to Golgotha. As Jesus passed, Veronica wiped his faith. A miracle occurred when an impression of Jesus’s face was left upon the cloth called The Veil of Veronica.

And, I never knew that Jesus fell three times as featured in stations three, seven, and nine.

How protestants can pray the Stations of the Cross

In 1991, Pope John Paul II introduced “Scriptural or Biblical Stations of the Cross.” These fourteen stations are tied to scriptures from the Passion story in the gospels.

  1. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-41)
  2. Jesus is betrayed by Judas and arrested (Mark 14:43-46)
  3. Jesus is condemned by the Sanhedrin (Luke 22:66-71)
  4. Jesus is denied by Peter (Matthew 26:69-75)
  5. Jesus is judged by Pilate (Mark 15:1-5, 15)
  6. Jesus is scourged and crowned with thorns (John 19:1-3)
  7. Jesus takes up his cross (John 19:6, 15-17)
  8. Jesus is helped by Simon to carry his cross (Mark 15:21)
  9. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem (Luke 23:27-31)
  10. Jesus is crucified (Luke 23:33-34)
  11. Jesus promises his kingdom to the repentant thief (Luke 23:39-43)
  12. Jesus entrusts Mary and John to each other (John 19:25-27)
  13. Jesus dies on the cross (Luke 23:44-46)
  14. Jesus is laid in the tomb (Matthew 27:57-60)

The Stations of the Cross

You might try meditating on these scriptures at each station. You can use the artwork below.

Station 1
Station 2
Station 3
Station 4
Station 5
Station 6
Station 7
Station 8
Station 9
Station 10
Station 11
Station 12
Station 13
Station 14

Online Resources

If you want to pray the stations using the scriptures listed above, there are lots of resources online:

  • Written resources
  • Prayer apps
  • YouTube videos
  • Podcasts

The next time you wear a necklace with featuring a cross, I hope you’ll remember the Passion Story and the Stations of the Cross. May you find Holy Week this year meaningful with the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday.

by Debora Buerk
Editor
Here & Now
Selah Community

Sources

“Experimental Theology” blog by Richard Beck, March 28, 2022
Wikipedia

Hosanna

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I will wave palm branches today.
Yes, I know they will be burned tomorrow;
I know my praise will turn to betrayal.
My hope will vanish into terror.
I know my passion for justice will be swallowed
by my lust for safety.
I know.
But I dare to trust my fickleness will be redeemed,
and is already.
I dare to believe now because I can,
even if later I will recant.
I dare to call for justice
though I myself will delay it.
I dare to have joy, even before the disaster,
because I know I will have joy again.
God has already blessed my brokenness,
transformed my evil, conquered my death.
This is my faith: that in the face of my sin
I rejoice.
In the face of evil I have hope,
in the face of failure I am confident,
in the face of death I live life.
How revolutionary, to rejoice in the face of despair!
Mortal, flawed, inadequate and doomed,
I wave my palm for the Beloved.
And the Beloved smiles.
Hosanna in the highest. 

Steve Garnaas-Holmes,
Unfolding Light
unfoldinglight.net

1 Peter 1:3

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Praise be to the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! 

In his great mercy he has given us new birth
into a living hope through the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead.”

 

1 Peter  1:3 (NIV)

Blessed are You, Oh Lord Our God, Who Heals Us with Forgiveness

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With a healed and happy heart,
we proclaim our thanksgiving to You,
God of Compassion and Great Kindness.
We rejoice in Your absolution of our failings
and in the fact that You call us
to forgive each other daily
with the sacrament of understanding,
for in that mutual forgiveness,
we experience Your divine grace.

We are grateful for those persons in our lives
who have allowed us to be reconciled
after we have become separated from them
through selfishness and thoughtlessness.
For the numerous experiences of absolution in our past lives,
for lifting of the burden of guilt,
we are thankful.

We are most grateful as well, Loving God,
for the gift of Your Son, Jesus,
who calls us to lives of compassion,
to forgiveness and understanding.
He, by His life, gave us an example
of how we are to love those who harm us
and forgive those who injure us
when He asked You, His Father,
to forgive those who had led Him to suffer
and die on a cross.

Teach us, Lord,
how to forgive ourselves
and to be patient with the slowness
of our growth in holiness.
Able to forgive ourselves,
we shall be more eager and able to forgive others
according to Your divine pattern.

Blessed are You, Lord our God,
who heals us with forgiveness.
Amen

 

Edward Hays
priest, author, storyteller, artist
1931-2016

Combinatory Play

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While doing research for my doctoral dissertation awhile back, one nugget I continue to use is the gift of creative genius that by putting two-three ideas together, named by Einstein as “combinatory play,”[1] you create a new idea. Similar to cooking or baking, adding two or more different ingredients than required, you create your own new recipe. My friend, Lisa, makes new dishes nearly every night with her creativity by combining different ingredients for a mouth-watering experience. We all have this gift of creative genius by simply attending to what has been given to us in each day, combining that which seems unconnected, then somehow together creates a new idea, or at the very least a fresh idea.

I had a “combinatory play” experience today while listening to the story of Jacob, the son of Isaac, brother to Esau, in the Old Testament. It goes like this: Jacob steals the birthright of his older brother, causes a great rift in the family, leaves with nothing other than the promise that comes with a birthright. He goes to Bethel where he spends the night on the first night of his journey. He takes a stone as a pillow, and after falling asleep, he dreams of a ladder (some may recall the childhood song, “We are climbing Jacob’s Ladder”). It’s a place where heaven and earth touch. In the dream, God offers this promise:

14 Your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth and shall extend to the west and the east, the north and the south. All the nations of the earth shall be blessed through you and through your descendants.
15I am with you and I will protect you wherever you go. I will make you return to this country,
for I will not abandon you without having done all that I have promised you.” 
Genesis 28

This is where the connection between two different stories – two different ideas – begin to merge. 

