ASH WEDNESDAY +------- sacred smear

a temporary tattoo of the end and beginning of pure permanency 

in the middle of the week the first day of the Weakness Season

We stare death in the face today and on the face and faced by the cross. The pile of dust or ash that we came from through Adam and that we return to as punishment for Adam and Eve’s sin is piled up in front of us to contemplate.

Death has changed over the years. As a child many of us prayed, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Aaaaa-Men!”

Many parents have abandoned that prayer for several reasons, perhaps because they abandoned all bedtime or even any time of the day prayers with their kids. Others because it sounded to scary for kids to hear and have said over them, death and all being something kids don’t and shouldn’t have to have invade their little lives… except in on all the cartoon shows and TV programs and digital games that parents allow to be seen. And finally maybe the prayer stopped being used or used much because infant and childhood deaths are down due to medical science and preventative vaccine shots. Except of course for, these days—measles. Which I understand can kill.

I know some folks who do not like the fact that children who come to church on Ash Wednesday when there is the imposition of ashes, that the sign of mortality be placed on little, healthy, hopefully-long-life-ahead Mary or John. But then are they refusing also the sign of immortality, the cross of Christ who forgives and gives eternal life. refusing that be placed on baby or kid’s forehead who someday will exchange cradle or nighttime bed for coffin?

I have always thought that, “Now I lay me down to sleep…” should have a second half prayer too. Now I rise up to live, I pray the Lord my soul and body to keep… keep in the way of Christ’s living, suffering, dying, death, cross and resurrection. Aaaa-Men.”

It is not in reality death that has changed over the years but our response to it. Christian hymnody, prayer and piety has looked and called death really two vastly different things. On the one hand, it has been called, using scriptural reference, the last enemy. (1 Corinthians 15. 26) Death has also been called the doorway to life for the Christian who in death falls not only to the ground but also into the hands of his or her merciful Father, whose Son stands at his right hand pleading pardon and peace. The Holy Spirit surely can work both images, one which spits at death and the other which is Eden’s dooming and damning gate flung open, flooded by the waters of Holy Baptism.

Washday (actually a spell correction of the computer, I wrote Ashday) is not a Sunday but is one of the pre-eminent weak-days.

thumb bed

Harvey S. Mozolak

Lent is not a cap

with a right angled

smudge as a logo

a hat of holiness worn

out of respect indoors

and taken off after as we eat

fish on Friday

a thumbed hope

for a distant ride

to an unseen place

but an embedding of change

in the decay process

dry earth to earth

dust to dust

where there is wetness

in the breath beyond

that promises

forehead furrows

sown in darkness

to remember the light

and the water that once washed

and oiled with fragrance

where the sign is planted

in the first dew

the residue due

ash leftovers

Harvey S. Mozolak

charcold remains of flames

gray unfoliaged fronds of fear

curling in pleading palms

breathless the branch limbs limp sag

their embers lightless lumber

become a powdered pallor

campfires where we kept each other comforted

awake against the tales of beasts and woods

the path a spot the morning after on the pavement

where the fireworks and rockets of the parade

had shouted hosannas

in the highest

at the fireplace where we ate the meal

quickly and standing

because we were to go out

into the Friday waves

and Sunday sea

to wash

the children's charcoal

smeared as makeup

that hides us in the night before

the forty nods to prayer

begins this

the reddened dark doorway

where the leftovers are right

in leaving

midweek soil

Harvey S. Mozolak

chimney soot

from what is burned

to keep us warm

against the cold that slowly kills

camouflage across the face

smeared to hide who and where we are

from others

who hate us for who we are and have

leftovers from the game

of playing far to hard

and wiped work from tired eyes

dirt furrowed in the trails of sweat

the soil of the week

spent struggling to strengthen

mid-marked

drawn from the earth

singed and flamed by hate

the oil suspended leaf shading

the skin with limbs that carry all

in the filthy mark of cleansing

Mark 9.2-9  homiletically holy hmmm's.... on the High Hill

It was "six days later" not a complete week or an overfull octave. On "a high mountain apart" time would be complete with eternity and flesh enlightened with perfection seen, if only by its dazzling seams.

The New Testament term for mountain _ oros _ is connected in its range to_ ouranos _, the term for the heavens. Do the heavens only touch the earth in its upper reaches or does the earth aspire only in breathless upheaval to the heavens?

