Tag Archives: Easter

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We Haven’t Missed the Moment…

How are you doing this morning?

 

I find it a little silly, this blog that I turn to from time to time. I realize that friends read, but I think it is mostly a place for me to process my thoughts. Since it is more than a journal or something hidden, maybe I try to think a little more clearly. My grammar is still poor, but the thoughts get across. Today I need the push to think more clearly.

 

Today, I am finding that lack of connection to people heavy. And that need to process equally insistent.

 

And yet…

 

I have not journaled once during this stay-at-home order. How many days are we now? 24 days since I picked the oldest up from college. 24 days.

 

I am a journaler. I think best when i write, and yet…I have not thought very well in the last three weeks.

 

I have been distracted. 

 

How about you?

 

 

I’ve been following the numbers, but also not allowing myself to be overwhelmed by the news. Before my allergies went into overdrive, I walked with the kids through the neighborhood. We looked for bears in windows, we looked for rocks that had been decorated and spoke little messages of hope. Now I linger on FaceBook and read the stories of hope. I relish the conversations between neighbors online offering help, offering encouragement. I’ve been distracted enough to watch the Tiger King. I think even our neighborhood car burgler is adhering to the stay-at-home order because we have not seen him in three weeks. People are trying to behave.

 

We have not suffered in our house…we have been inconvenienced, but not suffered. We are accustomed to school at home, so that has not been a significant change. I am missing watching my soccer player, and Maddie only participated in one practice before everything stopped. We were coming out of Spring Break when this all began, and the rhythm of a relaxed schedule has continued. It’s almost 10 and three of the kids are still asleep.

 

And yet…

 

This is Holy Week. Lent got caught up for me in a forced austerity, at least of community, not an intentional fasting and focus.

 

I have neglected the readings. I have glanced at the slow progression toward the Cross, but I have not participated.

 

Now. Good Friday is upon us. I’m not really ready. I missed the preparation in my soul.

 

I’ve been distracted.

 

Have you?

 

I have friends who have done well. They have pressed in to God. They have prayed, they have thought well and they have pursued. I have prayed…but I have been distracted. I have friends who have also written well about the strangeness of this time, and the difficulty to process while we are in the midst of the moment.  This is an article worth reading, from Rebecca K Reynolds.

 

Distraction can be lethal to our spiritual health. Check out this quotation from G.K. Chesterton:

 

“For, though we talk lightly of doing this or that to distract the mind, it remains really as well as verbally true that to be distracted it to be distraught. The original Latin word does not mean relaxation; it means being torn asunder as by wild horses. The original Greek word, which corresponds to it, is used in the text which says that Judas burst asunder in the midst. To think of one thing at a time is the best sort of thinking; but it is possible, in a sense, to think of two things at a time, if one of them is really subconscious and therefore really subordinate. But to deal with a second thing which by its very nature thrust itself more and more aggressively in front of the first thing is to find the very crux of psychological crucifixion. I have generally found that the refined English persons who think it idolatrous to contemplate a religious image, turn up next time full of delighted admiration of some Yogi or Esoteric Hindu who only contemplates his big toe. But at least he contemplates something, and does not have ten thousand brazen drums to encourage him to do it. He is so far a real philosopher, in spite of his philosophy. He does not try to do two incompatible things at once.”  – Chesterton from On The Prison of Jazz

 

“To deal with a second thing which by its very nature thrust itself more and more aggressively in front of the first thing”! Yes! That is the sense of my thinking right now, thank you G.K.

 

One more from Chesterton:

 

“I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else.”

 

We have to be present to the one thing right now. This week. This pivotal moment that we remember, that we embrace, that we ponder. Boy did I need help this morning to bring my attention to check. Chesterton has helped, he has pointed out the problem…how about a little help from Buechner:

 

In our minds we are continually chattering with ourselves, and the purpose of meditation is to stop it. To begin with, maybe we try to concentrate on a single subject-the flame of a candle, the row of peas we are weeding, our own breath. When other subjects float up to distract us, we escape them by simply taking note of them and then letting them float away without thinking about them. We keep returning to the in-and-out of our breathing until there is no room left in us for anything else. To the candle flame until we ourselves start to flicker and burn. To the weeds until we become only a pair of grubby hands pulling them. In time we discover that we are no longer chattering.

If we persist, every once and so often we may find ourselves entering the suburbs of a state where we are conscious but no longerconscious of anything in particular, where we have let go of almost everything.

The end of meditation is to become empty enough to be filled with the kind of stillness the Psalmist has in mind when he says, “Be still, and know that I am God”  Buechner from Wishful Thinking

 

 

 

 Guess what? 

