Making a Bed in a Pandemic Time

                                                photo by Robert Couse-Baker / flikr

A friend of mine told me one day that she had gone through a terrible divorce. Which left her drained and sad and angry. She got to the place where she simply shut down. Her Mother came by one day and she told her how terrible she felt and how depressed she was. After listening for a while the Mama told her daughter, “When you feel like you can’t do anything, make your bed.” My friend said those words helped her enormously. Looking back she said that was the beginning of her journey back into real living. Make your bed. Simple words. Strong words. Make your bed. 

I have thought of those words often when I have been down or when someone poured out their heart to me. Make your bed. A wise counselor told me once: “When you are depressed—move a muscle.” Do something—it might not seem like much but it could just be the beginning of your healing.

Once years ago I was Pastor of a church where things were not working out. Good folk. I just could not get a handle on things. I worked so hard there and it seemed to me that nothing I did mattered. But when you are depressed you don’t see anything clearly. A friend asked me later: “How did you get through that painful time?” “Well," I answered,  I tried to move a muscle.” I was swimming a lot in those days. And I would drive out to the pool and begin my swim. Most days I felt almost nothing. But I swam and swam and swam. And that exercise helped me enormously . Slowly my depression lifted. But It would be foolish to say to those having a hard time just swim and you will make it. Nothing that matters is simple. 

Make your bed. Read a book. Turn off the TV. Plant a garden. Listen to the birds.  Call a friend you haven’t talked to in years. Take a walk. Maybe a run. Write a letter. Clean your windows. Pray. Meditate. Zoom if you can figure it out. Do something. Remember. Remember.

Wendell Berry the wise poet said:

                                         

                                          “Make a story

                                    show how love and joy, 

                                      beauty and goodness

                                   shine out amongst the rubble.”  

There are so many troubled places in the world. This virus-plague is still scary. We’ve lost so many in our country and all over the grieving world. I am losing too many of my friends. I find myself writing too many sympathy cards.  

Sitting here in the comfort of my house outside the storm rages on many fronts. Some days I wonder how all this furor and hate and death will come to an end. There seems so little that I can do. But this I know. I can make my bed—but this is only the beginning of my day. And yours, too.

                                                            photo by Tom Hodgkinson / flikr

                                             --Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Easter...Easter...Easter

 

I've had this picture in my office for years and years. I look at it when I need hope. Maybe it will help you too.

Most everyone has a favorite story. Mine goes back to that time when my wife and I visited the Passion Play in Oberammergau  And I can still remember what I surprise I found there. The Passion play opened with Jesus riding into Jerusalem and a whole stage of people shouting the king has come. They yelled hallelujahs until they were hoarse. And then the story told of the last week Jesus spent marching, stumbling the way of the cross. We saw it all as Jesus  slowly made his way up that terrible hill. The crucifixion was gruesome as he was nailed to the central cross with two criminals on each side. And his mother and her friends stayed there until the end. And we saw those who loved him take him down from the cross and buried him. The lights on the stage darkened and almost went out. We sat mostly in darkness. But the thing I remembered most was happened next. Weeping women came on the stage and stood by the tomb hoping to get in. But the stone was too heavy. And suddenly an angel came and without saying a word, unrolled a long white aisle cloth from the stone doors down the steps to the where the audience sat. And as the grieving women beat on the great stone doors they began to slowly open. And light came from inside those doors. The light grew stronger and dazzling light slowly filled the stage and the whole theatre. The stone doors opened wide. And Jesus came through the streaming light. As he walked across the stage from everywhere a multitude of children came running forward, laughing and grabbing his legs. He had come back.

We didn’t say much as we left. Most of the crowd were quiet. But I could not get the scene of Jesus coming through the darkness into that blinding light.

Maybe those that waved their palm branches only days before were on to something. They had yelled: “The King is coming.” Little did they know that even after all these years †he King is here. No darkness then or now could keep him out.

Thanks be to God.

                                                          --Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Good Friday in a Good Friday World

 

                                                            photo by Zaheer Bakshplof / flikr                

                                            

 

                                 Then                                     

Good Friday. And so the long circuitous week is just about over. It was called the Via Dolorosa Which means “The Way of Sorrows”. Seems like it has been a long time since that shining Sunday when they threw their cloaks on the road and shouted, over and over:”Hallelujah! Hallelujah! The King is coming.”And they were right—except they turned away that Friday because no King is nailed, naked to a cross. That was the fate of the criminals. Most of the crowd, bored that the show was over had moved away. Even the soldiers who had gambled for his garments had left. Only one soldier was left on duty. Most of the Disciples had fled. Judas had already killed himself. And so John, the beloved, Mary Jesus’ mother and a few women stood there at the foot of that terrible cross. The others? Where were they?

It is strange indeed. Through the years this King with a crown of thorns, nailed like the two criminals would move so many. And yet on that hill far away so many have found something that makes us feel maybe, maybe he stretched out those wounded hands for us.

This long and terrible year could well be the centerpiece for this Good Friday. Where grief and loneliness and injustice and cruelty and more grief is everywhere. The prophet in a hard time said, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”  He was in exile himself and kept speaking to his people. They thought Isaiah had lost his mind. They saw no hope hundreds of miles from their homeland and everything they held dear. What valleys had been lifted up? What hills and mountains has been low? What uneven ground and what rough place were not moved? They wanted to go home.

                      Now                                          

We’ve all felt it this year. Too many deaths, too many suicides, too much rage and hatred and just too much suffering. Just a year ago all those who now were dead. lived and worked and dreamed and loved thinking they just might live forever. And those they left behind separating belongings of their now-dead loved ones. This was not supposed to happen. 

Dear God, why after two thousand years do we still look up, make the sign of the cross and somehow go on? Does he still, this time bear our griefs and carry all these sorrows? Or is this merely preacher talk and wishful thinking? Who knows?

But as I think of this Good Friday I remember a story I read somewhere. 

A.E. Hotchner was a good friend of Ernest Hemingway, the great writer. He followed him, through the years of triumphs and women and alcoholism and depressions. As far as Hotchner knew Hemingway had no faith. But one of the writer’s great friends was Gary Cooper. And one day Cooper and Hemingway both were slowly dying of cancer. Hotchner went to see the movie star and he talked to Cooper about Hemingway and told him some Hemingway stories and gossip. From his hospital bed Cooper, shook his head and said, “Poor Papa.” Some time before Cooper had come into the Catholic church and when Hemingway heard this he laughed and laughed. Over and over Hemingway would needle him about his faith. And this is the way Hotchner tells of that hospital visit with Gary Cooper:   

“He was hit by a big pain and his face contorted as he fought it off…When the pain had passed, Cooper reached his hand over to the bed table and picked up a crucifix, which he put on a pillow beside his head. ‘Please give Papa a message. It’s important and you mustn’t forget because I’ll not be talking to him again. Tell him…that time I wondered if I had made the right decision’—he moved the crucifix a little closer so that it touched his cheek—‘tell him it was the best thing I ever did.’” Cooper died ten days later. Hemingway took a gun and killed himself days later.

And as I think about today I remembered that story. Perhaps Good Friday is true after all. For maybe, just maybe Jesus really does bear our griefs and carries our sorrows. Could this be, after all these years, why we still set this day aside and look up at his cross? 

photo by Michal Kosmulski / flikr

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com