Passion Wednesday: Bare branches and a pilgrimage meltdown

JS Bach offers you a lullaby for your aching heart.

Mar 27, 2024

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“Forsythia buds covered by snow.” AI generated.

This is the fourth of our Passion Week Consolations 2024 which have been sent to paid subscribers only. If you meant to sign up to receive these daily consolations in your inbox and to be part of our communion of fellow pilgrims you can still do so by choosing the paid tier here.

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Dear fellow pilgrim,

Three days into our passion journey I arrived at my first pilgrimage meltdown. You know it. The point when you declare that you are done already, when you doubt having signed up for that journey in the first place, when you wonder why you packed all the wrong clothes, and how to book the fastest train back home instead of continuing the path untrodden?

That kind of pilgrimage meltdown.

After a week of straining my mothering heart with caring for a sick family, I got upset about a piece of world news which trespassed onto my screen unasked.

Is that maybe how Judas felt? Lord, we need a revolution and you want us to do what? Love our enemies? Follow your cross? What about throwing down the mighty from their thrones and scattering the proud? What about fixing the injustice? What about the real sorrow from war and oppression?

I shall walk inwardly carrying my cross while the world burns? Please, Lord?

And so I ventured out into the snow. Out the backdoor I stumbled into the backyard with the fresh fallen snow, all the way back to the fence where the forsythia bushes grow.

Have you found and cut some branches of hope for your passion journey already to bring inside?

When I arrived at the forsythia with shears in hand I saw them. Little yellow buds which had been tricked into early Spring before the winter came back.

I held the branches - or did they hold me? Standing there alone in the snow in the midst of my inner turmoil I felt just like that forsythia twig. Tricked into Spring only to arrive in winter again.

Cutting several branches to bring them inside, breathing in the cold air and listening to the birds singing of Spring, something shifted. Those tender buds covered in snow melted away some of my own meltdown.

Creation is like this. Coming and going, dying and blooming. And sometimes the timing is off.

“Let’s do it again!” is what our pre-schooler begs us when things don’t go according to plan. “Let’s just try again, please!”

And so I very much hope my forsythia will try again, as will I, too. I am surely looking forward to see it spring into bloom inside our home come Easter.

Listening Practice: Offer your tears and your heart

If the tears on my cheek might not change the course of the world,
they do open my heart,
and maybe the heart of the whole world.

For today’s Passion Consolation I have chosen Bach's Aria "Können Tränen meiner Wangen,"(Could the tears on my cheek…). A heart wrenching Aria, sung like a lullaby for your bleeding heart.

The Aria sits in The St. Matthew Passion after the people scream "Crucify him!" It arises tenderly just after the crowd chose the lie over the truth and calls us into weeping.

As with all Arias in Bach's Passion they give voice to emotion and movement, and read like a commentary to the story. They translate the story into inward movement, inviting us to venture into our innermost heart, where Divine consolation awaits.

I offer you, pilgrims on our passion week consolations, two interpretations of this Aria:

The first is by the Netherlands Bach Society, beautifully sung, almost ethereal by the male Alto Alex Potter. It feels like a balm for my aching heart when ever I hear it.

The second interpretation comes from the Jewish/Arabic early music ensemble Sarband, which merges cultural tensions, using early music instruments and an almost jazzy mid-eastern interpretation, sung hauntingly by the Lebanese female Alto Fadia el Hage.

I am deeply in love with both versions and hope you will find the time for both throughout your day.

Let us know in our private comment section: Which one moves YOUR heart? Or do they move your heart differently? And what arises in your heart while listening?

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