A change of plans...

Today was to be a retreat and prayer day of sorts: I had planned on being in Framingham for my monthly prayer/accountability group with other clergy. I was looking forward to the 2 hour drive this morning (and another 2 hours coming home) after a full schedule getting ready for our annual meeting as a time to think. But when I got up at 6:45 am, it was snowing like a blizzard and kept it up for about 2 hours so I pulled the plug on my trip - and now it is sunny!

So, given the change of plans, I am now working on Lenten study materials and the text for our new website (soon to be unveiled later this month.) Thinking about Lent took me to Howard Rice's reflection on worship in the Reformed tradition. He makes this fascinating observation about the forty days of Lent.

The number forty is important in liturgy and is a remarkable number in the Bible:
+ It rained for 40 days and nights while Noah was in the ark (Genesis 7:4)
+ The children of Israel wandered for 40 years in the wilderness (Exodus 16:35)
+ The Israelites suffered under the oppression of the Philistines for 40 years before Samson was born (Judges 13:1)
+ Elijah prepared for his ministry for 40 days and nights (I Kings 19:8)
+ Jonah warned Nineveh that it had 40 days in which to repent (Jonah 3:4)
+ Jesus fasted and was tempted in the wilderness for 40 days (Matthew 4:2)
+ There are 40 days between the Resurrection of Easter to the Ascension of Christ (Acts 1:3)

Numerous proposals have been offered in an attempt to decipher the mysterious meaning of the number forty. In all the explanations no scholars have noted its relation to the primordial number having to do with the length of fetal development: forty weeks from conception to birth for humans. Thus, the number is part of the development of all human life. All of the major incidents in Scripture that are based upon the number forty have to do with birth (as a nation, as a prophet, as the Son of God) or else rebirth (i.e. second birth in service and ministry.)

This helps me as the band starts to prepare for this year's Good Friday worship. For about 9 years I have been experimenting with the ways popular culture can help crack open the spiritual insights of this paradoxical gathering. We've used the blues as lament, songs of anguish to consider the war in Iraq as a contemporary crucifixion, U2 tunes and more. This year we are starting to find the music that each of us have found to be places of refuge amidst our own times of suffering.

+ One person has lifted up Meatloaf's "Heaven Can Wait" as a song she sang and listened too over and over again during her years of agony.

+ I am particularly drawn to Leonard Cohen's, "Joan of Arc" as interpreted by Judy Collins, as a song that gave me hope in it's beauty and a vehicle to open and express my tears of sadness and pain.

It seems like the right way to enter this time of death and renewal - especially after the words of wisdom Rice offers in Reformed Worship. We shall see...

Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc
as she came riding through the dark;
no moon to keep her armour bright,
no man to get her through this very smoky night.
She said, "I'm tired of the war,
I want the kind of work I had before,
a wedding dress or something white
to wear upon my swollen appetite."

Well, I'm glad to hear you talk this way,
you know I've watched you riding every day
and something in me yearns to win
such a cold and lonesome heroine.
"And who are you?" she sternly spoke
to the one beneath the smoke.
"Why, I'm fire," he replied,
"And I love your solitude, I love your pride."

"Then fire, make your body cold,
I'm going to give you mine to hold,"
saying this she climbed inside
to be his one, to be his only bride.
And deep into his fiery heart
he took the dust of Joan of Arc,
and high above the wedding guests
he hung the ashes of her wedding dress.

It was deep into his fiery heart
he took the dust of Joan of Arc,
and then she clearly understood
if he was fire, oh then she must be wood.
I saw her wince, I saw her cry,
I saw the glory in her eye.
Myself I long for love and light,
but must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?

photo credits: the incredible Dianne De Mott