Keren Dibbens-Wyatt's Blog, page 4

Happy Easter!

I hope you have enjoyed this Lenten journey through my reflections, photos and art. Here we are on the day of Resurrection, and I wish you a very Happy Easter!

God bless you,

Keren x

 

Three Days Later

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Blood curdles into the grain

Mixes fresh with old

Responding, the sap sings

Though long dead and now discarded

Roughly hewn and unplaned

Yours the only carpenter’s hands

It has ever known

 

Sings then, and rises

Green shoots writhing

With untameable life

Curling, encircling the rusting nails

Budding in split beams

Filling the cracks with flowers

Rising from wooden wounds.

 

Art and text © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt

Lent 40: Easter Saturday

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Here you are again then, Lord, between the worlds. As from conception to birth, womb and tomb, you are sandwiched twixt life and death, neither one thing nor the other, and yet both at the same time. As yesterday, you span both east and west, height and depth, making the sign of the cross with your Spirit. Today with you in Paradise and at the same time hearing your voice and the rattle of your keys in the dungeon doors of hell, all encompassing, omnipresent, everywhere Love, you are. Thank God nowhere is safe from your unleashed, unstoppable Grace.

Art and text © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2018

Lent 39: Good Friday

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Blackness of sky, redness of agony, bloodied sun, cracking clouds.  There is no doubt to anyone who has ever stood at the foot of this dark shape, looking on this tortured man in perfect obedience, that this is the centre of the universe. Here is the fulcrum of history and the turning point in all relationships. This is where the questions are asked and you are never found wanting, unlike those who have fled but will return. The women, and the man who loves you, becoming a new family at your nailed feet, churched by the anguish of love.

Art and text © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2018

Lent 38

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And on this day of all days you choose to waste your time washing our tired, pungent, dusty feet. Should a king stoop so low, and have his back bow down with all our ills? It does not seem right. And when we are sat, later, breaking your body further as bread, and drinking your blood down along with all those bitter herbs, the symbolism lost on us for now, shall we kick off our sandals under the table for a brief moment, and savour the rarity of soft, cleansed and sweet-smelling skin?

Art and text © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2018

Lent 37

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You always forfeit your right to be regal, and tinge everything with humour and sweet humility, as though to show us how wrong we are about everything. No Arabian stallion for you, but a small, stocky donkey, one such as your mother rode that fateful night. No gold and lilies, but palm branches, green and thrown down, life ready to be trampled. Every thorn bush you pass reminds you of the crown you will soon wear for us.

Art and text © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2018

Lent 36

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You are soft as velvet one moment, and all teeth and talons the next. I cannot tell when we shall see the dove or the eagle, or what will cause the lion to bare his teeth and snarl. Hypocrites seem to do it, or those calling themselves pure and righteous in your sight, when you said that not even you are good, but only the Father. Changeable face, unchanging heart, giving each exactly what is needed.

Art and text © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2018

Lent 35

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All is twisted in your kingdom and in your words. Everything you say challenges what I thought I knew. Certainties not just turned on their heads, but held upside down and shaken until every last coin falls out of their pockets.  Your mysterious ways make me dizzy, and your new ways of weaving things together creates patterns unfamiliar to my incredulous eyes.

Art and text © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2018

Lent 34

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Happy is a word that rarely belongs here in the roar of the storm, in the eye of the hurricane. Can we, then, be content? With all that racket and all that spume? The salt water constantly crashing up into our eyes and ears? Perhaps not. But neither can we sit here on this surface and be bobbed about so furiously and hold onto anything, not faith, and certainly not our breakfast. So what may be done, and what peace may be found? The temptation is surely to dive into the water and drown our sorrows, falling into the deep sleep of silent waters. And yet you say, we may sleep here in the stern, curled up in cushions and coats, oblivious, and let you take the rudder. The answer then, is not peace, but trust.

Art and text © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2018 (“Wake,” in pastels, using a reference photo by Cindy Frendt with kind permission)

Lent 33

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Gifts from the sea are boiled or battered, carved or scraped, hung out to dry in the sun, or bleached on racks. Only the pearl is allowed to retain its shape, and must not be opened up, smashed, cooked, consumed, but instead, valued, held, set in gold.  What makes this globule of oozed protection precious?

Learning from oysters, perhaps we might see that the real beauty of the prize is the transformation of what pollutes us, the redemption of irritants, and that the glow of the pearl is not of this world, but is transfiguration.

Photo and text © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2018

Lent 32

 

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Time then, to take stock of the value of things. What means more to your aching heart? The rough touch of tree bark, cracked and ancient, carved by the trample of a million ant feet and the sporadic chewing of glisten-eyed deer? Or the place on the ladder you have worked so hard and so long to reach? Which foothold is more solid? Isn’t it better to be near the ground, feet on God’s good earth, than with your head in man-made clouds that blind you to the true nature of things? I love you so much, I will let you decide.

 

Art and text © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2018