The other story is Jesus in the wilderness, in a place of temptation, solitude, and questions by the devil who wants to distract, lead astray, cause Jesus to betray the Father, Creator God. In particular with the second question, the proposal is this:

5 Then the devil took Jesus to the holy city, Jerusalem, 
and he had Jesus stand at the very highest point in the holy temple.
Devil: 6 If You are the Son of God, jump! 
And then we will see if You fulfill the Scripture that says,
“He will command His heavenly messengers concerning You,
and the messengers will buoy You in their hands so that 
You will not crash, or fall, or even graze Your foot on a stone.”
Jesus: 7 That is not the only thing Scripture says.
It also says, “Do not put the Eternal One, your God, to the test.” 
Matt 4

According to Henri Nouwen, this temptation addresses the “desire to be spectacular” when the devil invites Jesus “jump,” to stand out among everyone else.[2] In fact, scripture is used to back up the suggestion to prove himself, surely there is nothing wrong to see if God will bring to pass what God promises. Indeed Jesus does stand out, but it’s not because he is seeking to stand out. He seeks something else.

That’s when the two ideas emerge. Placing Jacob’s experience alongside Jesus’ temptation, both stories are about encounter and seeking, granted of different kinds, that occur in isolation, only rocks for pillows, and discovering that God is present. And it’s about promises. It’s about what God will do, not what we set out to do. The discernment in these stories is not about jumping, becoming spectacular, or all the grains of sand as the number of descendants. It’s about meeting God in the places we find ourselves. 

These encounters in both Jacob’s seeking and Jesus’ experience reflect the real promise. God doesn’t promise that life will happen as we want or expect. In fact, it usually doesn’t. Rather, as we witness the discovery of Jacob and the response of Jesus to the devil, there is a promise of presence, one that Jacob recognizes as more valuable than all the eventual descendants.

16 The dream ended, and Jacob woke up from his sleep.
Jacob (to himself): There is no doubt in my mind that the Eternal One is in this place—
and I didn’t even know it!
17 But even as he said this, a bit of fear came over him.
Jacob: This place is absolutely awesome! It can be none other than 
the house of God and the gateway into heaven!
Genesis 28

Jacob finds God where God finds Jacob, in his solitude and questions, in the life he has been given, not the one that he thinks he wants. Jesus also meets God as he understands the “Eternal one in this place” as the one to whom he trusts, not in the proving of who is he. Jacob begins to recognize the sacred moment and place where God meets him. For Jesus, he lives out of God’s presence, in the solitude and questions, an ongoing filling by the One who loves him.

And for us, combinatory play – the creative genius given to us by the Creator – means we get to join in this reality that God invites us to also be present in God’s presence. 

  • Mary Pandiani, Executive Director, Selah Center

[1] https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/08/14/how-einstein-thought-combinatorial-creativity/

[2] Nouwen, Henri, In the Name of Love.

Would I?

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Would I recognize you Jesus if you rode into
town on public transit?

If you stepped off a bus in filthy blue jeans
and a tattered coat carrying a bedroll and backpack,
would I see your holiness?

Would I see you tenderly, quietly lay your
hand on the man sleeping in a doorway?

Would I hear your gentle voice when you
spoke to the mumbling, disconnected,
bent over woman pushing a shopping cart?

Would I recognize how your compassion
connected with the sullen, pocked-faced,
wild-eyed teenager as you shared a laugh and
your coffee?

Would I turn away from you, a man
who looks down on his luck, and go about my life
“serving Jesus?“

Or would I, for a moment, glimpse my King,
no show, no theatrics, no pomp,
the radical, servant Jesus,
the confident, silent Jesus, the unexpected,
triumphant Jesus?

Open my eyes.

by Zoanna Pearson
Selah Community

St. John of the Cross

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One who does not seek
the cross of Jesus
isn’t seeking the
glory of Christ.

St. John of the Cross

I Call You Friend

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Sirach is right.  Absolutely right.  A faithful friend is a “sturdy shelter.”  A faithful friend is a “life-saving remedy.”A faithful friend is “beyond price.”  And so, my friend, I say to you today:
I call you friend.  For you are home to me.  Within the shelter of your good company, I safely lay my burdens down.

I call you friend.  For you are healing for me.  You listen to all I have to say and, in so doing, I am made more whole.

I call you friend.  For you are a priceless gift for me, one I do not earn.  But one I receive anew each day with wonder, joy and gratitude.

I call you friend.  For without you I would not be me.  With you, I am more of who I want to be.

I call you friend.  In part, we are alike, sharing deep values we seldom have to articulate.  In part, we are different.  Our differences mark our uniqueness, broaden our perspective, spur our growth, and, at times, hone our patience.

I call you friend.  For you encourage me not merely by your words, but by the example of your own strivings, questionings, and yearnings.

You are my cheerleader, rousing me to stay in the game of life.

You are my ground control, confirming where I am and where I am heading.
God enters our lives in countless creative ways.

One way for me, my friend, is you.

Sr. Melannie Svoboda

About Sister Melannie Svoboda, SND

Sister of Notre Dame, teacher, student, author, speaker, spiritual companion, retreat facilitator, listener, friend, poet, farm girl.