Kitty Crenshaw's Blog, page 9

April 1

Your suffering has been great, but it has broken your heart open and filled it with His compassion for the world. It is enough. ~Betty

The Darkness of the Tomb

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Edouard Manet. The Dead Christ. Museum of Modern Art

Holy Saturday—the quietest of all days. The tomb that held Your broken body was dark and silent. Heaven held its breath. A shimmering stilling making ready for glorious resurrection and New Creation.

Jesus, I have moved with You from the wilderness, through the cross, and into the tomb. I have come to the deepest of my sufferings. There are no words. I find You in the silent stillness. I will rest now and let darkness do its work. All things grow in darkness and silence. A single grain of wheat will never be more than a single grain of wheat unless it drops into the ground and dies. Then it sprouts and produces a great harvest.1I will wait in hope for the dawning of the Light that will surely come. May I ever more fervently prepare to celebrate the mystery of Easter as the glorious feast of my redemption approaches.

From The Hidden Life Awakened

“The way of trust lies through Gethsemane and Holy Saturday. We move from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, omitting Holy Saturday—the tomb. Every phase of our Lord’s life and every aspect of His death speaks to us if we will open to it. Divine obedience was lived out at the Last Supper, accepted at Gethsemane, accomplished on the cross, and perfected alone in the darkness of the tomb. Our assent to time in the darkness of the tomb is so often the missing link in our lives. The wilderness of our suffering is not just a place of darkness and temptation. It is the place of our transformation through which the false self must move. It is the place of conversion where the emotional pain of a lifetime, stored in the unconscious, is revealed and then gradually let go of. This is not a time of separateness, although it may feel that way; it is a time that links us to the Eternal. It is in walking through the darkness that we learn to discern the voice of the Beloved and receive the grace of interior resurrection and the capacity for divine union. There are hidden depths that only the Spirit can reach. It is a hidden life.” 2

Blessed Love, encompass me.Pour Yourself over me.Love, lift me up and make me whole.Then, dear Love,break me into a thousand peicesand scatter me to Your Glorythat others might know Love too.And Love,never even once let me askwhy or how or whenor fail to stand because of pain.For You, sweet Love, must not have died in vain.BWS

March 18

Amid all of our failed hopes and expectations, we belong to a God whose great love has transformed forever the meaning of success and failure. ~Betty

The Disturbing Silence of Jesus

Makoto Fujimura. The Tears of Christ.

Falsely accused and condemned to death, You, the Word made flesh through whom all was created, didn’t defend Yourself, but remained silent, standing with noble courage and compassion, rooted in a goodness far deeper than the absurdity of Your suffering and death. Words would have only been a distraction. Your silence kept Your mind and heart anchored in the heart of Your Father. Your silence spoke creative and re-creative words into history, enabling a far greater good. Your silence revealed the mystery of eternity.

I watch with the crowd as the soldiers strip You, put a scarlet cloak around You, and twist thorns into a crown they put on Your head. They shove a reed into Your hand and mockingly kneel at Your precious blood-stained feet saying, “Hail, King of the Jews.” They spit on You and strike You on the head, jamming the thorns deeper into Your scalp. Then they nail You, the Holy One, naked to a cross.

The glory of God burst through precisely when You were most victimized. Had the cross been imposed upon You against Your will, it would have been a slaying and not a sacrifice. Your acceptance of it in loving obedience to Your Father made love visible, the atonement adequate, and the agony bearable. Stretched out on the cross, You turned toward the universe with utter forgiveness. Pierced and broken, You looked down through bloody tears as Your dearest friends ran away and Your Father slowly withdrew His Presence, shredding Your tender heart—leaving You utterly alone.

There’s something so disturbing about the cross that it demands I make a choice. I either step toward it or away from it; the one thing I can’t do is walk away neutral. The cross, the life-giving event for all time and eternity, in its absurd splendor, doesn’t leave that option open to me. Willingly and mysteriously, You drew my burdens and the sufferings of all humanity into Your precious bloodied body that holy day.

I stumble under the weight of my own cross, but when I choose to look up at Yours, I remember You took all of my sins, all of my sickness, loneliness, and loss, all of my betrayals and painful relationships, and held them in Your precious body as they nailed You there. In deepest gratitude then, I choose to pick up my cross again and follow You in deep silence with sober joy wherever You take me. It is a difficult and often disturbing choice that I will have to make over and over again, but by merging my cross with Yours, my burden lightens and loses its absurdness. It is still painful, but it becomes something new.

