For me, a four-year IJM staff member, the Global Prayer Gathering starts here: 5 o'clock on Friday night, shivering in the stiff breeze outside of the Sheraton Premiere. IJM staff from across North America, Europe and the developing world congregate in the sunken garden for a brief meeting. Dressed all alike in immaculate black suits, the IJM uniform, we are also united in some degree of exhaustion. Long, exacting hours of preparation for the GPG have brought us to this point: cold, tired, and standing on the brink of a weekend of yet more work.


But in defiance of the sobriety of our dress and the numbing tiredness of our bodies, the meeting is charged, surprisingly, with joy. Laughter ripples through the throng of us. We cheer, clap and smile at the leaders who lead us in the litany of final details. Why should such gladness infuse us today, when the hours of preparation have led only to this: a Friday, Saturday and Sunday on the job?

For one thing, the GPG is our family reunion. The staff, many of whom labor in distant countries or in lone-ranger outposts, come together again. Our community rejoices in the fulness of its numbers.
But there is another reason behind the lightness of our spirits.

The reason lies in the nature of the work that we undertake this weekend. Our work will be the labor of prayer.

Make no mistake. Prayer is work of the hardest kind. Starting tomorrow morning, during the prayer room rotations, we will expose ourselves to the depth and breadth of depravity worked against the poor, and in prayer we will saturate our own hearts with God's sorrow over injustice. This work will bend our bodies to the floor with the weight of sin and our own incapacity to circumvent suffering. This work will wring the tears from our eyes and sap our strength and sleep.
But it is also true that this weekend, we will remember the extent of our Father's power, the brightness of His glory and the prodigality of His love. In return for our tears, we will have His smiles, as we believe that He exists and rewards those who earnestly pursue him. In return for our exhaustion, we will unleash His omnipotence on behalf of the widow and the orphan. Though lowered to the floor, we will glimpse His exaltation amidst the pain and oppression we decry.

So why do we laugh on the eve of our hearts' breaking? We laugh in anticipation of this work, this scandalously unequal exchange of poverty for riches. For to us this weekend falls the work of remembrance, the work of joy - the unrivalled and holy work of prayer.

Easter from an Ancient

THE PASCHAL SERMON OF ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM




EARLY CHURCH FATHER 347AD – 407AD









If any man be devout and love God, let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast.



If any man be a wise servant, let him enter rejoicing into the joy of his Lord.



If any have labored long in fasting, let him now receive his recompense.



If any have wrought from the first hour, let him today receive his just reward.



If any have come at the third hour, let him with thankfulness keep the feast.



If any have arrived the sixth hour, let him have no misgivings, because he shall in no wise be deprived.



If any have delayed until the ninth hour, let him draw near, fearing nothing.



If any have tarried even until the eleventh hour, let him also be not alarmed at his tardiness; for the Lord, who is jealous of his honor, will accept the last even as the first; he gives rest unto him who comes at the eleventh hour, even as unto him who has worked from the first hour.



And he shows mercy upon the last, and cares for the first; and to the one he gives, and upon the other he bestows gifts.



And he both accepts the deeds, and welcomes the intention, and honors the acts and praises the offering.



Wherefore, enter ye all into the joy of your Lord, and receive your reward, both the first and likewise the second.



You rich and poor together, hold high festival. You sober and you heedless, honor the day.



Rejoice today, both you who have fasted and you who have disregarded the fast. The table is fully laden; feast sumptuously. The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away. Enjoy the feast of faith; receive all the riches of loving-kindness.



Let no one bewail his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed.



Let no one weep for his iniquities, for pardon has shone forth from the grave.



Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free: he that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it.



By descending into hell, he made hell captive. He embittered it when it tasted of his flesh. And Isaiah, foretelling this, cried: “Hell was embittered when it encountered thee in the lower regions.”



It was embittered, for it was abolished. It was embittered, for it was mocked.



It was embittered, for it was slain. It was embittered, for it was overthrown.



It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.



It took a body, and met God face to face. It took earth, and encountered heaven.



It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.



O Death, where is your sting? O Hell, where is your victory?



Christ is risen, and you are overthrown. Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen.



Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life reigns.



Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.



For Christ, being risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. To him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages.

Free Drycleaning

Over Valentine's Day weekend, my new husband and I traveled to St. Louis, Missouri. I had never been to Missouri before, ("Who would go there? It's a place called mis-er-y!" I can still hear my little sister say from many years ago), but it wasn't too bad: a broad, friendly place with snow on the ground.

