Resurrection Sunday: Let Him Easter in Us

For a week or so I’ve been drawn to the Gerard Manley Hopkins line, “Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness in us.” I’m reconsidering its meaning this year.

I first saw the line in a Catholic bookstore at an Iowa retreat center 20 years ago. Hopkins’ words were incorporated into the mission statement of a female religious order in the Midwest, and one of the Sisters of the order had painted the line in watercolor, beautifully depicting the phrase in a way that caught my eye. I’ve kept the framed work in a place where I can see it almost daily since that time.

All these years, I’ve been moved by the novelty of Hopkins’ use of “easter” as a verb, an action word. Again this Holy Week, I’ve played around with what “let him easter in us” might mean. At the moment, I only have hints and guesses. For now, I’m exploring.

A couple of days ago, I randomly connected Hopkins’ line with a familiar verse from Mary Oliver. Surely to “let him easter in us” has something to do with life and vibrancy.

The Mary Oliver question which came to mind in my pondering simply asks: “Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”

The line comes squarely in the center of her lengthy, “Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches,” a poem which invites us to a more vibrant, alive existence by getting out of our self-focus and into the lives of things around us: The long branches of young locust trees in early summer, or the sea, or the grass.

She writes:

And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away
from wherever you are, to look for your soul?
Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!

And then:

For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,
caution and prudence?
Fall in! Fall in!

It has occurred to me this week that “breathing just a little and calling it a life” is not the same as letting him easter in us.


Further, this week I am holding the tension of reconciliation as I ponder “let him easter in us.” Paul wrote in 2 Cor. 5 that this was Christ’s work in the world, reconciling the world. I assume this work continues in an even greater way post-Resurrection. Christ eastering in us and in the world surely has something to do with reconciliation, making right the divisions and factions that exist within us, among us, and in the world.

Reconciliation is making right, making peace. The dictionary definition says “to restore to friendship or harmony,” so it includes a work of restoration.

Many times I am like the political leaders who urge oneness and harmony among partisans, but who really mean, “There will only be oneness and harmony if you come to my position on this issue, if you see things my way, if you adopt my value system.” This is a sham of harmony and has nothing to do with reconciliation.

Authentic reconciliation stands in the center and holds all the sides, all the partisans, all the variances together. Again, Paul said that in Christ, there is no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no rich or poor, no slave or free, but all are one in Christ. So it sounds like, when I take one position or another – and believe me, I definitely have my firmly-held positions!! – I’m in no place to reconcile. If I am in one position or another, dug in, I’m no longer able to reconcile, to bring together. I may be entrenched, but not in a place of restoring friendship and harmony.

From that place, people in the “opposing camp” become “elites” or “snowflakes,” or they become “a basket of deplorables.” Reconciliation cannot happen there.

It seems to me that reconciliation somehow holds both (or all) the extremes together, in order to work toward healing and oneness. This is strenuous work, and requires that we get outside of ourselves, that we take on a new mind, that our lives are oriented as “the mind of Christ.”

It is a bogus oneness to say that we all need to come together as one nation or one denomination or one whatever, while advocating that everyone needs to agree with me . . . that only if others come to my position can there be oneness. This is a pseudo-oneness, a sham of reconciliation.

To reconcile is to make peace, to live into a wholeness which transcends one position or another position. To make peace – shalom – brings completeness . . . making peace and restoring friendship with God . . . making peace among the scattered parts of ourselves, befriending our own lives again . . . making peace with others, especially those with whom we disagree.

Are some causes unjust? Certainly!

Are other causes worth fighting for? Definitely!

But in every case, we are invited to follow Christ, whose work was reconciling the world to God . . . to be reconcilers, to make peace, to listen to the other, to treat the other with respect and friendship, to work toward shalom . . . the invitation stands for those who are post-Resurrection disciples.

Let him easter in us. At some level, at least in my thinking today, Christ eastering in us means we join him in his work of reconciling the world.

Holy Saturday: On Tombs, Prisoners, and Antelopes in the Grass

On Christmas Day 2018, I opened a gift from my son, the junior high principal, the poet. It was a hardback edition of a William Stafford book of poetry (the softcover edition having been on my bookshelf for many years).

But this one different, and not just that its cover was hard. On the title page was Stafford’s signature, a luminous find in the mammoth Powell’s Bookstore of Downtown Portland – likely landing there after Stafford’s teaching career at local Lewis and Clark College.

Tears filled my eyes, because I have a son who thinks about these things, who loves poetry and literature.

And tears filled my eyes as I randomly opened the pages and read whatever my eyes fell upon, moved again by Stafford’s utter simplicity and by his way of jumping into the stream and letting the current take him wherever it would. He had no sense of building to a great crescendo in his poems, just tracking along to see where the poem led, as if each line were some golden thread which the reader could hold onto and trace to something else that might arise in his or her imagination.

