They Buried Him in a Hurry

I've been using 24-7 Prayer's Lenten podcasts as a way to reflect in the lead-up to Easter.  Today's reflection from Carla Harding struck me deeply.  "They buried Him in a hurry..."

Good Friday

Good Friday is an odd sort of day to encounter, when you're having a year in which you've boldly declared that this year the thing you're giving up for Lent is in fact the practice of Lent.

It's odder still when you in fact gave up Lent because it had become a grinding obligation - a continual and unending suffering, with no room for feasting or joy.

I woke this morning, and stood in the shower (the place where I do some of my best thinking and praying) and pondered.

For the last several years, I've lived the Lenten season as a reflection of life.  My life seemed to only carry suffering, there was little love or joy in my faith, and Lent seemed a perfect fit for that - a season of fasting, suffering, denial, preparation.  A season that moves inexorably towards this day that we mark the crucifixion, the death of a savior.  Easter had become a sort of afterthought - an "oh yes, and there was resurrection," but I was stuck on that Friday, stuck in death and pain and anguish.  I lived out my days and months and years in a Friday mindset.

And this year I declared that enough was enough.  I wasn't going to encourage my natural proclivity for suffering and angst.  Lent moved quickly, this year, with an awareness of the coming of Easter, but not the weighing, dragging of days that it has had for the past several.

I read somewhere that Christians are Easter people, living in a Good Friday world.  I was just a Good Friday person most of the time.

And so I found myself pondering in the shower this morning, feeling almost offended that a day had arrived that demanded my attention focus, at least for a time again, on the suffering.  How dare I be forced to think about that?

And yet, if I can't, if I can't pause and recognize this suffering that has been marked for my healing, what good am I?  How can I be an Easter person, if I can't also see and empathize with a Good Friday world? If I close my eyes and cloister myself in my own controlled world?

I become useless cloistered away in that fashion, and I wither.  And, the reality that these last years have so clearly taught is this - I can't control even my own world, my own desire to avoid personal suffering.

And so today I'm pausing.

I paused through an hour long Tenebrae service - a carefully constructed meditation on shadows, with roots in the fourth century.  I walked in silence from the church, with the others in attendance.  The solemnity that follows the removal of Christ, his laying in the tomb.  The entrance to the days between.

And I'm pondering.

I have learned that being a Good Friday person isn't healthy, and I'm working to learn what it is to be that Easter person, while still carrying great empathy and compassion for a Good Friday world.  I'm learning what it is to exist in those Good Friday moments, without them becoming overpowering.

And I'm thinking about my one word for the year.  Heal.

I'm recognizing that without a Good Friday moment, that healing would not be mine.

And so I wait, today, for resurrection Sunday.

Further Thoughts on Lent

It would seem that browsing the blog world on Ash Wednesday is a guilt inducing project for someone who has boldly (if somewhat glibly and also prayerfully) declared that this year what they are giving up for Lent is, well, Lent.  I've read post after challenging post this morning, detailing the intentions of some I know and some I don't for the next 40 days or so, as they seek to draw closer to God and prepare their hearts for Easter.

The truth is, the liturgical part of me, the part of me who spent five years at university basking in the history of the church and of the faith, feels just a bit longing today, as this Lenten season begins and I read of others entering into their chosen practices.  A text message yesterday from a friend who (accurately based on past experience) assumed that I might be attending a service somewhere today, and asking if she could join me, left me in the awkward position of explaining that no, I didn't have any intentions of attending a service, or of particularly practicing Lent this year.

But the part of me that loves history and tradition feels a bit bereft today, even knowing that a minimal Lenten practice is right for my heart this year.

And the truth is, that bereft feeling is a good thing.

It answers a question I'd been asking.  A question that is part of the reason for my decision to "give up Lent for Lent."

I'd been asking if that was truly a part of me, or if it was something I created in efforts to fit my surroundings and please others these last several years.

I'd remade myself in the image of others, in an image I perceived to be one that would gain me acceptance, love, and grace, and part of that remaking was an obsessive focus on the liturgical calendar and seasons.

There is a relief in that separating realization - that this thing that I'd claimed deeply part of me, truly is.

And so, this year, though I didn't eat pancakes last night, won't attend services today, and don't have any planned practices to span the next forty days, my heart will still engage with that.

