Daily Signet

In Holy Week, the Christian world commemorates the Passion of Jesus Christ and the stories of the week leading up to the crucifixion are solemnly recounted: the masses who once were so moved by Jesus, now turn inside out and cry, “Crucify him!”. Here, the cruelty of crowds, of bullies, of their collective phobia—their unleashed rage as they mock him, crown him with thorns and parade him with their scorn. Here, Jesus carries his own cross to a place called Golgotha—the place of the Skull—located near a garden where tradition has it, Joseph of Arimathea owns a tomb. And at Jesus’ crucifixion, mixed into the wine to slake his thirst, a gift once given him by the magi, now offered again by a Roman soldier: myrrh, used to embalm the dead. Here, we feel the length of hours from the sixth hour when darkness descended to the ninth hour, when he at last cries, “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me.” Here, the mysterious rending of the veil in the Temple. Here, the deep, weighted depression of darkness as it falls over the land and silences even the disbeliever. Is there anything more piercing, more silent than the vacuum of forsakenness? This is the mysterium tremendum of a story of the disintegration and collapse of hope into a tomb that then breaks open with life: the seed in the husk that must die to sprout, the God in the man that must die to resurrect. The mysterium is in the death, the tremendum in the stone rolled away.          

Benjamin Martin

On This Day…

Elizabeth Barrett Browning born 1806 in London, died 1861 in Rome: poet
Works: Sonnets From the Portuguese, The Cry of the Children, Aurora Leigh
Quotes: “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; and only he who sees takes off his shoes; the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.” “Who so loves believes the impossible.”

Daily Signet

Long travels, long delays, layovers and standbys.  A day full of getting there.
Long storms, long nights, late freezes and standbys.  A winter full of getting there.
Long illness, long suffering, surgery and standbys.  A year full of getting there.
Long injustice, long hunger, sanctions and standbys.  A decade of getting there.
Long separation, long sleeps, sacrifices and standbys.  An eternity of getting there.
In between grief and getting-there, is standing by. In standby time we anguish
with the unknown.  The worst is over but the birth has not yet happened.
The Jews have set out Elijah’s cup for thousands of years now,
Waiting for the birth.
Did the three days after Jesus’ crucifixion seem like thousands of years?
In celestial time?
What if his followers had all turned against him
because the resurrection did not come at once?
There is no standard gestation time for a birth that follows death.
No direct correlation of death time to rebirth.
The only promise is that it will come,
maybe in this lifetime, or the next.
In this Holy Week I pray for strength in the standby times.

Jamie Ziegler

On This Day…

Joshi-no-Sekku, Shinto festival of dolls and Girls’ Day: Families pray for the good health and well-being of their girls. Every household beautifully decorates a multi-level podium, covered in red, on which various symbolic dolls are nested, and to them various offerings such as rice cakes and peach blossoms are made.

Edward Thomas born 1878 in London, died 1917: prominent among the nature and World War I poets. Though he was older, married and had children, Thomas enlisted and went to France, where he was killed.
Works: In Pursuit of Spring, The South Country, The Heart of England
Quotes: “The simple lack of her is more to me than others’ presence.” “How nice it would be to be dead if only we could know we were dead. That is what I hate, the not being able to turn round in the grave and to say it is over.” “Verse is the natural speech of men, as singing is of birds’.”

Daily Signet

Christuman is a living, growing being—vital and organic, ever becoming more clearly itself. In turn, Christuman continually converts us with inspiration and beauty, mystery and truth.

It is through our choices to convert our energies, our attention, away from those little-self preferences which cannot create more than a mundane life, to those which hold the possibility of glory, that we convert Christuman to contain even greater potential.  It is from the death of the least of each of us, it is our individual conversions that nourish and grow Christuman, allowing its greatness to be made real. 

Christuman has no flesh but us. Without flesh, it would be merely a beautiful theory. Our sacrifices, our love and attention, create and nurture that flesh.

We are convertors converting and being, in turn converted.

Let us, in this season of death and rebirth, die to all in us that is too small for Christuman, that new life may sweep in on the winds of spring to fill those spaces. New life with which to create our conversion into true human beings, that we may continually embody Christuman.

Donna Piper Leichtling

On This Day…

Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) born 1904 in Springfield, Mass., died 1991: author of children’s books
Works:  Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, etc.
Quotes: “Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!” “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

Daily Signet

O Holy spirit,
We call upon the life in us
To regenerate new life—
To replace cells no longer vital
And to revitalize our hearts, our minds, our dedication.
We live in such a jumble of should and rights and wants.
It seems we cannot sustain a rhythm of hours, of seasons, of prayer. 

Renew us.
Make our eyes New
Fire our love that it may flow strong and rich.
Take the death in us
And from its ashes grow green visions
And deep-down imaginatio. 

Out of the “best of each”, the roots of new action;
Out of our contemplative time, new insight.
Our disappointments, new  joy,
Our frustrations, hope.
For this season of renewal, we are grateful.
May this season be reborn in us.
Amen.

Benjamin H. Martin

On This Day…

Ralph Ellison born 1914 in Oklahoma City, died 1994: novelist, literary critic, scholar, writer
Works: Invisible Man, Juneteenth, Shadow and Act
Quotes: “When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.” “Life is to be lived, not controlled, and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.” “America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain. Our fate is to become one, and yet many. This is not prophecy, but description.”

Daily Signet

Now, as I once reached out to my mother, I will now reach out to God—reach out to hold and to be held. Beauty, joy, love, and all, sent into the onomatopoeic synonym for “silence”. Hear it again. Life sent on. Life in vates for the Eleusinian promise.

William M. Boast

On This Day…

Annie Dillard born 1945 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: writer, poet and Pulitzer Prize laureate.
Works:  Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, For the Time Being, Teaching a Stone to Talk
Quotes: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” “Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.” “You can’t test courage cautiously.”