Stuff we're meant to be

This weekend we hosted Up with People cast members--the sister and bro-in-law of my BFF Beth, from college. Beth and another sister came down from Minneapolis to see sister Ellen and the Up with People show. We ate a good deal of soup during the snow and ice. It was a very fun weekend.
Even more than fun, it was an inspiring weekend. Beth is an inspiring young woman. She loves people with abandon, and shows it through visits, care packages, phone calls, and her work with the American Refugee Committee. I am inspired to love others more deeply because of Beth. It is good that her visit came in the beginning of Lent. Beth and the season of Lent--inspiring me to be the person God created me to be.

Lent Poem

Late winter's time for counting down
these lengthening days and weeks
toward a blossoming that must embrace
the savaging by hammer, nails and thorn,
the spilling of the blood, the cry,
the bringing down and cradling,
the tearing of the veil, the cave,
the sealing with the stone.

A time for leaning forward,
stripping bare all vestiges of hope,
visiting again this stuff we're made of,
stuff we're meant to be,
thrusting upward-bulbwise--through
the frozen dark toward
a penetration that may tear the skin,
yet still can roll the stone away.

J. Barrie Shepherd, Christian Century Magazine, April 5, 2003