I sat among grandchildren -- busily devouring gifts amidst loud laughter and chatter -- quietly reading along in Stafford, choking back the Christmas tears.

This is one of the poems that had my address on it, and still does . . . maybe because it explores themes I’ve often pondered for myself . . . and maybe because it is sufficiently unresolved to remind me of my life.

On this Holy Saturday, I give William Stafford’s poem about tight spaces, prisoners, and antelopes in the grass to you.


A Message from the Wanderer
William Stafford

Today outside your prison I stand
and rattle my walking stick: Prisoners, listen;
you have relatives outside. And there are
thousands of ways to escape.

Years ago I bent my skill to keep my
cell locked, had chains smuggled to me in pies,
and shouted my plans to jailers;
but always new plans occurred to me,
or the new heavy locks bent hinges off,
or some stupid jailer would forget
and leave the keys.

Inside, I dreamed of constellations –
those feeding creatures outlined by stars,
their skeletons a darkness between jewels,
heroes that exist only where they are not.

Thus freedom always came nibbling my thought,
just as – often, in light, on the open hills –
you can pass an antelope and not know
and look back, and then – even before you see –
there is something wrong about the grass.
And then you see.

That’s the way everything in the world is waiting.

Now – these few more words, and then I’m
gone: Tell everyone just to remember
their names, and remind others, later, when we
find each other. Tell the little ones
to cry and then go to sleep, curled up
where they can. And if any of us get lost,
if any of us cannot come all the way –
remember: there will come a time when
all we have said and all we have hoped
will be all right.

There will be that form in the grass.

[William Stafford, Stories That Could Be True (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), p. 9.]

Good Friday: Praying with Psalm 14

Here is a psalm for prayer as you move into Good Friday.

Norman Fischer's book of psalms, Opening to You, combines beautiful poetry with a gentle spirit which renders the prayers in striking images. His work is my go-to when I want to see the psalms differently and pray them honestly. I highly recommend Opening to You.


Psalm 14
Norman Fischer


The useless fool says in his heart
“God is nothing”
People are corrupt, do only harm
Not one does good unselfishly, not one

You gaze down from the highest
Upon humankind in the middle
To see if there is one person with eyes
One with understanding
One capable of seeing your seeing

But they are all gone bad
All turned sour and blind
There is none who knows good
Not one

Is there not even a speck of understanding
In all the world of blind heedlessness
Among those who eat up others as if they were bread
And do not even know their own hearts
Or a single true word?

But they become terrified even within their terror
When they see you burning in the circle of goodness
Shining out of the eyes of the lowly and the poor
Showing your holiness in their defeat
Your invincible power at the center of their weakness

O that someone might come out of Zion
To bring freedom to the strugglers!

When you capture the people again
The sojourners will be glad
And the strugglers will rejoice with strong singing


[Norman Fischer, “Psalm 14,” Opening to You (New York: Penguin Compass, 2002), p. 17.]

In the Living Years

The Rich Man and Lazarus
Luke 16:19-31


19 Jesus said, “There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed in purple and fine linen and who lived each day in luxury. 20 At his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus who was covered with sores. 21 As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man’s table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores.

22 “Finally, the poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried, 23 and he went to Hades, the place of the dead. There, in torment, he saw Abraham in the far distance with Lazarus at his side.

24 “The rich man shouted, ‘Father Abraham, have some pity! Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. I am in anguish in these flames.’

25 “But Abraham said to him, ‘Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted, and you are in anguish. 26 And besides, there is a great chasm separating us. No one can cross over to you from here, and no one can cross over to us from there.’

27 “Then the rich man said, ‘Please, Father Abraham, at least send him to my father’s home. 28 For I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them so they don’t end up in this place of torment.’

29 “But Abraham said, ‘Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read what they wrote.’

30 “The rich man replied, ‘No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.’

31 “But Abraham said, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”


Jesus often teaches in parables. He tells stories which serve to illumine something about the way life is ordered when we are connected to God in life-giving ways. Sometimes the images are all positive, speaking in affirming ways about our God-connection. Other parables include examples of persons who sleep through invitations to a life of meaning and fullness. The story of the Rich Man and Lazarus falls into the latter category.

As stories which impart spiritual wisdom, parables are not to be taken at face value. Most often, these spiritual stories are layered, nuanced, and invite a different kind of seeing. To read and understand them at a surface level may allow the hearer to have some understanding of what the parable is trying to say; however, a surface reading will also miss many of the undercurrents flowing beneath the story’s surface.

