A Dry Wind

Lectio:

Psalm 16

3 The holy people in the land are the ones who are worthy of honor; all my pleasure is in them.

Amos 5:1-17

13 At times like these a prudent person stays silent, for it is an evil time.

Jude 1-16

12 These men are filthy spots at your festive gatherings meant to foster love; they share your meals without a qualm, while caring only for themselves. They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds; trees without fruit even in autumn, and doubly dead because they have been uprooted; 13 savage seawaves heaving forth their shameful deeds like foam; wandering stars for whom the blackest darkness has been reserved forever.

Matthew 22:1-14

12 ‘Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him outside in the dark!’ In that place people will wail and grind their teeth, 14 for many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Meditatio:

**Taking pleasure in the holy people. So who are the holy people? 

**What’s the benefit in staying silent in these evil times? There must be one.

**”Doubly dead.”  Uprooted, barren, desolate. An image of an abandoned construction site, with rebar bent and rusting in a trash-filled hole where no foundation will ever be poured.

**Abbess Jane’s inversion trick: What if the silent man without a robe is God?

Oratorio:

**I think I know some holy people. Dorothy telling the story of ‘the best Christmas pageant ever’ with awe-filled enthusiasm. Julie mourning the death of her grandpa with delight in a silly photo of him as a young soldier in Korea. Cynthia understanding my anxious sense of ‘entanglement’. Sarah giving a matter-of-fact nod to the memories of being young and adventurous. Sherry’s simple and brilliant joy in every plain and ordinary day. Tim’s wry and vivid descriptions that make people and places that never existed come alive.

**I’m not sure why keeping my mouth shut seems to be the right thing to do, but it does. Maybe it’s because all the people talking appear to be missing the point. Niggling. Straining at gnats and swallowing camels. Looking for excuses. Cutting off noses to spite faces. Brewing tempests in teapots. Paying attention to all the wrong things. And all the while, off in a secluded corner, out of the wind, God is keeping very still, waiting for a new butterfly’s wings to dry.

**I recognize those people. The ones who bring the dry wind with them.  The ones whose savage tides have battered peace out of all recognition. They have no clue that their sad, severed roots are quivering in the open, and they don’t understand the look of pity on my face. The image haunts me, of a deserted place where something that was just about to be built now lies bankrupt; hopeless and helpless, exposed to the ruthless light.

**Perhaps that’s the perverted truth of our age. Rulers throw banquets in which the only purpose is to fill the hall with brown-nosers. Anyone will do, warm bodies are all that is required, but when God answers the invitation and stands silent, refusing to put on the monkey suit, then God gets thrown outside into the dark.

Contemplatio:

Bound hand and foot and shoved out the door,

Our silent God is stranded somewhere out there in the dark.

I’ve lost all pleasure in this party.

Does anyone happen to have a flashlight?