Cross
“ I’m feeling so cross with you!” “ It’s your cross to bear.” “ Cross that out and start again.”
I am seeing ‘crosses’ everywhere these days.
I’m at a train crossing. I’m looking down at the sidewalk. I see one in the branches of a tree that is about to sprout brand new, light green leaves. In my window frames. Everywhere.
It’s the Easter season now. And the cross is heavily on my mind. And heart.
“ The artist, making a chalice of his hands and of his heart, takes all experiences-painful and joyful, ordinary and extraordinary- places them into the chalice and transforms them by love into his creations.
The artist follows in Christ’s footsteps-he who took bread and wine and transformed them into himself to feed mankind’s need for love, for beauty, for understanding, for joy. “ (The People of the Towel and Water)
“Follows in Christ’s footsteps….” Our Christ who carried his own cross through the city only to be NAILED to it and hung there to die. Ridiculed. Insulted. Hurt. Abandoned. Mocked. Not believed. Killed.
In the past I have heard myself saying, “It’s my cross to bear”, about something or other.
But what is my ‘cross’ compared to the horrifying suffering Jesus endured?
Perhaps you make the ‘sign of the cross’ before prayers . The cross no longer a punishment but a true sign of hope. We cross ourselves to remember……to remember that Jesus gave up his life for us. For me!
I see crosses everywhere. And they remind me that I’m not alone.
That I am loved.
That even when we think the worst has happened …there is always hope.
Look for the crosses.
Learn from them too.