 

We haven’t missed it. You who are distracted as I am. You who are having a hard time staying focused on reading anything. You who are having a hard time getting out of bed, for that matter. You who long to lean in toward God, and yet the energy and the focus are difficult to find at the moment….you haven’t missed it.

 

Today is Good Friday.

 

 

 

You haven’t missed it. 

 

Press in today. Find the space physically and mentally and spiritually and meditate. Stop the chatter. Need some help?

 

Start here, with some thoughts from Malcolm Guite  and then continue to this from Steve Bell with Malcolm Guite. These will help you think on the stations of the cross, with a link to Malcolm’s sonnets on the stations and a couple songs from Steve.

 

 

Then, this….this is a fantastic resource. This is a visual resource for praying through the Stations of the Cross. This will give you the steps to focus your mind, to prepare your soul for Easter.

 

 

Finally…find an online service. We have one at my church, The Village Chapel. Use the resources and press in. Push out the distractions, at least for today. Then again for Easter. Then again the next day…

 

 

This is a strange time, and distraction may be a saving grace for at least moments in this season. But not for this moment. This moment requires discipline, and requires focus. I’m a little more prepared now…how about you?  Let’s press in and not miss this moment. This very strange Good Friday and Easter which may just be a moment to meet Jesus in a new way that awakens our spirit.

 

You haven’t missed it.

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Boxes of Stickers

I know I am a few days behind writing about Easter, but, well…life has been crazy. Allergies have not helped.

 

A box came yesterday, though, and brought together some of my thoughts.  Do you remember when I spoke of the Power of the Sugar Cookie? Well, this box was similar.

 

Dad has moved into a new house with Mom. They moved from a two story house into a one story, mainly to guard against falls and trips. The result is also that they have to simplify life. Moves will do that.

 

Boxes must be gone through. Years of treasures must be sorted. Mom was a collector. Yes, I’m being kind.

 

I know that this is not an easy process for Dad, because it is taking a giant highlighter and marking the decay that has happened over the last 5 years. She has no connection to these treasures…and she would have considered them just that. She no longer is possessive of them, when she would have been just a few years ago. She would have guarded them even if she couldn’t quite pinpoint why she needed them. Now she lets them go more easily, because there is no connection.

 

I hate that.

 

I received an enormous box of scarves. Another with purses. Another box with white china cups and plates she used when her Bible study ladies came over. Boxes that come with little glimpses of her personality.


 MomBox

Chinahandle

Mom dressed impeccably. She was, and still is really, gorgeous. Tall and stately. Stylish. Her scarves show how she could pull off all kinds of colors and styles.

 

She was bold.

scarves

 

Her purses? All kinds. She was full of life.

purse

Now Dad dresses her and always makes sure she looks just right when she goes out. He makes sure she looks how he knows she would have wanted to look.

 

The last box that came, though…it was such a stark reminder of who she was.

 

A box of stickers.  Hundreds of stickers.

 

I remembered them, and anyone who had known my Mom would have remembered them. They were attached to birthday cards and notes and letters. They were bought with purpose and with thought about each person. And I realized how much Maddie would have been loved by her.

stickers

I realized these stickers would have come attached to birthday cards and notes to the little girl who carries her name. Jane. Madeleine Jane. I can almost picture the notes she would have sent, and the delight she would have had in sending little gifts of coloring books and goodies.

 

What does this have to do with Easter?

Everything.

Watching Mom slowly fade before our eyes, watching her personality change from vibrant colors and bold choices, to greys as she loses more and more of herself…leaves me hungry and aching for healing. Aching for home.

 

Easter was a wonderful celebration. Wonderful music. Wonderful fellowship. Fun decorating eggs. If that was all it was, though…there is little hope in the mourning as we watch the brokenness around us. We need more than some pep talk.

 

Buechner:

“For Paul the Resurrection was no metaphor; it was the power of God. And when he spoke of Jesus as raised from the dead, he meant Jesus alive and at large in the world not as some shimmering ideal of human goodness or the achieving power of hopeful thought but as the very power of life itself. If the life that was in Jesus died on the cross; if the love that was in him came to an end when his heart stopped beating; if the truth that he spoke was no more if no less timeless than the great truths of any time; if all that he had in him to give to the world was a little glimmer of light to make bearable the inexorable approach of endless night – then all was despair.”

