Meditation During Eastertide

Every Thursday we have a ritual of receiving the eBlast. Perhaps, you open it in the morning and peruse it over coffee. Or perhaps, you take a peek later in the day for inspiration and to be reminded of upcoming events. I request that within your ritual eBlast engagement you slow down a wee bit more to meditate on the following Eastertide statements. If you are willing, I challenge you to set a timer for 59 seconds of meditation for each statement.

Statement 1

On Sunday, Pastor Lauren shared, “In the middle of our grief, we need to be reminded of what we know.”[1] Grief ebbs and flows. Hope lives through our cyclical or unexpected or resistant grief. In whatever state of grief you currently occupy, what do you still hope for? Invite God to that space.

Statement 2

Pastor Lauren opened her sermon with the poignant reminder that “You are beautiful. You are the people that God chose to live in, that Jesus is resurrected through.”[2] Hm, Jesus resurrecting through me, you, us. How do you feel Jesus resurrecting through you? Invite God to that space.

Statement 3

Pastor Lauren stated that “Jesus inspires us to love even in the gloomiest circumstances."[3] But what she didn’t say is that love compromises our existence or requires us to ignore or forego our and others’ very real needs. Love tends to all of our very real needs. Where do you need love to show up for you? For a loved one? For a stranger? Invite God to that space.

Statement 4

For our last meditation, we turn to Pastor Lauren’s urging to “Look in the direction of hope." We are the beauty that Jesus resurrects through. What an awe-some connection to wonder and beauty. Even if for a moment, we can venture to the mountaintop of hope to imagine life’s beauty that could be if only we “believe.” I invite you with God to venture to your hopeful mountaintop; pause to witness the beauty you can imagine; and pray “For What You Find on the Mountaintop” by Cole Arthur Riley.

God above,

We thank you for allowing us to journey up. That we would be able to see a place not just from within it but from a distance is a gift we do not readily comprehend. Here, as we look out at what seems as if it can fit in the palm of our hand, remind us of beauty’s vastness. In this moment may we be both large and small…Grow in us wonder that is willing to bow to the beauty of the natural world, [which includes our healthy imagination], that it would be a path to humility and not ego. That we would understand it does not exist for us, but it is our divine fortune that we would be moved by it. And we are moved, God. May this view form us and keep us, as we allow our souls to remain stirred when we return to the ground we’ve known. May it be so.[4]

[1] “Everything [in] Between: Sunday Morning Worship,” livestream, Grief & Hope (St. Louis, Mo: Metropolitan Community Church Greater St. Louis, April 20, 2025), http://www.mccgsl.org/live.

[2] “Everything [in] Between: Sunday Morning Worship.”

[3] “Everything [in] Between: Sunday Morning Worship.”

[4] Cole Arthur Riley, “For What You Find on the Mountaintop,” in Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human (New York: Convergent Books, 2024), 35.

Home

I remember going to the drive-in with my family and falling asleep to the sound of The Wiz streaming through the car speaker. It was a big deal to be able to see the broadway production on film in an affordable way that my family could enjoy. Perhaps, the excitement was too much for me to bear. Up until then, the only rendition of the 1900s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz[1] I had access to was Judy Garland on TV clicking her red heels repeating, “There’s no place like home.”[2] Home. I tend to favor the The Wiz’ finale of “Home,” because its composer and songwriter Charlie Smalls wrote lines that grip me even now:

If you're list'ning God

Please don't make it hard to know

If we should believe in the things that we see

Tell us, should we run away

Should we try and stay

Or would it be better just to let things be?[3]

This voices my own existential search for home or even belonging. In this song, Dorothy believes that home is where love is abundant. She wants to go back to that place with her newfound, matured understanding of the world. The world in which she’s been chased, attacked, displaced, and lied to. How should she reconcile home or love with what she’s seeing? Is home a place to return to? Is it something that is outgrown? Can she slow down time enough to savor the feeling of home? I feel this wrestling like waves lapping the shore gently still shifting the seascape.

