“Man and nature belong together in their created glory – in their tragedy and in their salvation.” – Paul Tillich quote on monument in Tillich Park, New Harmony, Indiana.
Paul JohannesTillich’s gravestone in the Paul TillichPark, New Harmony, Indiana
Inscription on Paul Tillich’s gravestone reads:
“He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in due season. His leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”
Steve wants you to know that we’re both important. He has his tower. I have mine. Steve is host of “Keepin’ the Faith,” a Sunday evening program on on WILL – archive programs, “including two with Gordon Stewar” (Steve ordered me to put this in here – he’s taller, so I do everything he says), can be heard anytime, anywhere @ www.will.illinois.edu/keepinthefaith
Old family sawmill of Andrews Casket Company, Woodstock, Maine
My great-great-great-grandfather Isaac Andrews founded the Andrews Casket Company and Funeral Home next to the trout stream in Woodstock, Maine more than 250 years ago. Isaac was a minister.Because there was no carpenter in town, he not only stood at the graves. He built pine boxes for those he buried.
Over the course of time, the simple boxes became the caskets of the Andrews Casket Company and Funeral Home. You might say Isaac had a monopoly in those Maine woods.
Only recently did the Andrews property leave the family when Pete Andrews, my late mother’s favorite cousin, sold it to some whippersnapper who just wanted to make a buck.
My mother used to chuckle as she recalled playing hide-and-seek with her siblings in and among the caskets at the casket factory. The land, the mill, the old homestead,the funeral home and the trout stream that had belonged to the family all those years belongs to someone new…which means that it, like Garrison Keillor’s fictional “Lake Woebegone,” never really did belong to us and does not belong to them. It does not belong to time.
Last October my brother Bob and I stood with my cousins at the open grave of my 99 year-old Aunt Gertrude – our one remaining Andrews elders. I recited from The Book of Common Worship the prayer I have prayed a thousand times at the open grave, the one my classmate Steve and I learned as young, naive pastors, a prayer for the living that feeds me day and nigh until the lights go out. I wonder if Isaac Andrews did the same way back when.
“O Lord, support us all the day long until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then, in your mercy, grant us a safe lodging and peace at the last.”
Book of Common Worship
Here’s the poem from Steve from a few days ago that inspired the above reflection.
When I was just a young and naive pastor, an old man in the congregation would always arrive long before the rest of the people at the grave site. He’d shun the funeral, but haunt the cemetery… Standing by the open grave, he’d state his opinion of the deceased and share with me the type, style and brand of casket he’d told his wife he wanted when he died. As the morticians say, he “predeceased” his spouse, and when we met to plan, she tried to grant his wishes to the very last She blessed their common gravestone with her tears, but smiled through life for many happy years.
“The Man Who Loved Graves” – Steve Shoemaker, April 24, 2012
Like the widow of the man who loved graves, I smile through tears for all the years, and I take ancestral solace in knowing that I don’t really “own” a thing.
Gordon C. Stewart, the not-so-great great-great-great grandson of Isaac Andrews
“PONTIUS PILATE” – (acrostic) – Steve Shoemaker – April 14, 2012
Position is the most important thing,
Of course… You say your reign is not in this
Nasty world, but here you are suffering…
Total power is mine. If this grim choice
I make (and ignore my wife’s dream), nothing
Untoward will come back to haunt me! I wash
Sand and dirt from my hands as I wash you…
Prefects are not required to be perfect.
If I send tax money to Rome, a few
Lies told against me soon will die.
A sect or uprising I stamp out now will do
The most to make my name remembered. Fact:
Even if I call you “King,” you die a Jew….
If you like Steve’s poem, you might also be interested in “You don’t get to have a non-Jewish Jesus” (CLICK HERE), posted earlier on Views from the Edge on Christian anti-Semitism.
Art work Ciseri, Antonio, 1821-1891. Ecce Homo – “Here is the Man”, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55115 [retrieved April 14, 2012].