I'll read blog posts and choose to feel joy for the authors - challenged and inspired by their chosen practices and sacrifices - rather than feel guilt for my own lack of outward sacrificial choices.

Tonight I'll go to a yoga class instead of a church service, and that will be okay, because yoga has been a gift to me in the quiet, peace and rest it has brought, the time to slow down and breathe and listen.

And I'll pray with attention, with intention, with joy and with peace, knowing that by choosing to "give up Lent" I am being obedient to the urging of God for my own heart, and that in this space, I will also be shaped and formed, though differently than other years.

Giving up Lent for Lent

"I'm giving up Lent for Lent."

It was a glib phrase that rolled off my tongue on Sunday night, as I was chatting with my brother's girlfriend.  (She'd been telling me that she is giving up spending money for Lent, and in preparation has been on a spending spree the last several days, stocking up on items she knows she'll need to have on hand, and we were laughing over the irony of that.)

A glib phrase, yes, but one that's true for me this year.

I practiced Lent for the first time in my last year of high school, ten years ago exactly.  I'd spent three years attending a Catholic high school, listening to my classmates bemoan their lack of chocolate or television or fast food for forty days in the late winter and early spring, and wondered what on earth this thing called Lent was (it wasn't exactly a practice familiar to my conservative evangelical upbringing).  I asked a friend, my Young Life leader, and together we read a brief entry in a theological dictionary.  She told me that she'd done it a few times, and nearly dared me to give it a shot.  I did.

That year I gave up reading fiction and magazines.  Brain candy reading, essentially.  I made a trip to the library, picked up a stack of Christian classics, or titles authored by those whose faith I admired, and started reading.  I think I only made it through one or two titles in the forty days (to this day I fly through novels, but tend to crawl through non-fiction), but the words that I read from thinkers as diverse as John Stott and Mother Teresa shaped and challenged me.  I've repeated that particular choice of Lenten sacrifice several times over the last ten years.  I've fasted desserts and sweets, experimented with more or less intentionality in the fasts, and even with adding something to my daily life, rather than subtracting.  And by and large these brief periods of sacrifice have tended to end with benefits reaped and a faith deepened.

But the last several years, Lent has shifted for me.  Instead of a worshipful meditation, it became a grinding obligation.  A performance of good habits, for the sake of good habits.  A dreaded interruption to my years.  The benefits of the fasts seemed lost in the resentment I felt at the obligation, and at the brutal and painful way the season impacted me.  There were reasons for that grinding painfulness that are too involved to share here.

I've made a lot of changes in my life over the last six months or so, and this year, I'm giving up practicing Lent as I work to continue the process of healing that I've been experiencing.

I may come back to it at some point in the future, but I want to approach the acknowledgment of the season with joy and desire, not anger, hostility and obligation.  I want to do it because it is something that has a positive impact on my life, not because it seems necessary, or because others I know are practicing it.  I'm not interested in suffering simply for the sake of suffering, or discipline for the sake of discipline, and this year, as I prayerfully considered the approach of the Lenten season (and I did prayerfully consider it, out of a decade's worth of habit, if nothing else), my sense was that I am simply to rest.  That I can sit this one out.  The God who has been speaking peace in places I didn't know it could exist, is speaking peace and stillness to this too.   Not a season of suffering and groaning.  Because honestly, I don't think I could face that right now.  Not something to dread (and I did dread it these last several years).  Not something to worry and obsess about.  Not something to be driven by, this need to appropriately prepare and move relentlessly through a season of suffering, towards a crucifixion.  No, in this season, I hear stillness, peace, joy, resurrection.

So I'm giving up Lent for Lent this year.  And I'm excited to meet Jesus in a place that need not be dreaded or avoided, but one that can be joyful, bring healing, and new life.

Daily 5 - Day 215

Today's Daily 5:

1. Stopped on my way home at the natural food store that's near the train station and restocked vitamins and some great organic dried fruit and nuts that they sell.
2. Cooked a proper, nutritious dinner for the first time since moving into Grandma's.  I've been avoiding the kitchen because it's upstairs and definitely in "her domain".  My body was letting me know that this wasn't working, so tonight I cooked.  Italian chicken over couscous, with oven roasted asparagus, mushrooms and cashews, sprinkled with sea salt.  I think my whole body sighed in relief at the normalcy of eating a relatively balanced meal, while catching up on some online TV.  And, there's enough left that I can have it for lunch tomorrow, and then one more meal - likely supper on Wednesday.
3. Caught up on the latest episode of The Amazing Race online tonight.  The travel fanatic in me loves watching that show.
4. Grandma mostly just let me do my thing while I was cooking.  That was such a blessing.
5. I've managed lately to keep up on my Lenten readings - that hasn't been easy to remember in my fairly exhausted state, so it makes me happy to know that I've managed to be a bit more consistent with it this last week.