We went for a wedding, our first as a married couple. At the reception, the bride and groom were toasted by the best man and the maid of honor. We've all been to weddings. We've all heard the usual offerings of meager prose and poorer poetry put forth when an honest "Best wishes" would have sufficed. But at this wedding, the maid of honor gave a startling and beautiful confession. To the best of my memory, here it is:

"I couldn't confess this to you earlier, my friend, but now that you are safely married, I can tell you this. In my capacity as maid of honor, it was my job to bring your dress with me from New York, where you had the fittings done, and where I live, down here to Missouri. On Thursday night, just before my flight, I had some pins in the dress for some last minute fixes. I pricked my finger. I didn't notice I was bleeding. But later, when I went to pack up the dress, I saw it: down the front, drops of red, like Jackson Pollock's later work. Horrified, I went online to try to find the best cleaners in New York. And on yelp.com I found the aptly named New York Cleaners. With three hours before my flight, I grabbed the dress, ran across town on the Subway, and with trembling hands turned it over to the Korean man behind the counter. He pressed the fabric down, examining the stains, and his brow furrowed. This worried me. 'Wait here,' he said, 'Let me see what I can do.' A while later, while I contemplated whether you would ever forgive me, the dry cleaner retured and held out the dress. It was perfect: without stain, wrinkle or blemish. 'How much do you think you owe me for this?' he asked, eyes merry and triumphant. 'I would gladly empty my bank accout,' I responded - though I'm a young professional in New York, and my offer would still not have been a large one. 'But,' I said, 'Tell me what you think is fair.' He cocked his head at me and looked me over in assessment. 'It's free,' he said at last, and he handed me your perfect, white wedding dress."

And that, dear readers, is gospel.

From the Archives: Seeing Bobak in Berkeley

Written maybe early 2009? Not sure.

Bobak. Like always you were willow-thin, with skin the color of almonds, and hair black and curly as a dark lamb's. You, the most polite of boys. You used to say, "Thank you, sir," to the referees when my father, your coach, subbed you into the back row at volleyball matches, but you laughed at your opponents through the net and from the bench, taunting them in the tongue of the shah. They could not understand you. That day, though, you were walking down College Avenue. Your shadow was long in the orange light, and it crossed mine, coming up the hill towards you. The air was warm. I had not seen you since we left high school, and after we said hello I took it upon myself to spoil your afternoon by telling you that my father died, believing, as I still do, that you loved him a little. When I told you, you were very polite in your condolence, as I knew you would be, and I still wonder why I told you. You would never have known otherwise, and your afternoon would have gone on warm and beautiful in the orange light in Berkeley.

Notes from the Frozen East

Snowmageddon has entered day five? Day six? Who can count? It's all a great white drift. Trees kneel prostate under their crowns of snow, like princes called too early into kingship. Roofs threaten to collapse under the burdens, and workers walk the frozen rooflines gingerly to shovel it off. And still the snow falls.

Within, days bleed together, busy, cozy, restless. And always the beeping of Snow Cats, the scrape of shovels, the tromp and slide of galoshes through snow deep as the thigh, driven into sculptures by the wind.

Snow Day

The week before Christmas, I shoveled the driveway. That's no act of breaking news, but for me it was a first - and what a first! The sky had opened and blasted the earth with twenty inches of chilled whiteness. My roommate's car was blotted out, a vaguely vehicular hump. The stairs had ceased to be.

So in the first clear morning after the storm, when the sky was penitently blue, I began to shovel the driveway. It's sixty or seventy feet from the front door to the road. Three or four hours later, with swollen pink blisters on my hands and the sense that my bones had dried to powder with the effort, I retired inside, believing I should, mercifully, never see such a snowfall again. Not here in D.C, the capital of sloppy winters and torpid summers.

But six weeks later, and behold: the snow comes on, cold and silent and perfect, a great hand falling to hush the mouth of the world. Twenty to twenty-eight inches of it.

In. Out. Often.

Some changes come without foresight, like a car pulling out from a blind driveway. While the double-shot of adrenaline pumps through your heart, you put on the brakes and invoke your sacred loves. Only afterwards do you have a chance to assess the change wrought in you by what you never saw coming.

And some changes you see coming from a long way off, like a little town on a long stretch of open highway. Miles away, you see it, but for a while it seems no closer, just a dark pinprick that might be a bit bigger than a moment ago.

But events along awaited do come at last. My big event is here.

Today is our wedding day. Many things shall end today, and many begin. I woke long before dawn and could not sleep again. I feel calm, but charged, and alert to the end of my fingertips: alive to divine presence and all that's good to see, smell, and touch.

But with the constant, slow release of adrenaline, I often catch myself holding my breath. I make myself then take long, slow, steady draughts of air, and it occurs to me that we ought to pray in the same way that we breathe: in, out, and often.

I remember because prayer must be the breath I breathe today - especially today - because today is not, in fact, about the dress and the tux, or the cake and the flowers, or even, at its most profound depths, about the bride, the groom, or our loved ones. Today is about God. For God it was who brought two strangers on the intricate paths that brought us to the right place at the right time, and God it was who over the last months made a man and of woman of no relation into kin of soul. And God it shall be who laughs the loudest with joy to give Adam back his rib again.

In all the imperfection that mars us and the world there works a perfectly good God. Today I stand on a mountaintop where for a brief transfigured hour, the goodness of God in all of life, which we celebrate in the ceremony and the reception, is easily traced.

And to give him glory, I breathe and I pray: in. out. often. May I do so still when we descend again below the clouds.

Whatever joyous or hard thing awaits you today, breathe, dear friends, and pray: in. out. often.