The Wonder of You

The Wonder of You

by | Mar 25, 2014 | Sherry blogs

woman at the well

Sherry’s official website: www.sherrycothran.com

I thought I had her all wrapped up, the woman at the well, the Samaritan who comes to an extraordinary well for regular old water and finds out about a water called living. You may know the story in John 4 where she drinks of this mysterious water with no utensil known to human kind there in that loop of strangeness between two souls, also known as an experience of pure love. Sunday morning, she spoke to us in that giant, open space of creaky pine floors circa 1889 sanctuary where less than the 200 intended recipients heard from her (much less.) Still, we were authentically gathered and that is such a rare thing. This morning, like a holy backlash, she came at me again.

Something about wonder, the wonder of you, this is what he, the one she recognized as a prophet, kept pointing out, the wonder in those he encountered, it’s so hard for us to see it in ourselves, it has to be pointed out by someone who has found living water, someone who knows the way there.

Like the Samaritan woman, we may have looked for that sparkling wonder in so many other places or people or things. She did, in five husbands and one lover and in a small town, no less. You know what happens to women in small towns who have married five men and kept one lover…..scandalous, she’s a home wrecker, no good for anything or anyone. We still claim her, yes, she’s one of us, always will be, but we won’t invite her into our homes, we will just freeze her there in time as an unchangeable disaster and that is what will be carved on her tombstone at the edge of the town cemetery, she will never outlive her own failures. Yet, Jesus calls her wonderful, and that is what will be carved on her heart, granite is so unforgiving.

It is this woman who gets to meet the man who calls her worthy, valuable, even wonderful. It wasn’t so much that she believed in him, it was more so that she believed in what was happening in her because of him. She believed, all of the sudden, in the wonder of her. For she had scraped up and saved in her heart a tiny sliver of intuition, locked it away there and protected it fiercely in hopes of a day when someone would offer her a gift that didn’t cost her things like sex and dignity.  She lived close to that thirst, that hurt, that longing, that hope, it was all the same thing. She was looking for the right man to spend it on and when he said the word “gift” it turned the key inside of her heart and what flowed out was wonder.

This cosmic event of living water changed her entire chemistry, she glowed, it was the alchemy of Heaven. She knew she was glowing for she had met her wonder and she went out and told everyone, “come meet this man who has told me everything about my life and has claimed the disaster for pure wonder.” It’s not magic, it’s a gift, how rare, she knew it in her heart.

She went out and told everyone, the town disaster, the outcast, and what is spectacular is that they listened and followed her. That’s how wonder works when you begin to grasp it.  It compels you to acts of solidarity with the love inside of you. You finally understand what it means to love yourself for you have met God there, inside, in the heart and your only response is pure wonder and wonder is contagious. It makes you simply want to give up all the other substitutes.

This morning, she just wouldn’t let me go without compelling me to tell you about the wonder of you.

 

 

The Gift of the Ashes

The Gift of the Ashes

by | Mar 3, 2014 | faith, religion, spirituality

roberta-pharis-tufted-titmouse-no-watermark

Official website: www.sherrycothran.com

Walking the dog this morning in a neighborhood frosted by snow. My highly attuned yellow lab/squirrel dog is always a little freaked out by the change of pace, the stark quiet. Last night’s threatening ice has brought the school buses, harried drivers late for work and noise pollution from the interstate to a hush. Robins, cardinals, blue jays, mockingbirds, finches, crows and blackbirds pierce the air with song as they have all come out from their hiding places to find today’s crumbs of bread.

We all yearn for spring, for the thaw,  with its fluorescent green and goldenrod. In the doldrums of the long winter, we are oblivious to spring’s surprises, her thunderstorms and her turbulent tornadoes. We are not ready for what we love. We’re living in a new normal. More ice, more snow, more fire, more wind, less rain and more rain than ever before. More heat will come with summer, more than we think we can bear.

The world is a beautiful and terrifying place all the time and it is where I belong. I belong to the earth, to the rivers, lakes and oceans, to the wind and the air, to the fires that rage, they are all me and I am them. In this biosphere, space ship earth that we are living on, we all get recycled. We are reminded of this on Ash Wednesday, how very recyclable we are. I will say, as I take my finger and smudge it in some dust, push back the hair of those who have come from their precious brows and make the sign of a cross, “from ashes you came and to ashes you shall return.” It’s a sobering reminder that we are all connected through our very birth and death to one another, to creation, that all things capable of life are in fact, in one form or another, still living.

This comforts me.

I overheard two older men in a coffee shop this morning talking about “little deaths.” One of them was a Wise Old Man, Philosopher in Mediation by RembrandtI could tell, he was the one giving the advice to the man who was facing cancer. He talked about the “little deaths” in the form of all the things we lose, the car keys, the wallet, the life we once had, a loved one, our mobility, our freedom. He then said something about attunement. I became aware that I was eavesdropping and then stopped listening, though I could not help but smile. Attunement is simply the act of bringing all things into harmony. This WOM was trying to help the other find harmony in the act of living and dying. It was a beautiful thing to experience, the exchange of loving and caring in the act of comforting through truthfulness and wisdom.

Each day, we have something to give to someone along the way; a smile, a word of encouragement, an expression of hope. Think of all the things the world gives you without ever asking for anything in return. The sun shines, as does the moon, creating day and night, we love the contrast of light and dark and the beautiful moments as it changes. The earth brings food, creation brings rain and all the things that are needed for the conditions of life are provided for us for free. How much more we can offer the earth and one another when we live each day in the mindfulness that we belong to an order much greater than ourselves, and yet we have been invited to experience it, to become attuned to its natural rhythm, to rescue creation, each in our own small way, from the damages done.

This week, to those of us who receive the mark of the cross and follow the Christ on that journey of life and death and resurrection, let us meditate on that phrase, “From ashes you came and to ashes you shall return.” Let it be a reminder that though our bodies belong to the earth, our spirits were meant to soar and we belong to a greater gift than we  could ever give, made real to us in so many ways, every day.  The gift of life unending, the gift of the ashes.