These undercurrents are suggested by symbols and images which show up in parabolic language. Much as you would do in dream-work, it is helpful to notice the symbols, to trace their meanings, to track where they lead, and to explore the multiple meanings held within a single symbol or image. This kind of investigative work will allow you to find the place where your own soul resonates with some idea or some invitation in the parable.

(Your soul’s language is most often not a verbal language, but a language of images and symbols. You will recognize in your own dreams that what you most remember are not the words spoken in your dream, but the wild symbols and images which point beyond themselves to deeper realities within yourself and in the world.)

So given all this background, I’ll say that the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is not first of all a commentary on the afterlife. The story is not trying to give a description of heaven, or the place of the dead, or any aspect of life after death. Thus, the story does not make a statement about whether there are different levels to which people go after death, nor is it about whether people can communicate across “chasms” after death. The story is basically about our living years. In the landscape of this parable, the “after death” aspect simply sets up a teaching about the way to live life with God in a way which gives life to the world.

Second, when looking at the parable, you do well to notice the many symbols in the story as Jesus tells it. Rich images appear everywhere. In working with the story, I made nearly a page-long list of the images contained in it. I spent some time following the trail of some images that seemed most crucial to the wisdom of this teaching story.
• rich
• poor
• Abraham
• Abraham’s bosom
• far distance
• great chasm
• death
• Hades (place of the dead)
• clothed in purple and fine linen
• lived luxury
• dogs
• sores
• gate
• scraps
• rich man’s table
• dip finger in water
• cool my tongue
• agony
• fire
• good things
• bad things
• send Lazarus
• five brothers
• Moses and the prophets
• rises from the dead

These images enliven the story and allow the reader to explore it for himself or herself.

The point of the parable seems to be about how we live now, in our living years, in light of death and the afterlife. How do we use our goods and our riches? How do we see our “resources”? Are we generous, miserly, hospitable, protective?

The Bible does not throw blanket condemnations on wealth and riches. Neither does it subscribe to the prosperity theory that God wants everyone to have an abundance of worldly riches . . and it certainly doesn’t teach that faithfulness to God = material blessings, which is a distortion of the Gospel.

In fact, while the Church has been obsessed with matters of sexuality – it seems like forever – the scriptures are much more concerned with the dangers of money and possessions. I sense that many of us are more comfortable demonizing certain elements of sexuality because we can objectify them or pretend we are not interested. But acquiring a lot of money not only is socially acceptable, it is encouraged, seen as a sign of ambition, drive, and creativity. But I digress . . .

In the parable, the Rich Man hides behind gates and doors, without interacting with the world’s need, which is personified by Lazarus. If not a picture of miserliness, at least the Rich Man is a symbol of self-protection, of luxury, of an “eat, drink, and be merry” lifestyle that lives oblivious to others or their needs. In the Rich Man’s world, the other does not even exist.

As I pointed out above, this story has a treasure trove of rich images . . . doors and gates . . . purple, fine linens versus body-sores and dog’s saliva . . . finest foods versus hunger . . . Father Abraham . . . life and death . . . chasms, separation, and alienation . . . the place of the dead . . . fire and water . . . luxurious excess or scraps from the table . . . on and on it goes. Any and all of the symbols are worth exploring.

The story portrays two rich persons . . . or even three, if you consider some of the alternative ways Lazarus was rich other than in possessions. (Each of us is rich in some way . . . just not always financially. In fact, sometimes financial wealth is the most impoverished state of all. Many persons are impoverished in compassion, or peace, or contentment, or generosity, or hospitality . . . you see how it goes.)

One man in the story is labeled “Rich Man” and he is portrayed in a negative light. But Abraham is also a wealthy man – the Hebrew scriptures describe his vast holdings of livestock . . . he was a wealthy man in his time – and it is Abraham who makes a place for Lazarus in his heart. He is a wealthy person who is generous, who opens himself to the other. He stands in contrast to the Rich Man who feasts solo behind closed doors and locked gates.

The parable turns on the Rich Man’s insistence that had he known better, his life would have been different . . . and at the very least, that his family should be warned so their fate will not be the same as his. There is no repentance, no real change of heart, just the thought – occurring too often among the privileged – that someone else should do something in order to alleviate their suffering.

But the moral of the parable is that everything you need to live a life of compassion and generosity has already been given. In the frame of the story, Moses and the prophets – especially the 8th century prophets – advocated compassion and kindness for the poor, the widows, and the orphans. If you don’t heed their call, you will not heed even someone who rises from the dead (see what Jesus did in that twist?).

There are many ways to slice the parable. I’ll leave most of them for you to explore. But I’ll suggest this basic question, which the story seems to ask in a most pronounced way: “Are you are child of Abraham (gracious, welcoming, generous) or are you a child of the world (gate-making, door-locking, door-not-opening, shielding, guarding, protecting, indulging)?”