by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn
​
Come sit with me by the fire
Say nothing
Stare me
Together let’s climb atop the pyre
Our false selves
There me
Come walk with me through her canopy
Drapes of green
Small me
She swings her censer of fertility
Slow quiet push
Thrall me
Come kneel with me, bells toll the hour
Divine song
Sing me
Speak only the words of heaven’s power
Host and Cup
Feed me
Come slip through with me nightshade’s curtain
Four horsemen
Veil me
Stand fast: “No man dies alone,” Merton
Crush Serpent
Break me
Come run with me at dawn’s first light
Entombment 
Roll me
I have run the race, fought the good fight
Vict’ry’s won
Scroll me

by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn

Flee!
Flee!
Flee!
60 miles per hour
the dove flies
and escapes the fowler’s snare
protect me from myself
you O One, true One, are ahead of me
O Love, O Lover of me and Knower,
Soul Searcher
Heart Searcher
who knew me before I was formed
you have a plan for me that
no superstition can conquer.
What judge can assess me?
None. No one knows my darkness
my sin goes before me
like an advance team, scouting out opportunity.
I am undone;
demised
tortured
Perhaps the birds are demons, possessed, corrupted.
They call and sing
burdened and frenetic and panicked
they are full of scarcity and fright
they are worthless
yet
yet
yet
yet you know each is worth more to you than gold
Not one falls that you are not mindful of it
Whom shall I fear then?
Death comes knocking – Parades!
And I run out into the street
to see what is the commotion.
“Look, it is DEATH! Be very afraid!
Don’t trust g-d for the One is away,
and the One is uncaring! Flee!”
But this is not like a bird.
A bird trusts you O One for its next
seed and bug, and bath and song
the birds sing to the sunrise and welcome
the morning illumination
All demons flee at the light.
the dawn kills fear.
For you O One are Light.
May we flee, flee, flee to you.
Doves fly at 60 miles per hour.
​

by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn
O God, each year you give us the happiness of celebrating the Lord’s resurrection. 
By celebrating this feast that sanctifies time 
may we attain the reward of rejoicing eternally.
– Grail Psalter for Easter Wednesday April 7th
I am struck by the Psalter’s insight that the gospel year “sanctifies time.” A good Lent makes for a good Easter. All those days of prayer, contrition, confession, abstinence and fasting – they make time valuable, those days are sanctified by our attentiveness to prayer.
I wish all my time was “sanctified.”  I wish I would spend all my days at the King’s table.  I wish I’d never leave.  No gap between myself and g-d.
This is possible of course.  To walk with Jesus each day is actually easy.  It takes a rhythm, a routine, a reminder outside of our will, our self determination.
Wednesday morning around 6:00 a.m. I walked out to get the newspaper and the dark pre-dawn was fully awake and alive with the songs of dozens of birds.  Their song was a blasting chorus of Spring.  It was sweet and clear and joyous and energetic.  “Delight” is the word that comes to mind – like a garden of delights, an Eden I suppose.  I smile at my joy.  I smirk at my cynicism, which lies just below the thought surface.  I will not go there, or as J.R.R. Tolkien put it, ‘it isn’t a fairy story if we break the frame… you don’t want to take the soup apart into its individual pieces, but keep it a stew…” Get it?  In other words do not say (I hesitate) don’t say “it’s just mating calls and territorial calls.”
The sanctification of that morning’s moment in time comes because I chose to NOT explain it.  I just… joined in.
The music of heaven is all around us.  The birds sing of the resurrection, the flowers point their faces toward the light.  The colors flood back in vivid green; hawthorne trees shoot off their canons of white plume; purples and pinks stand for the coronation in full dress uniform.  These are the moments of joy and new creation.  Christ has risen, and our time is made holy because we paid attention.
I feel pity for those evangelical churches that do not observe Lent and Passion Week.  They miss out on all that sanctified time.
A handful of us make our pilgrimage to Conception Abbey Friday for our contemplative retreat.  We will rest and re-create and wrestle.  But unlike our last pilgrimage in January with snowy fog, this April trip is always filled with crisp mornings abloom.
May we stand and praise the Author of time and be sanctified!

6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ “
8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. (Mark 16:6-8)

by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn
​How rich is this day, Good Friday.  “Good” because our King has paid the price for our sin.  Our Passover has been sacrificed.  For sin always costs.  Because of this day sin doesn’t cost us.
How rich the day…
For HE who sits in the heavens laughs at the nations who believe they are in charge (Psalm 2)
For JESUS who hangs upon the gibbet of the cross and cries out in our deepest cry, “My GOD, My God why have you forgotten me?”  G-d as human – such is the Father’s love.  Death takes him.
For Christ is our High Priest, Christ is our Mediator of the new covenant.  But he did not enter and make atonement with the blood  bulls and goats. No, he atones with his own blood, the complete, effective, perfect sacrifice – g-d himself.  Such love.  (Hebrews 9)
How rich the day…
The soldier pierces his side and out comes water and blood.
We are a people marked by the water and blood… “Now the water was a symbol of baptism and the blood, of the holy Eucharist.” St. John Chrysostom. From these two – the water and the blood – the church is fashioned.  The Church, the bride of Christ is betrothed upon this day, from Jesus’ side, like Eve taken from Adam’s side, his rib, “bone from my bones, flesh from my flesh!”
For the church was always g-d’s plan.  Church: the forever fellowship with g-d.  The church is not a temporary stage, meant to stay “our current situation” until Jesus returns.  No, the church was from the beginning the ideal, the fellowship of g-d and humanity, our “chief end.” Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever. (Westminster Shorter Catechism)
Our Lord has sacrificed for his bride, the church.  We are loved by the water and blood.  Therefore, we worship our Savior.  But before we worship…  death must be put into its proper place.
And there is one more thing…
there comes to each of us the conversation on the shore of the lake…  “Do you love me?”