Author: Joanne Buchanan-Brown
I tend to live Holy Week often throughout the year. I am drawn to it over and over. Perhaps it is the intensity of it, the emotion. Or watching Jesus both active and passive in this embodied mystery. Or walking again with him the unimaginable road to the saving grace of resurrection. But whatever it is, every Lent I seem to relive memories of the Week from my childhood; the saints who have loved me so faithfully and have passed on come to me with questions about my life, and I find I must try to answer within myself.
The church I am currently serving as Interim Discernment Pastor in Aurora, Parkview UCC, has a love affair with the spirituality of fine arts, including poetry. Below, I share the poem I wrote for their Lenten Devotional booklet, and though it is a bit early for the chronos, calendar timing of Holy Week, Maundy Thursday is where I am loitering in my Lenten journey this year, in kairos, or time beyond time.
What about you? Where in the Holy Story do you linger?
Thursday
At night
In the church
The table seems different–
Dangerous, even.
The bread is not just bread
Nor the wine only wine
But the dimness of light
Casts over us the nagging question, the burning–
“Is it I?”
And the bread and wine become
The food of truth, the drink of conscience.
At night
In the upper room
In the Garden
In the darkness
It all became clear.
Jesus was quiet,
While the pounding of other hearts was deafening.
“Is it I?” still echoes in our bones and our breath
When we can listen…
At night
The question startles us awake.
Who will answer?
