Posts Tagged ‘Luke 9:18-25’
Our Daily Cross – Br. Jack Crowley
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Br. Jack Crowley
Our Gospel passage today features one of my favorite words that Jesus uses. That word is “daily.” Jesus tells his disciples that they must take up their cross daily and follow him. Jesus could have said, take up your cross when you are ready or take up your cross when the time is right, but instead, Jesus says plainly, take up your cross daily.
I always appreciate how Jesus does not sugarcoat the truth. The daily grind of taking up our cross is something we all know too well. We each have our own version of this. Each day’s cross carries its own little splinters, its own knots in the wood, and it can rub us the wrong way on different days. In my own experience, how I carry the cross one day doesn’t always translate to how I must carry the cross the next day. In other words, I’m relearning or remembering how to take up my cross each day, but with a slightly different accent or technique each time. Read More
Float to Live – Br. Luke Ditewig
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Br. Luke Ditewig
What would you do if you fell in icy water? When we Brothers visited Scotland in 2017, I saw a billboard with the image of a man looking distressed, arms and legs extended, lying in water fully clothed. The caption: “Float for your life. If you fall into water, fight your instinct to swim until the cold water shock passes. Float to live.”[i]
My instinct would be to try to swim, to fight for my life. The Royal Navy teaches that doing so, I would likely choke and drown. Our bodies adjust to shock if we first give them time to adjust. In freezing water, float to live. Then swim to safety or call for help.
“Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me,” Jesus says. Resist instinctively taking control, grasping like you’ve got it all together, and fighting to save your own life. Surrender, let go, and die to yourself. Jesus is our savior. Receiving Jesus’ repeated invitation, we often fear, flee, or fight. I certainly do. It may be habitual, instinctive. From what are you fleeing or fighting? For what are you thrashing or struggling?
Many are struggling with waves of shock and sadness at our new president’s behavior. While resistance is vital, so is praying the pain. Acknowledge and pray the hard. God listens. In whatever form your prayer takes, whether in the silence of your heart, in speaking to a trusted person, in journaling, gazing, drawing, or moving, risk stark honesty about your experience. Name the cold freeze. Pray your life as it is. Be still holding the hard, and God will meet you.
Poet Denise Levertov wrote: “freefall, and float / into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace, / knowing that no effort earns / that all surrounding grace.”[ii] In the pain and shock of life like freezing water, float first to live, surrendering to our Savior.
[i] Float to Live – Respect The Water
[ii] The Avowal by Denise Levertov – Famous poems, famous poets. – All Poetry
Ash Wednesday Hangover – Br. Jack Crowley
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Br. Jack Crowley
The Thursday after Ash Wednesday feels like a hangover. Shrove Tuesday is full of excitement and pancakes. Ash Wednesday is solemn and full of reflective work. Then this Thursday comes along, and it doesn’t even have its own nickname. It’s just the second day of Lent.
In any journey, there’s always that feeling when the initial excitement of something beginning has worn off and you get a sense of how long the journey is actually going to take. It’s that part of a hike when after a mile or two you get a glimpse of the mountaintop through the trees and say oh wow, that’s a long way from here.
Six weeks from today, we Brothers will be sitting up here waiting for our Superior James to wash our feet. In between this Thursday after Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday, there will be six weeks of daily life and all the joys and challenges that goes with it.
It’s with that spirit of daily life that makes the readings for two day of Lent perfect. In our Gospel this morning, Jesus tells his disciples that anyone who wants to follow him must “take up their cross daily.” I love how Jesus uses that word daily. Jesus didn’t have to include that word daily. Jesus could have just said that anyone who wants to follow him has to take up their cross. The fact that Jesus purposefully put in that word daily gets at something important to the Christian experience. Read More
Trust the Water – Br. Luke Ditewig
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Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Luke 9:18-25
Choose life. Take up your cross.
God invites us to die over and over. Following Jesus means lots of death, lots of letting go. It’s all about surrender: trust in the Lord. Faced with the choice to let go again and again, I think we often fear, flee and fight. I certainly do.
Remember, for a moment, being in an ocean or a pond or a pool. Remember what it’s like floating on your back. You have to lean and let go. That’s the key: let go. The water holds us, supports our weight, if we trust and give our all. When we look up to see where we are or when we struggle, we sink, and end up thrashing or swimming. It’s only when we stop trying, when we surrender, that we float. Read More