It comes fresh from a blogger named David from New Zealand. I came across “Say ‘Yes!'” this morning following up on a comment left yesterday in response to Steve Shoemaker’s poem “Denial” on Views from the Edge.I’m glad I did.
What do you think? Are you having a Yes, No, or Maybe kind of day? Remember, it’s the only one you have and no one else gets to live it. Thanks for dropping by.
Thomas “the doubter” – Thomas “the Twin” – is my favorite Apostle. He is I. I am he.
Why do I love Thomas? He’s slow to believe. There are many doubts, too much conflicting evidence that begs the questions. The questions come easily. The answers come harder and are few. “Unless I see the nail prints in his hands and place my own hand where the soldier’s sword had pierced his side,” said Thomas to the too credulous others in the Upper Room, “I will not believe.”
This Holy Thursday “I believe. Lord, help my unbelief.”
Poem “THOMAS THE TWIN” – Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, April 4, 2012
To be a twin is to prove every day
How seeing is not believing. And so,
Of course, I doubted when my friends would say
Many had seen the Lord. I said, “If so,
A finger in his nail-pierced hand or where
Sword cut his side will prove he lives for sure.”
Then Jesus came into the room and said
He would let me touch him! My doubt then was
Overcome by his presence. And he said
Many would be blessed who believed he was
Alive without the benefit of sight…
Seeing may not lead us into the light.
Tonight, Holy Thursday, at 7:00 p.m. Shepherd of the Hill we will gather around the Lord’s Table. Ruth Janousek has drawn us at the Table.
God's Table at Shepherd of the Hill
Following the simplest Service of Holy Communion, the church will be darkened, lit only by candles held by individual worshiper representing the light of faith. As the Gospel narratives are read aloud … with long silences between them…the candles will be blown out, one by one, as the worshipers recognize ourselves in the story of the betrayal, denial, and flight of the Jesus’ closest friends and followers. It’s an ancient service called Tenebrae, the service of light and shadow. By the end of the readings, the room will be dark. The only light will be from the Christ candle – the light of God’s faithful mercy and grace that cannot be extinguished.
It’s Monday of Holy Week. I’m walking with Jesus as best I can toward the cross and toward the celebration of Easter. This year I’m walking with members of the congregation who are suffering, in great pain, sick, dying people, trying the best I can to be with them fully in ways that, by the grace of God, might help. This is not head stuff. It’s heart stuff. I get tangled in my head too often. I open the morning email. There’s this double acrostic poem from my old friend Steve Shoemaker, the 6’8″ and shrinking Ph.D. kite-flyer theologian and poet. Thank you, Steve.EASTER MORNING
Either Jesus really did rise or
All his followers made up the worst
Series of lies in history… Poor
Thomas certainly was right to doubt
Even after hearing tales: what four
Reached the tomb (or five?) Who saw him first?
Matthew says two women, Mark says three;
Or was it just one, as said by John?
Reports of what eye-witnesses can see
Never can be trusted. Luke said one
In the road joined two who could not see–
Not until he broke the bread… No one
Got the story straight! Conspiracy?
Even grade school kids could do as well.
And Luke throws in Peter saw him too–
Somewhere unreported… Who could tell
That this jumble of accounts could do
Enough to give faith and hope to all.
Resurrection? Who could think it true?
Maybe just the simple: those whose eyes
Open to the light through grief, through tears…
Reminded of love, of truth, of grace…
Needing to be fed, hands out for bread…
Inspired by the scriptures, in whose head
Grow visions: life can come from the dead.
I’m adding this visual: “Disciples John and Peter on their way to the tomb”:
Disciples John and Peter Run to the Tomb
Burnand, Eugène, 1850-1921. Disciples John and Peter on their way to the tomb on Easter morning, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55038 [retrieved April 2, 2012].
Steve and I would love to hear your reflections and responses to Steve’s poem or Burnand’s painting. Thanks for coming by.
Views from the Edge 