Amy Boucher Pye

Tag: Lent

  • Lenten Poems – Questions and Answers (6)

    440px-Question_mark.svgQuestions and answers. The questions – who was this? The answers – he knew their name. He saw who they were at their essence. So does he with us today. He calls us by name. He knows us.

    What do you want

  • Lenten Poems – Look and See! (5)

    Francisco de Zurbarán, public domain
    Francisco de Zurbarán, public domain

    “Look and see!” says John the Baptist. He who had been given a special grace of seeing the unseen called those around him to open their eyes and see. To know that this Jesus was God’s Chosen One, the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world.

    Have mercy on us, Lord, as we come before you during this season of Lent, pondering the gift and mystery of your coming and saving us.

    Today’s poem comes from the point of view of John the Baptist.

    Look and see

  • Lenten Poems – In the Wilderness (4)

    Cedar_Mtn_WildernessJohn the Baptist, heralding the Way.

    In the wilderness

  • Lenten Poems – The World Made Flesh (3)

    girm-wordJesus the Word, dwelling among us and making the Father known. Jesus who brings us grace and freedom and salvation. Jesus, without whom we would not observe Lent.

    The Word (1)

     

  • Lenten Poems – Born of God (2)

    Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam
    Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam

    If we believe, we’re born of God. An awe-inspiring thought at the beginning of our Lenten journey. What does being born of God mean to you?

    Sent from God

  • Lenten Poems: The Word – Ash Wednesday (1)

    Photo: Zouavman Le Zouave, Creative Commons
    Photo: Zouavman Le Zouave, Creative Commons

    As we start Lent, a time to reflect and to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, I’ve been pondering John’s Gospel. My aim during Lent is to share some poems based on this unique story of Jesus with John’s emphasis on union with God through the indwelling of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

    May your Lenten journey be filled with insight, wonder, and love.

    In the beginning—

     

     

  • Announcement: Book-Baby #2 is gestating!

    Photo on 10-7-15 at 9.10 AM #4 (1)“I should have written that Lent book.” That was my offhand comment to the wonderful Karen Laister of BRF (Bible Reading Fellowship​) at the Woman Alive/BRF women’s day in Woking over the summer. Imagine my surprise when a month or so later I received an invitation to write the 2017 BRF Lent book! I had developed a proposal back in 2011 for a devotional exploration of the theme of forgiveness as rooted in Bible for the season of Lent, but for a bunch of reasons, mainly my misunderstanding of the realities of the Christian publishing scene (read stubbornness), the book was never written or published.

    After hearing from BRF, I dusted off the proposal I had previously developed and thought, “Wow, there’s some good stuff to delve into here!” The good stuff being the biblical stories of redemption, healing, and freedom through forgiveness – from Jacob and Esau (Genesis 27 and 32) to Abigail begging King David’s forgiveness on her brute of a husband’s behalf (1 Samuel 25) to the prophets and then to the New Testament, such as Jesus, Jesus, Jesus and the early church and the Spirit coming and the hope of the Resurrection and the Life to come and to live in the here and now.

    So this time the peeps at BRF and I came to an agreement, which I signed today. <Woo hoo!> Thank you, Lord! And yes, I’m excited! Although we do need a good title – my provisional one was “Father, Forgive Them.” Open to suggestions!

  • Review: Books for Lent

    Need an idea for a book for Lent? Here’s a review from last year, as published in the Woman Alive book club. Features one of last year’s crop of devotional books, and the Best Lent Book Ever.

    Wangerin Reliving the PassionReliving the Passion by Walter Wangerin. A master storyteller, the author writes as a participant – sometimes a close bystander, sometimes a character – of the narrative of Jesus’ last days. He transports us to a vivid world of sights and smells that bring alive the story. In so doing he engages not only our heads but our hearts. We’re there at Bethany, seeing the woman pour out her extravagant love for Jesus. We feel Peter’s desolation after his betrayal of Jesus. We experience the blackness and despair of Good Friday. We rejoice at the wonder of the resurrection, the empty tomb.

    If you’ve never tried a Lent book, give this one a go. If you read one every year, prepare to be refreshed and engaged. The publisher could even promise a reader-be-satisfied-or-have-your-money-back guarantee on it – it’s that good and profound and engaging and faith-building.

    9781408188477One that is thought-provoking is this year’s Lent book as commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Graham Tomlin takes the notion of looking through the cross, similar to how Eastern Orthodox Christians gaze through icons as a window to the real Christ. As we use the cross as our lens, we see how God turns the world’s approach on its head. For instance, thinking about power, the cross “offers us a picture of powerlessness. It is hard to imagine a less powerful figure than someone nailed to a cross” (p. 65). True power, it turns out, is that of self-sacrificial love and service. Of Jesus dying for us.

    The author takes one concept per chapter and explores it in relation to the cross, whether wisdom, suffering, identity, evil, ambition, failure or reconciliation. I thought his chapters on suffering and identity were the strongest, with plenty to chew over. For example in the chapter on suffering: “Once you start to try to love people, then it will hurt” (p. 121). I did wonder if this book was published at speed, however, for I got distracted by errors such as missing punctuation. Still, one to read slowly.

    Looking Through the Cross, Graham Tomlin (Bloomsbury, ISBN 978-1408188477) and Reliving the Passion, Walter Wangerin (Zondervan, ISBN 978- 0310755302)