Absent, but returning....

Absent, but returning...

Several wonderful folk in the Anglican / Episcopal blogsphere have take time off to take Holy Week as a time of reflection, and perhaps a bit more time to simply regroup. They have not been completely silent, although much of their words have been replaced with words of poetry, and even their drawings by the paintings of others, and for a moment there is sharing of the stuff that makes it possible to utter anything at all about the unutterable. There are no party lines in this most profound of realizations: words fail, and tell of our own failings, and yet the heart knows.

So Fr. Jake, a blogger of fine words and analysis, takes time to consider the wisdom of the words of others. Take a look here and here and here.

Jim Naughton at the Daily Episcopalian is giving us a series of poems, all quite wonderful as gifts for these days. Start here and work back.

Jonathan, aka The Mad Priest, has done a series of startling and profound entries that bring the trial, execution and burial of Jesus into contemporary images. Start here and work back.

Baby Blue, over at BabyBlueCafe, has done some remarkable things with photographs and music. Whatever the distances that exist otherwise, in the effort to approach the unutterable she is a sister in awe. See her postings here and here and here.

And over in the world of cartoons, the main cartoon blogger of the Anglican Communion, David Walker, has been silent for too long, but he has graced us with this painting. I'm missing David's work particularly and await his return with high hopes.

So across the Anglican and Episcopal Blogscape there are signs... that all the blogging is not enough, that sometimes wise poems and words and paintings only point the way to something quite simple but quite unfathomable that is going on here.

Being unable to fathom the depths of what has happened in the self-emptying of Jesus is not the same as being unable to hold on to it as life giving.

Here I am poor one that I am, and it is Holy Saturday, and all my blogger buds are being profound, and all I have running around in my skull is the old song, "Nobody wants you when you're down and out." The line I remember is, "If I ever get my hands on a dollar again, I'll hold on to it 'til the eagle grins."

Maybe in the gathering dusk just before I go off to the Great Vigil, I will pledge myself again - if in the unfathomable depths of what Jesus has done I can grab on again to some part of that giving that gives life, I will, and I'll hold on to it til the eagle grins."

The Resurrection happens in the wilderness of our being down and out. We hold on to it and all the meals we share in Our Lord, and the great banquet to come, will feed us and give us life.

Maybe at that great banquet board my father, long dead aunt sarah, cousin johnny, odds and ends of family folk through the years, dear friends and loves, and fellow bloggers, all will join with the whole host of folk unnumbered who were considered no-account here, but are counted there, and if I hold on, there might be a place at the table for me. And then for me the eagle will grin, and I will too.

He is Risen, and don't we forget it! Hold on!