Somehow hope

It's Monday again, and I'm struggling.

I'm feeling lonely.  A bit isolated.

Wondering about the state of a relationship that is precious.  Telling myself that I'm just being neurotic.  And then going on with the neuroses, seemingly unable to halt them.

I'm missing my roommate.  I process best aloud, talking with someone who I know is safe, and she was great for just letting me talk, get the crazy events of my "i work in a soap opera" days off my chest, so that they could dissipate and I could breathe again.

These days I live with Grandma, where every thought needs to be filtered, because any information she garners, she can and will share with everyone you know.

Let's just say that verbal processing isn't so much an option right now.

At least not at home.

Home.

That's a whole other topic.

The room looks like it's mine now.  I've unpacked most of my things.  I put together the "altar" spaces yesterday, unwrapping all the little items from their boxes and arranging them across the surfaces.

But it doesn't feel like home, and I wonder if it ever will.

If it will ever be anything other than "Grandma's basement".

If it will feel safe.

My happiest moment of the weekend was just before coming fully to conciousness this morning, when, just for a moment, I lay there and thought I was in the bedroom in my last apartment.

I watch for that apartment each morning as I go past it on the bus.

That was a happy place for me.  A place of healing.  A home.

And now God has led me elsewhere, and I'm struggling to be at peace with that.

It's not a particularly unique struggle, but right now it is consuming my days, my thoughts.

I find myself longing for something else.  Feeling unsettled, and "inbetween."

If I think about it too long, the tears build behind my eyes and I wonder if I will survive this latest step.

This move from a place that was healing to this whole other painful, awkward place.

Ironic that it is taking place during Lent.

The first Lent in several years where I am struggling too, to find my footing.  Not fasting in any of the traditional ways.  Forgetting at least three times a week to pick up the Lenten reading books I'd committed to using, and then guiltily "catching up" the following day, usually while I lean against the counter in the  tiny basement bathroom, waiting for the toilet to stop running, in case it doesn't stop and I need to take the lid off the tank and mess with things to make it stop.

It's Monday morning, and mostly, I want to cry.  Because my heart hurts.

And then I want to whine a little, too.  Because while I trust that God is in these places, too, they make me antsy and uncomfortable.  They hurt, and I don't like them.

So I listen, over and over, on repeat to Anis Mojgani's Shake the Dust.  Because the human heart beats a hundred thousand times a day.  And somehow that is hopeful.

And I ponder over and over these lines from Richard Rohr "Memory creates a readiness for salvation, an emptiness to receive love and a fullness to enjoy it. Strangely enough, it seems so much easier to remember the hurts, the failures and the rejections. It is much more common to gather our life energy around a hurt than a joy, for some sad reason. Remember the good things even more strongly than the bad, but learn from both. And most of all, “remember that you are remembered by God.”

Because I am remembered by God.  And there is hope in that too.  Even in the moments when I don't like what He is doing, I am remembered by him.

And because, in the absence of someone with whom I can process aloud, I can show up here, and write out my thoughts, and talk myself into somehow hoping, just for a little bit longer.

Daily 5 - Day 193

Today's Daily 5:

