Bosom of Abraham

Bosom of Abraham

            Thursday, March 21, 2019

There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores. When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.

– From Luke 16

Well, now there’s a picture. Jesus really has a way with words, he is an artist! On Thursday of the second week of every Lent, he shows us a dog licking the sores of poor Lazarus, outside the carefully locked door of the rich man dressed in purple. Pounding on the Pharisees, he retells the well-known story, adding the tantalizing detail of the rich man’s five brothers.

Caiaphas, the notorious high priest who killed Jesus, had five brothers.

*           *           *

Three times the Insight Timer sounds its gong on my IPhone. Centering prayer is over for this morning. I blow out my candle and gather my stuff. Handkerchief and glasses. Palm cross. My Yeti water and my Apple watch. Usually I sit on a padded black office chair with a Cubs blanket on the seat, leaning in to a cute white Ikea table. I open my eyes and see Rublev’s famous “Trinity” icon. My friend Chris gave it to me. He said it was made by inmates at a state correctional center.

I choose warm clothes to wear on this sky-gray rainy day. They are soft on my skin. My t-shirt reads, “Sure. Fine. OK. Whatever.” I pull on a dark blue comfort-sweater. Then with a start, suddenly I see tones of purple in the blue.

Oh! My God! Even before breakfast, I’m a rich man too.

But there is more to my morning prayer. Downstairs I cut an old apple in small parts. There are a few cabbage leaves left over from St. Patrick’s Day. I open a container of yogurt and carry it all outside. Our eight chickens hear me and begin their morning insistence. They want release, and the rain is nothing to them. They are birds, right? So I open the gate of their coop, and they pour out in a rush.

More than anything from our kitchen, they love the seeds dropped by other birds. I fill the feeder for our sparrows and cardinals and occasional finch. The chickens look up, they watch, and when I scatter a little seed for them, they rush at it with joy. Their excitement floods me, too.

*           *           *

Although Jesus had nothing against rich men, he did say that, for them, getting to heaven was like a camel trying to get through the eye of a needle. I know how complacent I become, entitled and accustomed to all my fancy stuff. But the chickens give me pause, and in the rain especially I feel God’s presence. As Edith Sitwell wrote, “Under the Rain the sore and the gold are as one.”

Her poetic insight releases my guilt and confusion:

Then sounds the voice of One who like the heart of man

Was once a child who among beasts has lain –

“Still do I love, still shed my innocent light, my Blood, for thee.”

*           *           *

Oh, Lord, rock my soul. Let me understand my place in this world, and give me courage to take it up. You give and give and give, and free me up to give and give. How sweet it is to be loved by you. To think! Here is one more day to give that love away again.

Edith Sitwell, “Still Falls the Rain, The Raids: 1940, Night and Dawn” from Collected Poems, 1957

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