—Michael King, seminary dean

Darin Busé, a United Methodist pastor, came to with a distinct plan: in his studies, he would “seek healing so that I could learn to heal healers.”

The pain and wounds he sought to heal are deep and old and shared by many who have seen war: Darin is a combat veteran who enlisted in the U.S. Army three weeks before his 19th birthday. He worked as a psychological operations specialist in several major combat operations, including Honduras, Panama and in Iraq during the First Gulf War.

“I have confronted evil face to face,” Darin said while in the fall of 2015. “I have smelled the pungent aroma of life being burned away. I have tasted the ultimate sacrifice that others have given to defend their country and their cause. In the midst of that, my innocence was shattered…my morality was destroyed and my spirit was devastated.”

Among his fellow seminarians and faculty, Darin has been frank about his life experiences and his relationship to and among violence. Eastern Mennonite Seminary, rooted in the traditionally pacifist Anabaptist faith, is open to all faiths.

Darin has learned and grown in his studies, his friendships and his reflections, enough that he can say the healing he came for is “well underway.”

Yet he still needed guidance for the second part: to heal the healers.

That discernment was blessed during a workshop during the January 2016 (SLT), when Pastor Paul Stutzman drew on the riches of his Church of the Brethren tradition to reflect on the Love Feast and footwashing rituals rooted in Jesus’ final supper with his disciples. To help participants understand some of the dynamics of the disciples, including Peter who first objected to having Jesus wash his feet, Paul asked participants to experience having their feet washed by persons in leadership roles.

Darin reflects: That morning I wanted to respond as Peter did in John 13:1-17, “No, you shall never wash my feet.” I’m not sure why I was at first so reluctant. Perhaps it was the fear of being vulnerable. Perhaps it was an acutely ingrained sense of authority and hierarchy: my station demanded that I be the one who served rather than being served. Or perhaps I was beginning to grasp that my time at seminary was coming to an end and the work of being a transformational leader was approaching. In any case, Christ was there and his presence was undeniable.

The leader who knelt at Darin’s feet was the dean of the seminary, Michael King, who knew Darin’s story well.

“Unbidden came an image of washing off the sand of Iraq,” he remembers. “I shared this with Darin while completing the washing.”

It was a moving moment for both men.

Eventually, the seminary dean reached out to the combat veteran to share his feelings.

Can we share this moment of transformation with others? Michael asked via email.

Humbled by the invitation, Darin replied, Yes. He shared more:

That evening, after I returned home from SLT, I confided in my wife and was moved to inconsolable tears at the profound presence of God in that moment. My spiritual walk thus far has taken me through many swamps and deserts, both literal and figurative. Over the years my feet had accumulated an immeasurable amount of road dust. Not until you said to me, “I felt as though I was washing away the desert sand of Iraq” did the transformational work God had been doing for me become fully real.

At one point in my military career, I gazed in the mirror and didn’t recognize the face looking back at me. I turned physically away at that moment and vowed never again to return to the life that had taken me so far from my Lord.

During a formational moment at EMS, we were asked to reflect back on when we felt farthest from God’s grace and to picture Christ there. I imagined Jesus standing behind me in that reflection. I imagined when I turned around Jesus wrapped me in his arms and held me. While relaying this to my classmates, it hit me that Christ was there all along, holding me and welcoming me back into relationship.

Your kindness, humility and servant leadership has offered one of the most pivotal moments in my life. That sacred and sacramental moment has caused me to stand up and strive to live out the calling God has placed before me. That day I heard Christ’s voice say to me, “Do you understand what I have done for you?” ^��“You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am.^��Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.”

I had been at a loss as to how God was using that moment of footwashing to share healing. Through this e-mail asking whether we could tell our story together, I believe God answered that prayer.

Faculty, staff, students and alumni have written reflections based on the Lectionary scriptures for the 40-day period leading up to Easter Sunday, Apr. 12.

“Many of us hardly know what true fasting and penitence looks like,” says Brian Martin Burkholder, 91����Ƶ campus pastor, in an introductory Ash Wednesday message. “We’re pretty high on living into an Easter faith with almost daily Easter feasting! What would it mean to give ourselves to practicing a genuine Lenten journey?

Martin Burkholder notes that the scriptures selected for Lent 2009 “invite us to encounter significant God-initiated covenants and the journey of Jesus from being anointed by God through baptism to faithfully surrendering his life on the cross. How might we respond?