1. Getting some interest in the couch and loveseat that I'm selling on kijiji.  However, one of the responses was laughable - I'm selling both pieces for a total of $20, and the ad clearly says that I live in Calgary.  I received an email today wondering if the furniture was still available, and would I be able to deliver it to a small town about an hour and a half away.  Umm... No.  I won't be making a three hour round trip to deliver furniture that I'm only charging a total of $20 for.  The selling price would barely cover the cost of the trip, never mind my time!
2. Baked another new recipe today - the second one for this month.  Didn't think I was going to fit two in this month with the busyness of moving, but I did, and that left me with a great feeling of satisfaction.  Plus, the Chocolate Chip Pecan Blondies that I made taste pretty good too.
3. Got a refund without question this morning for the water bottle I purchased in January that was recalled because of breakage issues.  Since I returned one for that issue before it became a common one, and had another one break since, I was delighted to get a refund without any trouble.
4. Did some research into smart phones today while I was at the mall.  I'm thinking that my next phone is going to be an iphone.  Any opinions out there?  Or thoughts on how large a data plan I'd be likely to need?
5. Got caught up on my Lenten readings.
6. Painted my fingernails and toenails
7. Did some filing I've been ignoring (needed to finally do it before the move so that stuff didn't get lost because there were some pretty important papers in the pile - stuff I'll need to file my taxes soon.)
8. Read a couple more chapters in the book I'm working on for reviewing herre.
9. lounged and watched olympics while working on some of the aforementioned tasks
10. Had a great snack lunch today - love hummus and laughing cow cheese and blueberries and melba toast.  So tasty and simple.

Late Afternoon

It's late afternoon and I'm sitting at my parent's house.

Turns out I really didn't do much of the work I'd hoped to do this afternoon.  Mostly I lounged, feeling slightly grumpy about the fact that my whole body hurts at the moment.

Also feeling a little sorry for myself.

I really need to write a post here about the upcoming move.  It would make my current mess of emotions so much clearer.

Instead of that, though, I'm sitting here feeling sorry for myself.

Berating myself just slightly because I just realized that only a few days into Lent I'm already behind on the Lenten readings I'm doing this year, because I'm so out of the habit of making that daily quiet that last night, after packing all those books, I simply forgot to do the readings.  And it's not like I'm doing much for Lent.  Maybe I'm even feeling sorry for the loss of the self that could fast.  Is it possible that I miss that starvation diet I existed on for so long?

Time to snap out of it.  I need to start cooking.  (I'm making a recipe for mom and dad and company that was the fourth new recipe I've tried so far this year - couscous stuffed peppers.)

So, I'm mentally formulating the beginnings of today's "daily 5" and getting up off the couch, ignoring my achy muscles, and going to make food for people who I know will appreciate it. 

Henri on Ash Wednesday

A thought from Henri Nouwen on Ash Wednesday, excerpted from "The Road to Daybreak."

A Lenten Prayer


The Lenten season begins. It is a time to be with you, Lord, in a special way, a time to pray, to fast, and thus to follow you on your way to Jerusalem, to Golgotha, and to the final victory over death.

I am still so divided. I truly want to follow you, but I also want to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about prestige, success, pleasure, power, and influence. Help me to become deaf to these voices and more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to life.

I know that Lent is going to be a very hard time for me. The choice for your way has to be made every moment of my life. I have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words that are your words, and actions that are your actions. There are not times or places without choices. And I know how deeply I resist choosing you.

Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every place. Give me the strength and the courage to live this season faithfully, so that, when Easter comes, I will be able to taste with joy the new life that you have prepared for me.

Amen.

Other's Thoughts on Lent

I read a couple of posts about Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent this morning that I think are worth the read:

Check out Ian here.

And Claudia Mair Burney here.

Ash Wednesday

And so Lent begins again.

It's a season I love and hate sort of equally.

For me it tends to be one of the deepest seasons of the liturgical year.  The most significant. 

It also tends to be one of the most painful.

It feels odd to wake this morning and not be fasting.

I've always fasted from something during Lent.

This year is different, though.

303 days ago I rather forcefully came face to face with the fact that the immense stresses and challenges of my life had essentially led to the development of an eating disorder.  I'd lost around 25 pounds, rarely ate more than one meal and a few snacks a day, and it wasn't unusual for the nausea I was experiencing to get out of control, and for me to go several days without eating at all.

So, I started counting, and tracking.  For 303 days I've been faithful in taking a large number of supplements to restore the things I'd depleted in my body.  And for 303 days, I've eaten three consistent meals a day.

I would normally do a juice fast at least once a week during Lent.

That's not an option this year.

I need to eat three times a day to make it possible to take the supplements that manage my energy levels and anxiety issues.

I thought about giving up chocolate, and I may yet do something along those lines.  But this year as I prayed through that thought, the feeling that came was that I would be "fasting" simply for the sake of doing something, rather than because I'd been led to it.

I talked earlier this week about the in-between.  I'm trying conciously not to rush that process.  Not to jump to the next thing, even when it is clearly in sight, but to be patient in the waiting.

It's not easy.

And so Lent begins, and I am waiting, listening, praying.

