Lent 4 (Year A): Litany for Mud and Spit

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Sometimes, like now, we have to endure mud and spit so that we can have our eyes opened and receive light in them. The very essentials of earth and humanity spread across our field of vision, that we may become unblinded. 

When this happens, we have choices: we can scoff at the method, ignore it, resist it. (Gross! Inconvenient! Unneccesary!). Or. We can see it as the love it is. Surrender. Practice gratitude. 

We are in a moment of apocalypse here on this planet. (Apocalypse meaning “revealing”.) Our fragility and vulnerability revealed. In our privilege we are convinced of our invulnerability. We put our faith in economic forces and our physical capabilities to keep us safe and insulated from hardship, only to learn that they are easily toppled by the most base and microscopic of single celled* foes. 

The best part about the story in John 9, of the man born blind whom Jesus heals with “mud and saliva”, is the new level of agency the previously blind man seems to step into. He speaks for himself. He decides to follow Christ. He stands up to bullies. He testifies to the Christ (John 9:33). 

So. We may be whirling. We may feel anxious. But we have an opportunity to have faith in the Light, to regard our new level of seeing as a gift. Because we know that “...Everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." (Ephesians 5:13,14)


God, we know that Christ has come into the world
So that those who are un-seeing might see,
And so that we who are certain of our perspective,
Might have our spiritual blindness revealed ...