Hail to the Guru

What with Easter and all, I forgot to mark the anniversary of the passing of Trungpa Rinpoche. April 4 was the day. I rested under the white umbrella of his buddha-activity for many years. Chokyi Gyatso, the Eleventh Trungpa-- hail to the guru! Hail to the root guru!

He once said, "This is the great odyssey I have never feared." He was speaking of bringing Buddhism to the West, but the line was used at his funeral, appropriately. It was never really true for me, till now, with Dad's passing. The last two months have been bracing, yet comforting in a larger sense. Welcome, Sister Death, St. Francis said. Each of us must make his peace with death. As one gets older one is privileged to see, and quite often too, ordinary people exhibiting wisdom and heroism, grace and peace at their end.

Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and The Abyss of Light

I will lamely conflate Hans Urs von Balthasar: on Good Friday, Jesus the Son of Man suffered his Passion. Since He is divine as well, his suffering was infinite. His isolation from the Father was absolute. Into that dark abyss comes the Holy Spirit, who fills it with light. Balthasar goes on: "When what is required seems too burdensome...and our fate simply meaningless, then we have become very close to the man nailed on the Cross; all we can do is wait and endure, quite still, like the Crucified, not seeing anything, facing the dark abyss of death. Beyond this abyss there waits for us-- an abyss of light."

(Good Friday sermon from You Crown the Year with Your Goodness, Ignatius Press, 1989.)

To the Resurrection!

Well, for Easter, something soothing at the top of the page. L. and I made our annual Lenten pilgrimage to Wernersville; I took this picture there. (I am rather enjoying my $25 cell phone. It's a phone-- but it takes pictures!) Out of my primal deference to the written word, and my unwillingness to fuss too much with technology, pictures will always be ancillary here. But they can be evocative.

So, here we have St. Francis. Not cloying or sentimental. Has an Craft Movement, look, no? Which would make sense, the place was built in 1929. It might be that old. If it is, it's in good shape, for being an outdoor shrine.

Two stories: Sister Rose Cecilia died last month. Once she was leading a group of us on a tour of an exhibition of prints by Bernard de Caussade, who painted a (very sentimental) series on the life of St. Francis. Sister was a Franciscan. When we came to the depiction of St. Francis' death, she asked that we forgive her, she couldn't continue and would have to cut the tour a little short. I looked up and saw she was weeping, anew, at St. Francis' end, 700 years after the fact! It was moving and utterly charming.

And, I hate to steal a preacher's story, but-- a teetotaling Baptist I know turned High Anglican priest told this story in his Easter Sunday sermon. One of his first experiences with the Anglican church was an Easter brunch. The pastor raised a glass of champagne and toasted: "To the Resurrection! And if you can't drink to the Resurrection-- to hell with you!"

Happy Easter!

For my Father

"...like a champion he runs his course" (Ps. 19) and "Let him sit enthroned before God forever, bid love and faithfulness watch over him" (Ps. 61)

Healing Snow

I buried my father yesterday. All day Saturday through that giant storm L. and I shoveled, enough to get the car out to make it to the hospital on Sunday to stand watch. He died on Tuesday, while I was back at work. Wednesday it snowed hard again. And shoveling snow became my therapy. There was something deeply good about the physical work, the cold so sharp and strangely consoling.


Out in the cemetery, the sun came out, first time in days. Snow, pine and a softer cold, refreshing after the viewing and service. Then the clean, plain work of hauling the casket up an icy hillside.

I stayed home another day and went out hiking in the hills around town. And it snowed-- a peaceful, ordinary snow on a peaceful, ordinary Tuesday. My father's death, long feared by me, has left me believing more firmly in divine providence. "I lift up my eyes to the hills/From where is my help to come?/My help comes from the Lord/The maker of heaven and earth." (Ps. 121).