The In-Between

I woke this morning from unsettling dreams again.

I can't pinpoint why this particular set has left me unsettled.  I can't even remember most of the images or plot-lines, though the few I recall are more ridiculous than anything else.

But I'm unsettled.

I woke, too, to the thought that I'm now officially tired of transition.

Of this in-between place.

I just want to be moved.

If this move is so clearly what God has next for me, then let's get on with it already.

Wouldn't it be nice if life worked like that?  God's guidance became clear, and you just walked on into it.

No period of transition or preparation.

No "in-between."

My life doesn't work like that.

There are lessons, I think, in the "in-between", but I find it a stressful time.  It wears on me.  The dreams and odd thoughts grow more intense.  My tolerance grows shorter, and my mood less patient. 

I think the in-between creates a longing that is healthy - a readyness for the new place God is leading, the new season.

But in me, the in-between is also revealing.  Revealing of true character.  Of flaws and issues left to be resolved.

Lent starts tomorrow.

It's a season of "in-between" built into the yearly church calendar, and a season that always impacts me profoundly.

That long season of waiting for new life, while moving inexorably towards death.

A season that feels like a contradiction in terms.

Apparently I'm going to need to make peace with the in-between.

On the short term, with waiting for moving to be complete, and for the moment of saying goodbye to my roommate, who has become a dear friend in the two years we've lived together.

On the slightly longer term in waiting to find a vehicle.

And on the slightly longer term yet, in waiting for the arrival of Easter.

I'm living in the "in-between" and it's a rather revealing place.

Remembering Ashes

Two years ago today, it was Ash Wednesday, and I was in Rome with dear friends.

It was the moment of a lifetime for me - to finally see some of the things I'd studied for all of those years in high school classes, and on through a university degree in European church history. 

But it came on the tail end of 4 very challenging weeks, and I was a bit discombobulated.

It was a day that I won't ever forget, though, for all the deep memories it holds, and for where it came in a sequence of four or five very challenging days.

It ended with the final Ash Wednesday mass for the year, with two dear friends, in St. Peter's Basillica, in the Vatican.

That mass is full of moments that like others from this series of anniversaries are both hopelessly blurred and incredibly clear.

I was wearing my hair in French braids, and the feeling of the ashes in the part of the braids is one I still recall.  The cross marked on my head.  That moment standing before the priest as he spoke (in Italian, or maybe Latin).  That day that reminds us of our fallibility - from dust we came, and to dust we will return.

It ushered in one of the most intense Lenten seasons of my life.  A season of fasting and praying and waiting and longing.

Today I'm remembering the ashes.  And the blessings spoken.  And praying for those who were with me in those moments.

Daily 5 - Day 119

Today's Daily "5":

1. Making it home safely in very snowy weather. It took an hour and a half, but I was really just so grateful to have made it home in one piece and without any problems. (I think I'm going to take the train tomorrow... never thought I'd voluntarily do that!)
2. I'm pleased that even after a frustrating drive home, I found the motivation to follow through on a commitment to myself to really fight for my health, and to still do the yoga workout I had planned. That is a change in me that I would never have predicted - voluntarily exercising.
3. I'm thankful that in the midst of really dark days, there is hope.
4. I'm thankful for seasons like Advent and Lent that remind me what it is to really and truly long for the Light to Come.
5. Someone told me today that I seem "cheerier" and "more myself" the last month or so. That was really encouraging, particularly on a day when I was really struggling with sadness.
6. I'm thankful that I had a bit of quiet time to myself tonight before my roommate got home with a friend in tow.
7. I'm thankful for mango rooibos tea, and a couple of the cookies I baked on the weekend.
8. I'm thankful for the smile that came when a friend was teasing me about my plans to take the train tomorrow, reminding me of all the "adventures" I have collected over the years on the train.
9. I'm thankful that I can catch up on all the episodes from my favorite television shows online
10. I'm thankful for the little things (email from a friend, phone call from a family member, chats with a coworker) that remind me that I am loved and not alone.
11. (BONUS ITEM!!) I'm thankful for an ipod, which makes driving for an hour and a half to travel 15 kilometers a much more bearable undertaking. Tonight I listened to one sermon, and one and a half interviews with some of my favorite authors/speakers. It was good times, despite the nasty roads and the slighly frozen windshield wipers that made seeing out the front window a bit challenging!
    