 

Opening these boxes and finding each new piece as Dad sorts through Mom’s life, it is another statement of her fading. Another statement that she is a little farther from our grasp. She is physically in our midst, but we continue in this strange limbo of her presence without her personality. I know that I am more of a spectator living a thousand miles from home…and I continue to be amazed at how my Dad cares for her with such strength and kindness.

 

Easter tells us there is more, and that the suffering now will seem as only momentary when we reach home. Easter tells us Good Friday has power.

 

It doesn’t make it light and easy, but there is a foundation to stand upon. There is a strength to be held, and we do not despair. We hope.

 

 


I believe in the holy shores of uncreated light 
I believe there is power in the blood 
And all of the death that ever was, 
If you set it next to life 
I believe it would barely fill a cup 
‘Cause I believe there’s power in the blood ”

– Andrew Peterson

 

 

Because of that hope, because that life overcomes death, we are able to live with a joy and a wonder even in the midst of grey and suffering. Even in the midst of sorrow. Because of a Savior who conquered death, because of an Easter that is a reality, I can take a box that signifies the decaying of a mind…and turn it into a celebration of life.

 

These things continue to carry her personality, and although they are just things, they are little glimpses of this woman who helped form who I am. And even though she cannot delight in Maddie…I can delight in Maddie for her. Part of that is watching Maddie enjoy these things that were part of Mom’s life. Like having coffee and crackers on white china, and wrapping up that hair in scarves from the 70’s.

MaddiecoffeeMaddiecoffee1
Maddiescarf

Resurrection life. The reality of Easter…the Power of Easter, gives us the freedom to embrace this life even in its painful moments, because we hold on lightly to this life. Our true home is one where no tear will fall and no mind will decay. 

 

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He is risen!

It has been a rainy,grey day here. Not what I think of for Easter morning…but it did not put a damper on the reality.

Christ broke the barriers. It is done. He has risen.

One last sonnet from Malcolm Guite:

Easter Dawn

He blesses every love which weeps and grieves

And now he blesses hers who stood and wept

And would not be consoled, or leave her love’s

Last touching place, but watched as low light crept

Up from the east. A sound behind her stirs

A scatter of bright birdsong through the air.

She turns, but cannot focus through her tears,

Or recognise the Gardener standing there.

She hardly hears his gentle question ‘Why,

Why are you weeping?’, or sees the play of light

That brightens as she chokes out her reply

‘They took my love away, my day is night’

And then she hears her name, she hears Love say

The Word that turns her night, and ours, to Day.

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No Soft God…

the-expulsion-from-the-temple-1

 

 

“Come to your Temple here with liberation

And overturn these tables of exchange

Restore in me my lost imagination

Begin in me for good, the pure change.”

My “Temple” is filled with unclean things. Distractions, motivations that are impure.

Sin.

Clutter.

My imagination is caught up so often in things that draw me away from God rather than toward Him. I am, frankly, weak and lacking in discipline and in focus. I am in need. I am broken by a sinful nature that does me in, and by an enemy who would rejoice in my defeat.

I need not a soft God who is only love and who demands little. A God who would simply bless me in my choices and my way.

I need a God who demands holiness and who knows true justice. I need a God who will clean this temple, and I, in my lack of imagination, need a God I can “see”.  I need something more than a God of wood or stone that I can gaze upon…I need a God who walks and talks and surprises me.

I need Jesus. I need Jesus who touched lepers with tenderness, who wept at His friend’s death. I need Jesus who knows loneliness and pain and suffering, and yet who knows wonder and imagination and love and joy.

This week I am following the posts of Malcolm Guite, and I am thankful for the poet and the artist and the musicians who bring to life the emotions and the words that fail me. Today his post is about the cleansing of the Temple. This is the God in whom I put my faith and my trust…and my need. The God who is willing and able to act justly and to save and to redeem and to cleanse.

The God who will break the barriers.

Cleansing the Temple

 

 

Come to your Temple here with liberation

And overturn these tables of exchange

Restore in me my lost imagination

Begin in me for good, the pure change.

Come as you came, an infant with your mother,

That innocence may cleanse and claim this ground

Come as you came, a boy who sought his father

With questions asked and certain answers found,

Come as you came this day, a man in anger

Unleash the lash that drives a pathway through

Face down for me the fear the shame the danger

Teach me again to whom my love is due.

Break down in me the barricades of death

And tear the veil in two with your last breath.

 

 

As I was writing this I was thinking of the strength of our God, and I came across Steve Green singing A Mighty Fortress. Put on your headphones and turn this up loudly. This is not a soft God who gives us up to our ways. This is a God who faces down the fear the shame and the danger. This is the God who tears the veil in two.