“Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Fish and Chips Day

In the midst of the beauty of Spring, on a religious day of lament was our fish and chips day. 

I remember my dad’s cuss words as he blew out dozens of eggs to hang painted shells on a freshly cut pussy willow tree. We ate a lot of scrambled eggs and went through crates of farm fresh Mennonite eggs.

It was also the long church day that I dreaded and all I wanted to do was ride my bike and listen for the sounds of Spring and see the robin’s arrival. 

I did not want to go to church. But off we went, cuss words and all, in my newly stitched dress by a Nana who was nimble with her thimble. For a few days the annual Easter church dress masked the scabbed knee and concussion tom boy who always seemed to be up the wrong neighbour’s tree at the wrong time.

This year’s Easter dress was white and covered in blue flowers. But the flowers quickly wilted with the showered holy water from the man of God who prowled the aisles. I made the mistake of sitting by my dad on the end of the pew. After the holy water shower, the holy man came back with his holy smoke.  

Waving around the thurible was trouble for a little girl with asthma at the end of a pew where the smoke billowed and the funeral incense dust blew up my nose and a-a-a-chew, I sneezed all over my little blue flowers. I inherited by Dad's sneeze and its a good thing he always had a hanky in his pocket for the kid who always seem to need it most. 

“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

I earnestly listened to the word of God, but I was hopelessly lost as to why God the Dad did not grab his son off the cross and just take him home. I assumed there would come an understanding when I became a grown up.

The painted ancient white-haired God on the church ceiling looking down on his son surrounded by his holy angels put a deep fear in me. The holy man of church was not a very friendly one either especially when he went behind the heavy velvet purple drapes in the back that closeted the darkness called the confessional. I learned how to sin in there. I simply made up sins I did not do so I would make a rather grand first confessional. 

No, I did not find comfort and joy at church, nor a God I could know. I found fear there. 

After church, we piled into our worn-out station wagon to pick up fish and chips, wrapped in yesterday’s news. The sweet smell of ketchup and malt vinegar covered the funeral stench of the blue flowers, and I felt safe back at home on our front porch munching fish and chips. 

I saw my bike out on the front lawn and looked longingly at my Mom.  Mom nodded, knowing full well she wished she could also escape her adult fears for a while. 

As I pedalled under the budding trees that would soon canopy the sidewalk, the dusk sky suddenly darkened.  As I watched the swirling clouds, the sky turned a deep indigo and thunder rumbled as the deep blue blurred the line into purple.

A shiver ran through me and a deep sense of awe overcame me as I watched the infinite sky change colour. The creator God of this sky filled me with longing to know him. The fear of the church God drained out of me and puddled beneath my feet.  In my soiled blue flowered dress, I bowed my head on my bike’s little white basket and felt his stillness.

‘Truly, this man is the son of God.'
 
Peace flooded over me as the sky released holy drops of rain.  I raced home on my bike as real holy water gushed from the lit purple sky.  A baptism of joy washed and cleansed the stench of the holy man’s incense renewing the blue flower.

It was on that fish and chips day that I met a God I could know. The God of this sky, the creator of the beauty of Spring, the God who put his longing in the blue flower was the God I wanted to know. 

And on this fish and chips day I know him. I pray you know him too.  

Happy Good Friday!

“When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Truly, this man was the Son of God.”

Votary of the Blue Flower: “They taught me longing–Sehnsucht; made me for good or ill, and before I was six years old, a votary of the Blue Flower.” ~ C.S. Lewis

“Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner.” Number 15:38

Hallowed hands stitch the silken thread
Quietly the master weaver repairs the broken blue 
His indigo promise now hidden by the lure of the deceit tree 
The glamoured fruit clouds vision to see his majestic indigo 
that hugs the thin line in the genesis sign

Jewelled indigo sullied with dirt-stained hearts cheapen the blue
Purity less dignified, masked filters hide the truth of who, we have become
We contaminate the sapphire treasure purposed with care 
so lovingly seeded deep within 

The solitary tree stands sentinel, rooted in its own strength
The wood bends in honour from the burden of the one he carries
Upon his limbs, bloodied see-through palms sew the mercy stitch
The needle nails rust from bloody salted tears he weeps for his tarnished blue 
formed in him, through him, for him 

Lapis cries out for the gild of the Lamb
The broken host bleats in compassion for his treasure 
The veiled gold vein reflects the bloodied blue 
spilled from the lance we shield

Hardened hearts thirst for the glory 
to heal the exposed blue
The blue blood sovereign king humbly offers cura 
through the blood of the lamb 

CURA! CURA! CURA!

Imago Dei, now shattered glass 
mirrors who he formed from the dirt 
His image bearers hammer the healing hands deep into the humility tree
carving both the limb and He, who mends our fractured clay hands
Bloodied fists smooth the weaponed shards with fired gold 
Holy blue stained palms absorb and heal his splattered indigo

HOLY! HOLY! HOLY!

In brokenness, we still

High above the rooted tree, redemption carefully lingers in his rise 
The canopied sky reflects the resurrected glory 
now pregnant with the rich indigo 
that drips down as rained dew 
magnifying the dust from which we came

The risen heart overflows and bursts open 
with the sacred indigo blood restoring both sky and sea
a mirrored reflection of the blue we were created to be
Azure blows his kiss from high as the few kneel below
And the wisdom of indigo opens vision to see anew
the purity of his blue

_{Blue: the sacred, holy colour}

“There they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there seemed to be a surface of brilliant blue lapis lazuli, as clear as the sky itself.” Exodus 24:10

_{Cura: latin – to care – Our hearts put effort into who & what we care about. Our effort is where we find cura, our treasure.}

“For where our treasure is; there our heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21