Mother Teresa, Saturday Plans, and Early Morning Musings

Image via Wikipedia

It's 8:10 a.m.

I've been awake, unable to sleep, for nearly two hours already.

50 minutes from now, my alarm will go off, reminding me that I need to wake up, and be at mom and dad's house 45 minutes after that.

Today is the feast day for Mother Teresa. I suppose the fact that I pay attention to such things makes me slightly odd in the world of protestant christians that I mostly inhabit. Then again, I wear a bracelet with saints around my wrist, collect quotes from them, and wear a medal with St. Clare of Assisi on it around my neck most days, so I suppose all of those things also make me odd in that world.

In any case, Mother Teresa is one of those saints that has profoundly moved and impacted me. You can read about her here.

I sent a dear friend this e-card this morning, and was struck by the memories that came as I read that bit of a prayer.

Many years ago, in my last year of high school, I encountered Lent for the first time. A friend who in many ways profoundly shaped my life challenged me to practice the discipline of giving up something I loved, and replacing it with time spent meditating on Jesus. That year I gave up reading fiction and magazines (a challenge, since at that stage in my life I generally plowed through 2-3 novels a week). I replaced the fiction with classic Christian works, and works written by those whose faith I admired.

Mother Teresa had died a few years before that, and I'd been deeply moved as I'd watched the outpouring of emotion that came with her death. Emotion so different from that which had come only days early with the death of Princess Diana.

One of the first books I read during that Lenten period was one of Mother Teresa's. "No Greater Love." The book challenged and moved me deeply, and I'll never forget encountering the prayer I linked to above, in it's full form. It ushered in a period in my life where nearly daily I revisited that prayer, crying out the words to Jesus, and asking him to form them in my life. I prayed it alone, and, in a few precious and difficult moments where we were struggling, with friends.

As I lay in bed this morning, reading the email that reminded me that today was the feast day of Mother Teresa, I was thinking again of that prayer, and of how, years later, I am beginning to see how praying it formed my heart. How I have met people who truly glowed with Christ, and how I continue to pray that glow will be within me as well.

I have varied plans for today. Helping my mom with a cleaning and organization project. Errands. Some cleaning and sorting around my own house. Likely church. But the day is being formed in these early hours, as I am remembering the prayer written by John Henry Newman, loved by Mother Teresa, and prayed daily by her and the sisters of charity. I am remembering these words, and praying them again today...

Dear Lord:
Help me to spread your fragrance wherever I go.
Flood my soul with your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of yours.
Shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel your presene in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me, but only you, O Lord!
Stay with me, then I shall begin to shine as you do; so to shine as to be a light to others.
The light, O Lord, will be all from you; none of it will be mine; it will be you shining on others through me.
Let me thus praise you in the way you love best, by shining on those around me.
Let me preach you without preaching, not by words, but by my example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to you.
Amen.

Easter

Easter began, quite literally for me, with the sound of shattering.

I'd fallen asleep only minutes before midnight, praying against hope to be asleep before the clock turned and the day changed. Needing somehow to wake up in the morning light and simply have it be Easter.

At about 20 past midnight, I woke to the sound of shattering glass, and my roommate moving around.

When I asked about it this morning, she told me that she'd missed the light switch while fumbling in the dark, and hit a picture instead, knocking it from the wall and causing the glass to break.

Somehow, that shattering sound was symbolic. Symbolic of a year in which many things have been broken.