“I invite us to take the risk of moving toward a genuine Lenten journey this year. Let the sense of emptiness come and strive to not fill it with fluff,” Martin Burkholder states.

“Ponder the big questions of life and faith and even doubt. Embrace the depths of reflection that does not quickly resolve. We can be travel companions. Perhaps this guide will help.”

Persons may subscribe to automatically receive each devotional or may visit the blog at any time.

It’s still cool, even wintry-like at times, but change is happening – slowly, quietly, surely.

Around our house, daffodils and tulips force their way through the crusty mulch, testing conditions, deciding whether to thrust forth with confidence or retreat to whence they came.

Fat robins cavort in our yard, breaking forth in song one minute, shivering the next.

The calendar declares it, the great outdoors seconds it – Spring is in the air.

Indoors, an amaryllis plant that I potted at Thanksgiving is starting to put on a Technicolor display. I start one each November in hopes of the large colorful blooms cheering up the often bleak month of January.

This time, nothing seemed to happen in spite of lavishing extra attention on the dormant bulb. Christmas came and went with no indication of green shoots or a flower stalk imminent.

Several times I came close to pitching the stubborn plant, then recanted. Apparently the contrary plant decided to give up growing for Lent, only to strut its stuff for Easter.

Stubborn flowering plants act a lot like people, but we shouldn’t give up on them either.

I also purchase an Easter lily each year, enjoy its beauty and fragrance, then plant it outside and watch for it to spring up again the following year.

An obstinate amaryllis at the Bishop residence waited until Easter to break forth with joy.
Photo by Jim Bishop

Easter weekend comes especially early this year, at a time when the weather remains unpredictable and uncertain.

It’s a time of promise, of newness, of renewal and hope. The long dark nights and desolation of winter are passing. But wintertime’s hibernation and dormancy spell is necessary in order for new life to burst forth again.

This old guy still looks forward to getting an Easter basket, joining with other family members in searching indoors and outside for the wicker container laden not so much with chocolate goodies as with small, useful everyday items. Finding this hidden treasure is half the fun.

Easter encompasses all that life is meant to be in its fullness.

In contrast, humanity seems intent on pursuing a path that leads to destruction – inflicting pain and suffering on each other to get what we want or to impose our will on others, whether on an individual level or broader scope.

I think of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and especially in Iraq, now two years old and counting.

Does Iraq have any connection with Easter?

I think so.

The Easter story is a violent one, full of trauma, injustice and death. One ends joyfully, triumphantly, the other . . . well, the verdict has yet to be returned.

We can use violent means to try to bring about change, between people and between countries, but it won’t change people’s minds or hearts. Only genuine love can do that.

Boundless love, reconciliation, life beyond the grave – that’s the message of Easter, if we are open to hearing and accepting it.

But, love our enemies? Here and now? Maybe the person next to you that you can’t stand, that’s a possibility. But our perceived enemies half way around the world? How absurb, even though the One who Easter is all about called us to do precisely that.

The cross, used by the powerful to suck the life out of the powerless, became the instrument that changed the world.

In the shadow of that empty cross, we can fully live – now and forever.

Jim Bishop is public information officer at 91����Ƶ. He can be contacted at .

Volunteers bring soup and bread to the seminary to share with the community. The community gathers in the area outside Martin Chapel to eat and enjoy each other

Three staff persons from 91����Ƶ were among eight Harrisonburg area people who worked together to create resource materials for a 2005 Easter to Pentecost worship series.

The materials, titled "Unbound!", with a different subtitle for each Sunday, are intended for use by pastors and other congregational leaders and will soon be available in "Leader" magazine, published by Faith and Life Resources, a division of Mennonite Publishing Network.

At the invitation of Marlene Kropf, director of the Office of Congregational Life, Elkhart, Ind., the group gathered last winter at Park View Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg for a weekend to begin the planning process. The work was completed individually and in small groups through the spring and summer months with Shirley Yoder Brubaker of the Park View congregation as local team coordinator.

"The Office of Congregational Life has coordinated the development of worship resources for Advent and for Lent, but this was the first time to develop worship resources for the Easter to Pentecost church season," noted Brian Martin Burkholder, 91����Ƶ campus pastor and a group member.

Other 91����Ƶ employees on the planning team were Jill K. Landis, associate director of church partnerships at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, and Kevin Clark, part-time instructor at the seminary.

Other committee members included Kris Shank Zehr, Edie Bontrager, Gloria Diener and Lucinda Swartzendruber, all from the Harrisonburg area.