The Road to Iceland

MARY COMES TO THE TOMB The wet earth clings to my feet on this early morning errand that weighs me down with death. I have not slept; my food is tasteless;   my heart aches, aches. How can it be in this fractured world that morning still comes? I wince as sparrows gather at my window, singing, and I wish my own mind were so small that, like these birds, it could not grasp the barrenness of this bleakest dawn. I am finished with love, dead as the tomb that is my hopeless destination. That place is sealed, shut tight as my soul,   yet I am drawn there. For it is where I left my love behind. I need to return, alone in my misery, perhaps to find a shred of him to carry in my fisted heart. But someone else has already come. Who is this that stands in the way of my mourning? A few years ago a friend of mine lost her husband to cancer. As we talked this week, some of what she said has echoed in my mind. She had never felt this kind of pain befo...

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper.   Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself.   Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.   He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"   Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Simon Peter said to him, ...

John 12:1-8 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)   Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.   You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” ******************************************************************** Has anyone seen the updated Alice in W...