The end and the beginning

On this holy Saturday, we wait by the closed and darkened tomb. We dare to believe that, if we hold fast to our faith in Jesus, he will rise up again. We keep our vigil with Christ, just as we have watched and waited with him through the long season of Lent.

My husband made me this card for one of our anniversaries. He wanted to celebrate the truth that committing our lives to each other did not keep us from doing what we wanted, but actually gave us more freedom to express our full selves.

I feel the same way about this Lenten journey. I chose to sacrifice a small piece of my time and my creative energy, turning my attention from work and family long enough to write these posts. Each day, once I found an image or a thought that connected me to God, my spirit settled into a greater peace. This small commitment to my faith helped set my heart free.

Thank you for coming along with me. May God bless you and keep you, this Easter and always.

The heart of the matter

Good Friday has a special place in my journey with God.
One of my first memories of church is shuffling forward with the crowd at my mother's Catholic parish, waiting my turn to kiss the feet of the crucifix cradled like a baby in the priest's arms. At my Episcopal high school, we walked in silence to the chapel to hear a solo baritone voice sing "Were you there?" When I came to Christ as a young adult, I went to sit in an empty church on Good Friday because I knew something powerful was happening that day and I needed to be there with Jesus.

I look forward to Easter, but I also treasure this sad and solemn day to remember God's presence in the midst of the worst of human suffering. Good Friday teaches us to see past our illusions to the truth of God's endless love. It promises us that when we hit bottom, God will always be there to lift us up.

Sweet Jesus

Maundy Thursday is a moment of sweetness between the intensity of Palm Sunday and the solemnity of Good Friday. Jesus reminds us that we are his beloved friends, and that as long as we gather to break bread together, he will come and be here with us.

Anne Pofcher, who helped me with this year’s confirmation class, created this wonderful collage. I love the image of Jesus coming to us not just as sturdy, nourishing bread, but as the delight of a birthday cupcake. Let us taste and see that God is good!

Where are you?

As we follow the events of the last week of Jesus' life, the liturgies ask us: Where are you in this story? What is your role to play?

There is a powerful moment in the movie Dead Man Walking when Sister Helen Prejean first begins visiting Matthew Poncelet, who is awaiting execution for rape and murder. Prejean starts speaking of Jesus and his death. Poncelet lights up, excitedly comparing himself to Jesus as a fellow rebel who was condemned and executed by the state. Prejean looks him straight in the eye and says, "Jesus died because he loved people. All you did was cause pain." She asks him to let go of the idea that he is the star of the story, and instead accept that he is one of Christ's many betrayers. Only then can he discover the Christ in him and become part of Jesus' legacy of forgiveness and love.

We get into trouble if we think that one role in the divine drama belongs to us, identifying always with Jesus or the faithful disciples or (just as dangerously) the guilty ones who caused this pain. The Passion is full of power and grace because it invites us to experience the whole range of our humanity. At different times in our lives, we are the ones who suffer, the ones who cause suffering, the ones who stand by and do nothing, the ones who bring healing and compassion, and even the ones who rise up to new life. We are everyone in this story.

Do it for the joy

It's been a long, full day. Sometimes we work and work and then stop and say: What am I doing all this for? I so often find my answer with Ani Di Franco: "I do it for the joy it brings, because I am a joyful girl." As a wife, a mother, a priest and a friend, I do it all for the joy it brings to me and to the ones God has given me to love.

I want to share with you a picture a friend sent me of the cross in the cathedral at Mainz, Germany. Jesus leaps like a dancer off the cross, rising with open arms. Our Lord took on the great work of the crucifixion, and he did it all for the joy it would bring this world.

Keeping it real

This year we began Palm Sunday in the parish hall. The room buzzed with conversation as people milled around in no particular order, getting their palm branches and programs from the ushers and waiting for the service to begin. And then the choir burst forth in a loud "Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest!" that startled the congregation. And I thought: This is what it must have been like. Jesus' entry into Jerusalem was not a carefully planned parade, with everyone lining the route in an orderly fashion and joining the songs on cue. It must have been pure chaos, with the streets packed full of Passover pilgrims. A few noticed Jesus and began to hail him, and then others came running to see what was going on, and soon the crowd all pressed around him, hoping to see this new king. Someone got the idea to lay down a branch or a cloak, and then more wanted to do it, so that the crowd spilled into the road and got in the horse's way.

We spend a lot of time in the church trying to create dignified, beautiful, perfect worship services. But sometimes the places where we truly meet Jesus are the accidents, the surprises, the disorderly moments of real life.

Here and Now

This little fellow is the Demon of Rushing Ahead, one of several Everyday Demons that I drew some years back. For this one, I was thinking about how hard it can be to not worry about the next steps and just enjoy being exactly where we are.

Palm Sunday is as prepared as it can be before tomorrow morning. The house is in reasonable shape, and it's still too early to do much in the yard. Today is a day just to pause and breathe before the work of Holy Week begins.

Lord, you have brought me to this place and this time. Let my spirit dwell here, right here, nowhere else but here, with you.

Mending the tears

With its long, slow rain, today is definitely the day for a favorite sweater. I remember Martha, a good friend of mine, loved a cozy turtleneck sweater so much that she kept wearing it after a hole started in the armpit. The hole spread and stretched, until it was well down the side seam.
She assured me that there was no use to try to fix it - she had sewn it up before, but the stitches ripped right out again. She let me take a look, and I saw it was true that the knitting was unraveled all along the edges, so it would be too weak to hold together as she pulled it over her head. I was about to hand it back when I realized it just needed a patch. I cut a piece of an old T-shirt and stitched one edge down tightly so all the loose threads were held fast. Then I attached the other side right next to it. The sturdy, stretchy patch held the seam together so well you couldn't tell it had ever ripped open.

At the Church of the Apostles in Seattle, they sing "Christ is the peace between all of us." It is so easy for relationships to fall apart. In my brokenness and your brokenness, we can be too weak on our own to keep our connection strong. But if you and I are each bound fast to Jesus, the strength of his love holds us together through every challenge.

The Plow

As Holy Week approaches, I begin to feel our resistance to it. Several folks in our congregation have told me that one or more of the services makes them uncomfortable. They don't want to have their feet washed, or sit through the intense drama of Christ's Passion. I feel it too - as I finish the planning for each service, part of me wonders, Do I really want to go there?

Christian faith is not always comforting. Jesus comes not just to love and forgive us, but also to unsettle us enough that we're willing to let go of what we know and live in his new way.
Victor Hugo has a wonderful image of us as fields being prepared for the Spring planting. Before the soil is ready to receive the seeds of new growth, it has to be broken by the plow .

Not much further - Stay on target

For those of you not of my generation, the title of this post comes from the final moments of Star Wars. Luke Skywalker repeats these words to himself as he flies deep into the Death Star to destroy its core.

The last Sunday of Lent has passed. Holy Week begins on Sunday with the blessing of the Palms and the reading of the Passion. It feels like the home stretch. I feel relieved to be finishing this inward work of Lent, grateful for everything I've learning, and a little sad to see this part of the journey coming to an end.

God, help me to keep the prayerful, disciplined focus of this season and not lose my center in the busy preparations for Easter. Let me run the race all the way to the end (1 Corinthians 9) to win the prize of Easter's joy.