Hardly questions of this text because it is not to the peak that we are to be drawn but to the climbers. Peter, James and John roped by flesh to Jesus leading them upward.

The top is a tenuous place. Plant the flag, take a look around at the surrounding scene, the world beneath and retreat quickly in the face of a place that is hostile to human exploration. Any Everestic conversation happens in frosted shouts and the real talk, self-congratulations, usually happens at the bottom of the mountain. But here it is different, here Moses and Elijah appear and talk with Jesus. About what? Sinai dulled in this dazzling doxology? Pillars of cloud and fire, whirlwinds and parted waters? Amid the eye-shattering snowy moment, like ravens the two dark figures come to Jesus for feeding. Even heaven bows before, in reverence at the rocky walk of the incarnate One.

To transfigure ... we cannot figure how to cross from death to life, from weakness to unyielding power, from dim days to the potentials we can dream, so God must.

Peter wants to erect three shrines that will hold to the moment, tethered like tents in the airless wind of that which appears strictly spiritual. To remain here and to be human will need the divine. A kindly cloud, like a prop in children's story, envelops them. It is only the habitation of Jesus, hazy as it may appear in plain skin tones, that covers their presence ... on the mountain or as they come down to the days before the resurrection.

2 Kings 2. 1-12

Elisha does not seem to want to leave the side of Elijah. The pupil does not want to go beyond the teacher. But there is a parting in the water, at the heights, in the inheritance. One cannot cling long in the whirlwind of light teamed with fire. Such separations will be recalled, the ripping of flesh and the parting in power. And yet... there is more to come, not only for Elisha but also for Elijah, who it seems by the Transfiguration account could also not leave the side of his salvation. The chariots come and go until the seamless robe is un-torn and the gamble of God brings victory.

Psalm 50. 1-6

There is beauty to be blessed for a God who rejoices not to consume in a raging storm but reveals, un-petalling divine glory amid our flesh.

2 Corinthians 4. 3-6

There is light and there is light. There is neon giddiness and the mirrors of manipulation. And then there is the unveiling of God's goodness.

Cloaked by the DNA of the virgin, the robes of Palestinian poverty and cloaks of commonality, perish the thought that we should know him as God much less good and good for us.

The blinding light in this passage is not that of high places but of the depths of our depravity. We are familiar with the palette of dark shades of bruised purple and cold blue for the perishing but this Corinthian letter brushes evil with the attractive brightness of golds, greens and glow, anything that will keep people from seeing the image of God in the glory of Christ. The lights of our earth and age are not to be trusted to portray the news that is good about God. There is rather a lamp in the heart; it is the Spirit, God has placed within. Not some private vision or insight but the knowledge of God's radiance in the face of Jesus Christ. A face and glory which is known, truly unveiled, in its bruising and as it grows cold in dying and death. To him we are willing by God's strength to be enthralled.

Seasonal Prayer

Triune God of all light, we thank you for this season of unveiling. When in sign and wonder our faith has been blessed to grow and share. Prepare us now to see you veiled for those who cannot see. Prepare us, who think we rule ourselves, to be governed by your grace and mastered by your mercy in Jesus Christ, our Lord. AMEN

Evening Prayer

Your dwelling is enough, O Lord Christ, let us see you alone among the peaks of life and living and then in the depths of sleep or death we will never be left alone. Make all our tomorrows resurrections until there is only you to face. AMEN

I noticed that while the Lutheran Book of Worship collects for the Feast do not use the word, the one a bulletin uses, in this phrase: "Transfigure us by you beloved Son...." Do you think this is a good or even adequate use of the word TRANSFIGURE or should it only be used of our Lord? Obviously his transfiguration was of a different sort than any morphing on our part. One year I looked up all the trans-words that are used in English.... quite a few.

why I never noticed it before, don't know but the second lesson from 2 Cor 4 has an interesting juxtaposition especially if you or your parish have the custom of veiling crosses, crucifixes and religious pictures or icons.. "Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.... (not seeing the light of the gospel in the glory of Christ, icon of God." There are two kinds of veiling... one that reveals and one that is the product of blindness. The Lenten one is like the Jesus on the downside of the mountain; his flesh hides his divinity but is the revelation of God with us. We notice if we use the off-white Anglican Lenten array that the crucifix has disappeared into the white wash of the walls or if we use the bruised color the purple protuberances say, "look at me, his death is so scandalous it demurs our devotion. Additionally there is this Pauline veiling to those perishing, they miss both the divine and human natures, and they miss the Christ. The church has had its problems with heresies on both sides denying one or the other nature but the world today denies both as Christ disappears from view well before and after Lent and Transfiguration. How to transfigure the "god of this world" so that people can see there is no good news in its worship, no light for the heart. The face of Christ, the incomprehensibly divine and human reveals us, who we truly were created to be and the Father to us.