And yet, it reminded me, too, of Easter. Of the curtain in the temple being torn in two, irreparable. God present with all people.
~~~
It was a full day.

The church I grew up in put on a full length play and musical this morning. A series of monologues my dad wrote nearly 25 years ago. "Faces in the Crowd." And so, you stand at the back of Golgatha, and listen as Ciaphas, the thief on the cross, Mary, John, Peter, Nicodemus, Mary Magdalene, a Centurion, and a bystander discuss the happenings of the crucifixion. You are given a window into their hearts. They did a fantastic job with the production - an accomplishment on a grand scale for such a small church.

There were moments that were deeply moving. That hit my heart deeply. The lines of Mary Magdalene, discussing the demons within her, and the way Jesus had freed her from them. The wandering, longing insanity from which she'd been delivered. My brother J. played the role of Nicodemus. A role that fits him somehow - this one with much knowledge, encountering the Christ and finding the fulfillment of that. And yet, there were lines in that monologue too, that were unexpected. A moment where he lifted his hands to heaven and begged for mercy, for Jesus to die quickly in the midst of his pain. And that prayer, too, I understood.

I'm thankful that He is risen. That easter has come. And I find myself praying still for resurrection to come fully within me, within my broken heart, within the hearts and lives of so many I love.

And so, as I pray, for the first time since Friday, since commemorating the death and burial of the Savior, I light the Christ candle that rests on my dresser, and say to the world "He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!"

To those who wait...

The following passage, from one of my Lenten reading books, caught at me tonight, in it's description of this Holy Saturday, this day that I've passed, that is now drawing to a close...

It read:

"This is a day for expecting the kingdom of God. To those who wait, the time between death and resurrection is very long. For God, it is but a moment." (Journeying Through Lent with Luke, by Nancy Koester)

I am waiting and expecting the kingdom of God. I am longing for resurrection to come.

Moving through the waiting

I pray better, I wait better, I survive better, when I'm moving.

When there are things that can be a distraction.

When there is motion that can be a focus.

And so, on this day that is so marked by the waiting for resurrection, I've moved.

I grocery shopped and visited the library.

I went to the post office, and stopped off at my parent's home.

I looked through cookbooks with L., planning some new meals to add to our regular fare.

I did laundry.

And cleaned my bedroom.

And swept the kitchen floor.

I vacuumed George.

And scrubbed his dashboard and other surfaces.

And fed him with gasoline.

I remembered to be thankful when malfunction with my seat in George stopped long enough for me to move the seat to the right spot, making it easier to drive.

I worked through several lists of things that needed to be done, cleaned, or accomplished.

And now, now I'm getting ready to settle down a little.

To read and pray and actively wait.

To prepare for the week ahead (though thankfully, I don't have to return to work until Tuesday).

To let quiet overcome the need for movement, and hopefully bring peace.

The Day Between

This is the day between.

The day the disciples hid in an upper room, their world falling apart. Angry, fearful, shocked, grieving the loss of the one to whom they'd devoted the last three years of their life. The one they'd lived with, eaten with, slept near. Their teacher, the one they'd thought would change the whole world order. Their friend.

His body was laying in a stranger's grave.

And it was sabbath. They weren't permitted to work, or to be near the grave, so they gathered and waited, wondering if the wave of hatred that had stolen him from them, would come for them next.

~~~

This is the day between.

The day that life and light and hope lies temporarily buried.

I know the end of the story.

And yet, today I reflect on the grief, and the emptiness.

And I wait.

I fill the waiting, the grieving, the emptiness, in my own ways.

Moving on with life in a simple way. Groceries. Cookbooks. Maybe a walk in the park.

~~~

This is the day between.

And I am waiting.

Tenebrae

It's Good Friday. I hate that name. It's such ridiculous thing to call a day marked by bloodshed, by darkness, by hatred "good". Years ago, as a small child, I memorized a prayer for this day, a prayer that has stayed with me all these years. It began "Lord, it seems so strange to call a day like this Good Friday."

I always feel Holy Week deeply. And Friday is always the hardest day.

I head for the mountains, not because they help or bring comfort, but because at least there, unlike the city, there seems to be space large enough to hold the brokenness and suffering without it being absolutely crushing.

I'm attending a service called Tenebrae this morning with my roommate and some friends. It's the only service I've ever attended that seems to fit this day. It's an ancient ritual, involving candles and darkness. You walk into a dim room, lit only by a few candles. Move through reflections on shadows. Songs. Scriptures. Reflections. As the passion narrative progresses, the shadows grow deeper - candles are snuffed until finally only the Christ candle remains. And then, that too is snuffed out, and you simply leave, in silence.

After Tenebrae we'll have lunch together and then L. and I will go to the mountains. We'll stop at a place I've loved and just sit for awhile. L. will take photos, and I'll likely write for a while. And then we'll head off together to take more photos, and round out the day with a trip to the hot springs.

It'll likely be quiet here for the rest of the weekend. The only thoughts likely to make it here (if any at all) will be reflections on the progression of the rest of Holy Week, and the deep longing and need for the arrival of resurrection.

My heart has been numb, but today it is beginning to hurt again, and I am needing to allow space for that. To let myself feel and think and experience. To search for Jesus and peace. To pray, and simply be quiet.