Oh, Good Jesus,
I try the letting go,
to understand my weakness,
to trust You in my darkness,
to make room for Your grace to heal.
Yet there is no return,
only the echo of my own crying.
It seems I, too, with You,
am caught between the nails.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. 1

The acceptance of Your yoke, made in the absence of understanding or certain knowledge, has set me free and moved me towards peace—that deep disposition of the heart that comes from humility and the willingness to remain silent, letting go of my oppressive need to be right in my own eyes and in the eyes of others. Compassionate peace is the foundation of my ability to stand with You at the fearful edge, under the cross, in the cross, with the world, in the suffering, and dare to believe that, through sacrificial silence and deep acceptance, there is a peaceful alternative.

Oh, Good Jesus,
in this holy place of crucifixion,
broaden the boundaries of my heart.
Soften the hard places that
defend, define and deny.
Teach my heart to love.
Make it a refuge for others
who, too, are caught
between the nails.

BWS2

A Further Word from Betty

Many, many people come to the altar, but few find their way to the foot of the cross. Only John the beloved and the three Marys were there when our Lord was crucified—fear had scattered the rest. Jesus leads us to the foot of the cross, and then we are drawn into the cross. There we die to all that is false and become one with Him. When we pass through the cross, our hearts are softened by a profound compassion that embraces the whole world. We have finally passed through ourselves and transcended the things of the world that would keep us in bondage.

The Hidden Life Awakened pp 214-215

March 4

Your wounds will become your place of authority; the place from which you can touch another with compassionate understanding.1 ~Betty

Jesus In The Wilderness

Rembrandt. Head of Christ. Philadelphia Art Museum

It is Lent again, Jesus; the season that summons me into the wilderness with You and into the humiliation of heartfelt repentance. It is a call to stretch out my hand and grab hold of Yours, being quietly present to You in Your time of privation and temptation.

You willingly entered the desert, knowing You would endure anguishing deprivation, torment, and darkest temptation to prepare for the work of love You had come to accomplish for the redemption of the world. After forty long days, when You were utterly spent, the evil one came against You. He tempted You to assuage Your ravenous hunger and searing thirst by using the power he knew You possessed to turn the dry rocks into bread. When You refused, he took You to the highest point of the temple and dared You to show off Your spectacular powers by jumping off and ordering the angels to save You. Again, You refused. His final failure was to offer You all the kingdoms and wealth of the world in exchange for Your worship, but You refused, affirming God as the only source of Your identity. When he slithered away defeated, the angels rushed in to succor You.1 I wish I could have been with them.

I have experienced my own wildernesses, but never willingly and never for love as You did. Now though, with the beautiful view of retrospect, I see that those painful times were, in reality, the merciful furnace of my transformation.2 They were never times of separateness, but times that linked me to the Eternal, teaching me to be still and listen for Your voice of love calling me home. You were always there, walking with me through the fire of purification, mercifully recreating me and teaching me to take my identity not from the world, but from Your voice within which calls me Your beloved.3

Jesus, I have touched the luminous edges of infinite joy and fellowship with You and no longer want to settle for a half-hearted life of temporal entanglement. Help me to accept and embrace the mystery of all the wilderness times I have lived, and the ones that are still ahead. Move me to attend more and more to the prick of conscience and trust more and more the inner stirrings I sense from Your Spirit. Quiet my frantic fears. Succor me and settle me deeply into Your embrace, breaking open space for the yearnings and dreams of my heart to emerge and offer precious encouragement to another.

Betty shares more about the wilderness of transformation in this video.

Jesus

Rembrandt. Head of Christ. Philadelphia Art Museum

It is Lent again, Jesus; the season that summons me into the wilderness with You and into the humiliation of heartfelt repentance. It is a call to stretch out my hand and grab hold of Yours, being quietly present to You in Your time of privation and temptation.

You willingly entered the desert, knowing You would endure anguishing deprivation, torment, and darkest temptation in order to prepare for the work of love You had come to accomplish for the redemption of the world. After forty long days, when You were utterly spent, the evil one came against You. He tempted You to assuage Your ravenous hunger and searing thirst by using the power he knew You possessed to turn the dry rocks into bread. When You refused, he took You to the highest point of the temple and dared You to show off Your spectacular powers by jumping off and ordering the angels to save You. Again, You refused. His final failure was to offer You all the kingdoms and wealth of the world in exchange for Your worship, but You refused, affirming God as the only source of Your identity. When he slithered away defeated, the angels rushed in to succor You.1 I wish I could have been with them.

