The 60-Second Sabbath: September 2017

Intimacy, Part 5

You and Your Beloved

Are you in a relationship,
a union of commitment,
a marriage, perhaps,
or a powerful, nurturing friendship?
Have you in some way
made a public pronouncement
of the mystery of your intimacy?
If you have,
you also stand on holy ground,
and just like with Moses and the burning bush
what you've done transcends the rational
and ushers you into the presence of the holy.

Every time, every day
you reaffirm that commitment--
with a warm embrace,
the words "I love you,"
expressions of physical intimacy,
you once again stand on sacred ground.

I urge you to regard your relationship
with a proper sense of holy awe,
to honor the soul of your relationship
with the same sense of quiet wonder
that you feel in the presence
of other wondrous doings of God.

Yes, there will be times
when respectful analysis of your relationship is necessary,
counseling critical,
discussion imperative,
but much of the strength of your relationship--
the secret to your intimacy--
is to let it live without dissection.

Recognize it as a living thing,
a thing with its own power,
sometimes healing,
sometimes painful,
but always resilient and tough,
always growing and evolving,
always trustworthy.

Intimacy...your relationship...is a grace, not a project,
A project we plan for,
we organize,
we schedule,
we measure,
we evaluate.
But a grace?
A grace is a gift.
A grace is unearned and unexpected,
beyond reason or measure,
beyond analysis or evaluation.
We control a project;
we nurture a grace.
We observe a grace.
We receive and embrace a grace.
We appreciate it,
honor it,
celebrate it,
revel in it,
respect it.

And so,
standing before this grace
so beautifully seen
in the committed relationships in your life,
I have the urge to take off my shoes...

and shut up.

Text and image © 2017 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit PhotosByDirk.com for fine-art photography.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.

Posted at 06:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Intimacy, Part 4

Jesus and John

Five times toward the end of his gospel,
John calls himself,
"The disciple whom Jesus loved."

The disciple whom Jesus loved.

John identifies Peter as Peter,
Mary as Mary,
but himself?

The disciple whom Jesus loved.

When I was a kid,
I got the idea from somewhere,
that John was being
properly humble and self-effacing
    by not mentioning his own name,
which, in retrospect,
may have been believers' discomfort
    with a level of intimate relationship
    they couldn't grasp.
As an adult,
I more clearly heard John saying,
"Yes, that's right,
I'm the disciple that Jesus loved...me."

There is something different about this relationship.

John and Jesus, too, are soul mates.
The first time John refers to himself as
"the disciple whom Jesus loved"
he's leaning back on Jesus' chest.

Did you feel something, just then,
as you read that about John,
the disciple whom Jesus loved,
resting back against Jesus' chest?
I feel us step across a threshold
into the presence of something other,
something sacred,
something sobering,
something mysterious.
I don't quite know what to make of it.
It's there, just out of reach...

Their intimacy.

Their relationship.

We take of our shoes.

We grow silent.

Tomorrow: You and Your Beloved

Text and image © 2017 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit PhotosByDirk.com for fine-art photography.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.

Posted at 06:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Intimacy, Part 3

Ruth and Naomi

Ruth sticks with her mother-in-law Naomi,
    who has lost not only her husband,
    but both her sons.
Naomi urges Ruth to leave
    and return to her homeland,
but Ruth's loyalty and love are too strong.

We fall silent--
in awe--
at Ruth's words:

Don't ask me to leave you:
Let me go with you.
Wherever you go,
      I will go;
wherever you live,
      I will live;
wherever you die,
      I will die.
May the Lord's worst punishment come upon me
    if I let anything but death separate me from you.

Wow.
Soul mates.

Take off your shoes
and fall silent,
for we have stepped once again
into the presence of the sacred.

Text and image © 2017 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit PhotosByDirk.com for fine-art photography.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.

Posted at 06:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Intimacy, Part 2

Jonathan and David

1 Samuel 10:17:

    Once again
    Jonathan made David promise to love him,
    for Jonathan loved David
    as much as he loved himself.

Later,
after communicating to David
    that his life is in danger
    and that he must flee,
Jonathan and David kiss each other,
    weep with each other.
"God be with you," says Jonathan,
"The Lord will make sure that you and I,
your descendants and mine,
will forever keep the sacred promise
we have made to each other."

The sacred promise
we have made to each other.