I was surprised to learn from Philip Pfatteicher's new book celebrating the Church Year that justification for the use of veils may have come from an application of John 8.59. Have you ever thought of the length (relates to the word Lent I recall) of time Lent takes... 40 days is a chunk of the calendar. It is, as some observed, a generous tithe of the year. An offering that lifts our Lord's offering which was not a tithe but a whole, living and unblemished offering. And then the Easter's 40 days till Ascension, another tithe. Only Advent is not long enough for its civil contents to be wrapped by blue or violet observance.

The voice and sacred sparklers are not for our Lord but for us... again, like at the Jordan baptism, it is not as if Christ has to stretch his glory because it is cramped or aches for the heavens... he has chosen to be among us in the dull and darkness of the shadowed valleys where healing is needed...

A Stilling/Silencing Sunday, a Veiling of the Voice Sunday just before Lent when we begin to hear the loudest from the silencing of God. Congregational Council Report please. "Our deficits are rising but I am happy to report that the crucifixion is in the red again,; the cross is going up; God is going down."

We use phrases that say (and I am going to make it much longer than we usually phrase it) things like... Christ, conceived of the Virgin, born, lived a life of suffering servanthood, crucified, died, was buried, rose, ascended and will return... but never or almost never in the list is "transfigured"... how do you figure that? not that important an event, not seminal enough, doesn't fit into the flow of steps of humiliation followed by steps of exaltation as we usually teach... while we can surmise what it meant to the disciples lives are we not sure what the transfiguration means to our lives?

I have always found it interesting that times of personal faith-renewal, retreat highs, even blessings that have ecclesial ritual attached like births and weddings and ordinations, all of them duly descend. It helps to see the cloud and hear the voice of the Word's Father when one is being dazzled by the gifts of glory and transient transfiguration.

Transfiguration Talk

cross-selfie

Harvey S. Mozolak

from the shattered mirrors

shards of our selected glories

we fashion him

to see embodied ourselves

as saved in brightness

while he

light limited to flesh flamed

a breath away from death

cut on our brokenness

bleeds

dries waxen drips

as we quench the candle

unrecorded event Mark 9: 9.5

Harvey S. Mozolak

when several of the nine

who did not mountain climb

arrived at the crest

the next morning after their evening rest

they looked about for some scorched earth

some curved signs in the soil

from a small whirlwind

the grooves of a chariot

or marks from the hooves

of the horses of heaven

nothing only the stump of a tree

large imagined to have been tall soaring

survived of storms and the thin breath

of a sky licked by sleet and rain

cut trimmed and dragged away

what does its stumped silence

the hill’s emptiness say?

transfigurational

Harvey S. Mozolak

glory’s vanes flaring

as they fly

from the rachis of light

like a feather fluttering

down from the height

by which I write

quilled in the Word

the last Sunday with petals

Harvey S. Mozolak

taken we are

led apart

where he is transfigured

robed in light beyond seeing

wrapped in the arms of reaching prophet

and the horns of Moses' mountain glory

we look around

turn and twist to touch

our bodies better to see it

but it is gone

yet he is here

as sudden as was the brightness

now only the mountain's high

wet slippery rocks

and the mist that comes in folds

with voices that echo

God-like sounds of Son

love and listen

piquing our attention

to Jesus urging silence

while descending toward the dead

like a light morning the meadows

with small opening flowers its only footsteps

darkness for light

Harvey S. Mozolak

hard to figure out

he goes around

putting muddy dirt on diseased eyes

lifting tiny dead torsos

walking within spitting distance

of foaming maniacs

and hugging a fevered woman

before touching the seeping of leprosy

and now we can hardly see him or touch him

for the glare of glory

his clothes and skin bandage the sun

as wounded light

go figure

in the shade of the tree line below

as we go down we again

are able to see his shadow

and our own

forming darkness from light

AMENdation

Harvey S. Mozolak

the amendation

that transfers

tent pegs

attempting to hold

glory to a hill

toward iron bolts

fastening light

on a tree

eclipsed by darkness