Monday's Sunday Thoughts II

There are a few scriptures whose symbols for me are so tactile that they make me ache with that longing for beauty kind of ache - that ache that makes it feel like your heart is being stretched like so much red silly putty.

"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!" (Isaiah 52:7)

I can feel myself up to my knees in bluebells and fireweed in a meadow below a peak like I'm Maria Van Trap.  With my arms spread wide above my head I'm singing against the wind that life is good, people are good, and God is good.  It gives me an ache in my heart that says, "Jessica, get up a mountain and get yourself heard to the farthest corner of the universe."

And then, "Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not." (Matthew 23:37)

First of all, the "Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem" just about kills me before the verse even gets started.  I get choked on the tenderness of Jesus' rebuke before he even gets to the part about wanting to cuddle Jerusalem up in his downy feathers if only they would take a few steps forward and hunker in.    I can feel the warmth of the blood running through matronly chicken vessels and hear the swish of it and nothing else with feathers tucked warm around my ears.  It evokes such a complete absence from everything cold, noisy and hard about life.  I ache for that for sure.

And then this one that I heard yesterday that made me achy as the words came out of the Sister's mouth who spoke them, "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies...Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.  She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.  She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness...Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised."  (Proverbs 31)

I think this is a downright gorgeous description of the ideal of womanhood and it makes me ache like my heart is moving forward without me.  If I could paint I would so totally, completely, and unendingly try to paint this woman.  She'd have muscles on her arms, softness in the roundness of her eyes, but sharpness at the corners.  She'd have callouses on her hands.  She'd be dressed in blue.  Her hair would fall straight and clean along a face with no worry-wrinkles crowding around her mouth.  She would be beautifully plain just like Anne Shirley minus the carrot top.  I think my leaping heart comes mostly from wanting to be that woman when I'm pretty much twelve steps behind her.

So maybe you've guessed that I didn't get to go to church today.  Sidekick Sister woke us up before 6 this morning with the patter of her feet and an, "I'm going to throw up" coming down the hallway.  And then a "blah!" all over the carpet at our doorway and then some more, "blah" once she reached the toilet in our bathroom.  I got to stay home with the poor, little, sick thing.  It can be strange to sit around on a Sunday in your lazy day clothes.  I feel much better now that I got some churchy thoughts out.  Thanks for humoring this church-every-Sunday gal.  I feel like a person who went into the chiropractor with her back all out of sorts and now I'm coming out all straight.