 As a listener, I’m relieved of this dynamic tension in the song. Dorothy relieves me with her wisdom that home is a return to the heart where love chooses to live to the degree I allow.

I lost a friend a few days ago. Her mother texted me and my spouse saying that her daughter, our friend, was free from suffering and had “gone home to be with the Lord.” Home. Could it be that home is the landing place?

A soft meditation I land on because the world doesn’t always make sense, is sometimes disorienting, occasionally filled with grief, and can appear to have little place for me:

God is home.

God is love.

Love is home.

*breathe*

God is home.

God is love.

Love is home.

*soften breath*

Could it be that home isn’t a place but the absolute presence of God that no matter “where” I am, God is with me, loving me, home?

 You’re welcome to listen to the version of “Home” I fell asleep to below ;^).

Pandora

Spotify

YouTube

[1] L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (United States: George M. Hill Company, 1900).

[2] “The Wizard of Oz,” film (United States: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, August 25, 1939).

[3] Charles Emanuel Smalls, Home, Album, The Wiz [Original Cast Recording] Original Cast (New York, NY: A&R Studios, 1975).

Sensitivity

/noun/ awareness of the needs and emotions of others.[1]

Yesterday, a friend of mine texted me “Happy Boxing Day!” As you may know, Boxing Day is celebrated by the U.K. and its territories. Historically on this day, poor and working class people received boxed gifts.[2]  Nowadays, the holiday is typically a day of getting good shopping deals of course.[3]

Christmastime in general is identified as the season of giving. We, like the folks who set up the original Boxing Day, look for opportunities to give. We have ministries at MCCGSL where we are intentional about giving to those of us in need throughout the year, including now. And we have an opportunity during this season to tune our awareness to our collective needs even more. 

I present the aforementioned definition of sensitivity, because I believe this word draws us into making our hearts more attune to the hearts of others. Yes, we can feed, clothe, house a loved one. We should. And there are matters of the heart that require tending.

The “heartwork" is first for ourselves and then for others. It is to deepen self-compassion and then offer compassion to others. Self-compassion, the starting point of empathy, helps us to become more aware, more sensitive to my, your, our collective needs beyond what is readily visible. Several Sundays ago, Pastor Lauren invited us to practice compassion through meditation–beginning with self, then for easy people, not so easy people, and finally the world. Isn’t that the work of Christ? 

I share below another contemplative piece in its entirety by Howard Thurman. In this piece, he uses the distinction between pity and compassion to discuss how God enables us to grow our sensitivity regarding matters of the heart healthily. 

_____________

 25. Not Pity, but Compassion[4] 

God is at work enlarging the boundaries of my heart. 

GOD is making room in my heart for compassion. There is already a vast abundance of room for pity. It is often easy to be overcome with self-pity, that sticky substance that ruins everything it touches. My list of excuses is a long list and even as I say it, I know that under closest scrutiny they disappear, one by one. There is pity in me—pity for others. But there is something in it that cannot be trusted; it is mixed with pride, arrogance, cunning. I see this only when I expose myself to the eyes of God in the quiet time. It is now that I see what my pity really is and the sources from which it springs. 

God is making room in my heart for compassion: the awareness that where my life begins is where your life begins; the awareness that the sensitiveness to your needs cannot be separated from the sensitiveness to my needs; the awareness that the joys of my heart are never mine alone—nor are my sorrows. I struggle against the work of God in my heart; I want to be let alone. I want my boundaries to remain fixed, that I may be at rest. But even now, as I turn to [God]  in the quietness, [God’s] work in me is ever the same. 

God is at work enlarging the boundaries of my heart.

_____________

May we allow God to expand our hearts.

[1] “Definition of Sensitivity,” Merriam-Webster, accessed December 26, 2024, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sensitivity.

[2] “Boxing Day,” Britannica: History & Society, December 26, 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Boxing-Day.

[3] “Boxing Day.”

[4] Howard Thurman, “Not Pity, but Compassion,” in Meditations of The Heart, Kindle (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2014), 49.