I have experienced my own wildernesses, but never willingly and never for love as You did. Now though, with the beautiful view of retrospect, I see that those painful times were, in reality, the merciful furnace of my transformation.2 They were never times of separateness, but times that linked me to the Eternal, teaching me to be still and listen for Your voice of love calling me home. You were always there, walking with me through the fire of purification, mercifully recreating me and teaching me to take my identity not from the world, but from Your voice within which calls me Your beloved.3

Jesus, I have touched the luminous edges of infinite joy and fellowship with You and no longer want to settle for a half-hearted life of temporal entanglement. Help me to accept and embrace the mystery of all the wilderness times I have lived, and the ones that are still ahead. Move me to attend more and more to the prick of conscience and trust more and more the inner stirrings I sense from Your Spirit. Quiet my frantic fears. Succor me and settle me deeply into Your embrace, breaking open space for the yearnings and dreams of my heart to emerge and offer precious encouragement to another.

Betty shares more about the wilderness of transformation in this video.

February 18

God does not look on our performance, but rather on the desire of our hearts. Jesus was a failure in the eyes of the world.1 ~Betty

A Birthday Letter From Betty

I am a February child Born in Winter’s season. I came to earth—no choice—I was misdirected In a month of silver spirits and of snows.   The cold of winter is not all I know. I have traveled all life’s seasons. Awakening Springs and pain-filled Summers, And now, His peace in Autumn. Yet I cannot say with any reason Which season Wisdom entered in.   The door to God, to any grace, Is simple, pure; is innocent and true; Is unobtrusive, silent and is still. The Spirit moves in timeless space And at an unfamiliar pace.   Oh, the mystery of the Spirit’s stirring, The self-erased and done, My inner landscape ordered, one of purity and truth. A free and moving place, abiding in communion. A land I call desire, a land of yearnings. A land where all my seasons meditate And offer back their learnings.   BWS

Dear Ones,

When I met hope, in my fifty-fifth year, on the southward side of a high mountain in North Carolina, it was unmistakable. ‘Now abideth faith, hope and love.’ Hope, for many years of my spiritual journey, was overshadowed by faith and love. Love’s relentless wooing had won me with its unspeakable beauty, mystery, and grace. Faith became the ‘yes’ within me on which I slowly began to stake my whole life, while hope remained invisible and elusive. Faith and love built my self-confidence until I broke inside, then faith began to fade, and love dimmed. It was in my despair that I met hope. It had been resting in the shadows between faith and love. It was  in the suffering, wounded, and broken places of my life that hope began to come out of the shadows and bring me to wholeness. It was in the emptiness and stillness between faith and love, in the hollow of a heart carved out by despair, that hope took  hold.

What I realized on that unforgettable day  was  that  hope  had always lingered in the shadows of my darkest times. What awakened within me was that precisely when faith crumbles and love dims, hope begins. Hope is not the same thing as optimism. Rather, hope, in its purest form, is perfect freedom perfected as we choose to accept in Love whatever God brings as good. For those who deliberately choose to act only for the glory of God and the good of others, to eliminate all selfish motives from their lives and their work, hope becomes the golden cord in the landscape of their quest. It is the certainty that something makes sense, is worth the cost, regardless of how it might turn out. Hope is a sense of what might yet be. Hope is precisely what I had when I had nothing. It strains ahead, seeking a way behind, through, and beyond every obstacle. Hope does not try to determine how God’s way will be shown but remains open to new and astonishing manifestations of God’s presence at work in the circumstances of life. The more difficult the circumstances, the deeper the hope. This is the delight in despair.

I had to learn to trust the darkness of new birth and the darkness of death’s desolation. I didn’t always see it, but new life was being birthed; it was underneath the darkness and the pain. By trusting this ground underneath, I began to find so much hope that there was no longer the need to run or the possibility of hiding. Pain was the voice of Love calling me home. My work was to get in touch with that Love in hope and trust. If I had resisted or run away, it would only have deepened my pain and created more for other people. My real work was to stop my resistance and be willing to go through the pain of inner death before the end of my physical life. What was dying was my false self. What was being birthed was my true self.

Now in my ninety-fifth year, I stand by the Door sustained in hope, always in need of your prayers and your love, Betty

(Excerpted from The Hidden Life Awakened. pp 180-182)

February 4

Our spiritual journey is a love affair. It is a leaning into God, listening longingly for His heartbeat. ~Betty