Interpreting the Elements

I remember as a teenager on Good Friday, I would be aware of the weather between noon and three. Or at least I would be aware when the weather at that time was stormy or less than enjoyable. "Ah, yes," I would think. "It's the hour of Jesus death."

Many years later, in a conversation with a neighbor and church member about Good Friday, her comment was, "Yes, it always gets dark or storms on Good Friday." I nodded my head in some kind of agreement.

I can no longer find the reference, but I do remember sometime in the past 10 years or so seeing an article about Good Friday weather in the area where I was living. There appeared to be no pattern or correlation between Good Friday afternoon and the weather. I then realized that, of course, it can't get dark and stormy everywhere in the world, let alone everywhere in my time zone, from noon to three on Good Friday afternoon.

In preaching this practice of seeing what we want to see with selective awareness and memory might be called isogesis- reading into the text in order to justify our experience and opinions. Or, as I have often said when I wanted to preach on a topic that didn't seem to be in that morning's lectionary reading, "I can shoe-horn anything into the text."

What made me think about this was this past Good Friday afternoon. I was in church for a small service of Holy Communion and reading of the Seven Last Words. It was a special and wonderful spiritual experience. I had thought at the beginning that it couldn't be a real "service of darkness" since it was daytime.

Well, as we came to the end of the communion and moved into the readings, it began to get dark. I could hear the wind picking up. I glanced out the door over my shoulder and it was starting to rain. Then there was some lightning. The rain increased in intensity. The pastor paused at the end of one of the words to let the ambiance settle in.

• My God, my God, why....
• Behold your mother...
• Into Your hands...

Would the service have been any less meaningful without the natural sound effects? Of course not. The wind and lighting, rain and thunder were not a message from God, per se. God didn't do that just for the 20 of us in that church at that moment. (Although I have no doubt he could, of course.) It was my sensitivity to the moment that made it more meaningful to me in a unique way.

It is a way to sharpen our own spiritual senses. What is going on around me at this moment? What might that have to say to me about my spirituality? About God? About my place in the world? When we begin to be aware of that we will discover that there is more going on than we had thought. We will hear messages from God that we would otherwise have gone right by. Anything that deepens our awareness of ourselves, our world, the people around us and ultimately of God is worth cultivating.

It is isogesis? In some ways, sure. But that is what being mindful leads us to. We can only see the world in light of our experiences, but being open and mindful allows us to become more aware of the things that might also call us to expand our experiences and understandings. If all we ever see only confirms our opinions and prejudices we are in a sad place. Spring thunderstorms in Minnesota, no less than a burning bush in the desert can be a hit up the side of the head.

This- all this- is holy ground. Pay attention.