easter friday: label scar

A couple weeks ago I was uphill on the adjacent mesa and discovered one of the grocery store/supermarkets boarded up; a sign on the door informed and advised shoppers of three other locations of that particular chain. Building and façade were not in great condition (polite version), and likely hadn't made better than a marginally okay cosmetic presentation for at least a decade. This drama at an angle pic is a different unoccupied building, but shows vestiges of a functional past as well as decay and desolation from disuse and neglect—like the experiences of some people?

Walter Brueggemann says "bright, skilled, educated people are valued and sought after." He also speaks about people feeling nullified. Well-maintained, brightly-lit buildings filled with appealing merchandise are valued and sought after, but in some locations get nullified nonetheless? The label scar on the empty building tells us the last commercial occupant was Bradlees, a big box retailer that bit the dust early in 2001. Unlike the fairly active shopping center on Adjacent Mesa, the whole area looks abandoned, yet the sky still is blue and the sun still casts shadows.

easter friday: label scar / baptism

From an old post on one of my currently inactive theology blogs, this isn't remotely original, but I like what I said:

Someone at Former Church asked me, "Which good news story are you going to share?" I replied, "This Gospel in which we stand, the Good News into which we are baptized, is life-giving, world-changing, society-transforming, creation-renewing death and resurrection stuff! It's not about endless recycling of the same thing, so why do you still seek the living among the dead? Right here and right now, we live on the other side of death..."

and as friend at Church up the Hill insisted, "the new creation is not pristine." Marked with the sign of the cross forever, the sky still is blue and the light of Christ still casts shadows...

...my life cries out for resurrection!!!