David and Jonathan,
soul mates:
Do we understand this, really?

We could analyze
    the nature of their relationship,
the familial and cultural pressures
        that drove them together...and then apart,
the underlying needs that both experienced,
the implications of their relationship
      for salvation history...

Or we could simply take off our shoes
and shut up.

We could honor the intimacy beyond our understanding
and know God within it.

Tomorrow: Ruth and Naomi

Text and image © 2017 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit PhotosByDirk.com for fine-art photography.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.

Posted at 07:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Intimacy, Part 1

There are many stories
in the storybook we call the Bible
to which the appropriate response
is silence,
    not discussion,
wonder,
    not analysis,
absorption,
    not dissection.

There stories
are experienced most potently
in quiet attention to the stories themselves,
not in a sermon that picks the story apart,
detail by detail,
like a vulture feeding on a dead carcass.
Some stories are to big
to be held by the mind;
they are better welcomed by the heart.

This is nowhere truer
than in some of the Bible's remarkable stories
of intimacy, of relationship.
In the face of these stories
we recognize, intuitively,
that something is happening
beyond our understanding--
something greater than
the coming together of two people...
two souls...
soulmates.
From their coming together
emerges another thing,
an intimacy that has a life of its own,
apart from the partners,
whether they be friends, family members,
coworkers or spouses.

In the presence of such intimacy,
as we become aware of the soul of a relationship,
it's appropriate to be hushed.
We sit in the presence of the sacred,
and, like Moses before the burning bush,
aware that he has stepped onto holy ground,
it makes a lot of sense
to take off our shoes
and be silent...

Tomorrow: Jonathan and David

Text and image © 2017 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit PhotosByDirk.com for fine-art photography.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.

Posted at 06:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Dead Cat

Near the end of my walk yesterday
I was startled and dismayed
to come upon a dead cat
on the grass just beside the sidewalk.
I suppose she was hit by a car,
perhaps the night before.

She was a beautiful cat,
lying on her side, paws crossed,
eyes closed as if sleeping.
But she was not asleep;
her golden flank was still.
And the flies, too, knew she was dead.

The sight of a dead pet
triggers pain in chest.
I know that loss.
Those who held her and petted her,
those who received her affectionate head butts,
those who found comfort in her purring
and amusement in her play,
those who would go out walking the block last evening,
calling for her, finding her lifeless...
they will grieve.

When I had gotten home,
greeted at the door by Romeo and Willy,
our two cats,
I sat on the couch
and wept...
sobbed.

Both cats sat side by side several feet in front of me,
bewildered by this behavior,
by the sound of my crying,
gasping to breathe through the tears.

I grieved for the golden cat,
for the sudden rudeness of death,
for the hole left in the life of her owners,
for the holes in my own life,
in the lives of those I love,
for the holes in all of us,
the wounds both small and gaping,
both old and fresh,
into which memories drop
like lemon juice into a cut.
I cried for all the losses.

For all our losses.
For the losses to come.
For the holes yet to open.

And once I'd calmed down,
blown my nose a few times,
the boys seemed less concerned,
stopped watching me
and turned to groom each other.

Several minutes later,
Romeo jumped onto the couch beside me,
climbed onto my lap,
pushed his face against my chin
and laid one paw on my cheek.

He purred.
"We the living
must love while we can."

Text and image © 2017 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit PhotosByDirk.com for fine-art photography.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.

Posted at 07:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Real Gospel

The best translation
of the gospel
will not be found in the Bible
but in you.

Living the gospel
trumps
reading it,
discussing it.

It's the point and purpose.

Dynamic you...
    living,
    responding,
  revealing,
    embodying.

Illustrative you...
healing,
reconciling,
restoring,
expanding.

The way to introduce Christ
is to be Christ.

Posted at 06:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A Much Needed Vacation

September is here.
Fall begins Friday.
Kids back in school.
Summer trips now memory.

Perhaps now is the time
to take the most needed break--
a vacation from yourself,
which can be the best,
most relaxing vacation of all.

It's not to the mountains
or the beach
or Disneyland
or family.

It's a vacation from the false self,
from the ego,
from our need to control,
    to be right,
from the need for esteem,
from fixations,
    cultural attitudes,
    programming,
    judgement,
    the pursuit of more
          (pleasure, security, power),
from false values,
from reactivity,
from our ordinary, grinding thoughts.