After much ado about Lazarus this morning (we are now using the Common Lectionary, so the lessons are longer and the stories more complete), I figure people went to sit in the sun, soak in the warm, rather than attend the adult forum. When Jeff and I were fetched away by two lovely women playing hookie to go see the Stations of the Cross at the Burning Bush Gallery in Wheaton, we hardly felt guilty. After 16 plus years, Jeff knows what I have to say about the parables. The Stations were awesome, each done by a different artist in a different medium, yet creating a whole.
Now I am home again, with breezes blowing, and the family dispersed. Lazarus is unbound, the dry bones are reassembling, and the rhubarb promises sauce, possibly pie, in early summer.
If it*s possible for everyone to be distracted
All at once
Today is it.
Warm, almost hot weather,
Trees with that hopeful green haze they get
In spring.
The weather promises leaves next week,
Even if it gets colder
As predicted.
The garden bed without edges
Waits for new edges,
New plants.
It still looks like a grave,
But the rhubarb has begun its other-worldly thing
At one end.
If I squint it looks like a head.
I am distracted along with everyone else.
I think spring warm weather things in church
Even as Lazarus dies, is buried,
Comes out smelly at Jesus* words.
He waits to be unbound.
I can only imagine his distraction,
Not to mention Mary and Martha
And the crowd.
When no one shows up to learn about parables,
I head off to the art gallery to walk the Stations
Of the Cross.
Even though I am the teacher
And no one showed,
It still feels like I am skipping class.
At home, I see the rhubarb,
Reminiscent of a head at one end
Of the garden.
For all the world
It looks like someone
Buried there
Is now
Coming to life.
