Mtr Mary Trainor

There’s a certain slant of light, Winter afternoons…*

Dear friend,

Some of us are big picture people. Others fancy details. Both are necessary to much of daily life. Both of these seem at the root of the acrimonious exchanges between Jesus and his Jewish brethren in today’s Daily Office Gospel from John.

In their verbal sparring match Jesus and religious detractors are not on the same page. In questioning Jesus’ statements, the challengers are clearly locked into chronos time and a reality that is spatially limited. That Jesus existed before Abraham is not feasible to them.

When it comes, the Landscape listens--

Most human beings perceive that they live and move and have their being in a narrow reality. Yet every so often something occurs that offers a different view, or at least an insight into something more expansive at work.

For instance, some of you as I have may have experienced occasions when time has stood still, or is at least reduced to slow motion: When we fall in love, or witness a horrible accident may be examples of this. Deja vu experiences offer this same sense of how past and present might conflate. Or, as Emily Dickinson suggests, maybe you catch a certain slant of light and are transported—however briefly—elsewhere.

Shadows hold their breath…

When Jesus walked the earth, he existed in eternity, time that the Gospeler John suggests includes all time--past, present, future.

We also live in the already-not yet, and once in a while it breaks in upon us to experience both at once, or at least—however briefly—we are offered a porthole from one into the other.

When it goes, ‘tis like the distance…

When we pray, I suggest we are not speaking words into a void, but rather connect outside of time to the Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer in a way that is very real and at the same time  mysterious.

So, anyone trying to assess Jesus utilizing the narrow concept of time as we know it is likely to be disappointed, just as his Jewish brethren were.

On the look of Death.

I am grateful knowing that God will persist in reaching toward me through all obstacles of my own limitations and making.

Mtr Mary

*There’s a certain Slant of light, Emily Dickinson.