A Tender Resurrection

A rainy sunrise under lock down isn't really helping.
I miss the together of Easter Sunday,
the happy greetings and wide-armed hugs.
I miss the bigness of Easter Sunday,
the music and the strength
and the re-enactment of the disciples' wild joy.

I miss going in so early on Easter Sunday,
to watch the sunrise over the church building,
as if the sun itself was re-enacting the Son.

This is it for us Christians.
This is our big day.

But this year, not so much.

We'll try.
My church and other churches will do our best
to help us "connect" on line
and "celebrate" on line
and "worship" on line
and "do Easter" on line.

My husband and I will mark this day together
with a meal
and prayer.

I have an Easter lily!

But it takes more effort this year
to be all that excited.

I think I'm supposed to be.
I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be able to put it all to one side
and be excited
write something here that reflects all of that.

But it's a different way of being for me this Easter Sunday.
More like Mary hearing Him say her name.



It's John that records this moment of tenderness
in his resurrection account.

Mary, beside herself in grief and confusion,
desperately longing to finish the anguished task
of properly anointing the body for burial,
a ritual of respect
and love.

But now the body is gone!
After all they'd already done to Him.
This too?
This degradation?

She is overcome with all the dreadful dashing of hope.
Sobbing.
Like this morning's sky, I think.

And then she's interrupted by a Voice.

"Why are you crying?  Who are you looking for?"

John writes her reply as if it was almost polite.
But I hear a sudden intake of air,
the sobbing being startled to a sudden halt.
I hear more anger and accusation
coming from deep in her throat.
A lashing out, a meltdown,
with all the energy of grief.

"Where is He?!!!
What have you done with Him?!!!"

And that's when He says it.
Her name.

Simply.

"Mary."

And then she knows!
And then everything changes.

Wild! Clutching!  Joy!

I need this tender resurrection this morning.
And the real and living intimacy
of a Risen Saviour
who knows my name.

And it will be enough for today.
More than enough.

Because the resurrection bursts out of all restrictions.
If death could not hold it back,
then neither can a pandemic.

Worship.
Love.
Truth.

Silent Saturday

Words and words and words.

For all the words coming at me, relentlessly, 

on the news and in my newsfeed,

And all the words I’ve written this week 

in what ended up being an everyday reflection,

And all the words I’ve written for my paper, 

and sermons, and oh so many emails lately,

Or spoken on the phone,

And for all the words written 

in every gospel that describes the hell of Holy Week,

Come Saturday and ---

God lay silent.

Feels like I should do the same.

Just.  Be.  Quiet.

Just.  Let.  God.  Not.  Say.  Anything.

And still be God.

And that’s the thing.

Those disciples on that first Saturday between.

They had no idea.

God was still God but it looked like He wasn’t.

So much was happening

Cosmic noise and commotion.

One big battle in the name of redemption.

But it didn’t seem that way.

Just the silence of a tomb locked down.

Strange how a world pandemic

Imitates the pause.

Not What We Expected: Of Distancing and Donkeys

"Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!

Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!

See, your king comes to you,

righteous and victorious,

lowly and riding on a donkey."

Zechariah 9:9

I am awake too early and immediately aware that I am out of sorts.
Sort of.

For all my mostly okay adaptation to staying at home for the rest of the week,
I really don't want to be staying at home on a Sunday.
And not this Sunday.
Not when it comes just before next Sunday!

I get up and make a fire and weep a while,
making space for the grief of all that's not okay,
and for the little bit of the dread of knowing
it won't be okay for a while.

In that space He sits with me,
not really saying anything.
Neither of us are.
The tenderness of the moment overwhelms me.
It's like we're praying together,
and it's one of those silent prayers
where nothing can be said,
so spirit and Spirit simply,
quietly
groan together.

But maybe then,
after a little while,
He does speak,
because I remember that He knows what it's like
for everything not to be okay.
And to dread something.
And that He rode the donkey anyways.

Not a steed.
Not a war horse.
Not the way Kings are expected to arrive.
Righteous.
Victorious.
Lowly.
Unexpected.
Dreadful.
Crowds shouting Hosannas.
Not expecting what would come next.

Palm Sunday just before Good Friday.
Suffering is ahead.
He knows.
And He rides the donkey anyways.

This is not the Easter week any of us were expecting.
Not the spring any of us wanted.
I don't like it.
But
I love that we have a Saviour like this One.
Who knows.
Who deserves our adoration
and rejoicing, shouting Hosannas
and palm branches of courage
and faith
and hope
right now.

I love that I have a Saviour like this One.
Who sits with me for a while
by the fire
and dissolves my expectations
with overwhelming tenderness.
Who inspires my own steely tenacity
with movement toward the Cross.

Lifted Eyes: A Monday Mantra

"But our citizenship is in heaven.  

And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, 

the Lord Jesus Christ, 

who, by the power that enables him 

to bring everything under his control, 

will transform our lowly bodies 

so that they will be like his glorious body.  

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, 

you whom I love and long for, 

my joy and my crown, 

stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends!"

Philippians 3:20-4:1

With the weekend's appeals from civic leaders in cottage country asking seasonal home owners to please stay away, and without knowing for sure how long we will need to comply as we all band together in all of this, I can't help but be wishing for time in the kayak.

The sky of it.

A big part of the spirituality of being at our cottage on Georgian Bay for me each summer is the wild space of the sky.  There's something healing, something unleashing about being under that much endlessness.  I can breathe in all that need.  All of it.  Whatever claustrophobic stresses constricted the flow of Spirit (Pneuma in Greek) over all the dark months of winter are released.  Something good and beautiful and strong fills the lungs of my soul.  I am re-oxygenated, restored, revived at a parenchymal level - that cellular level of exchange deep, deep in the sacred spaces.

This happens just by default in every moment outside, but it's particularly powerful when I'm out in the kayak and I take a moment to look up.  There it is, wide and open and endless.

Lifted eyes is what I need now, here at the end of a winter that gripped us too tightly, spilling into a spring that's turned vicious.   New news every day.  And if I'm not careful, the same roof under which I shelter, and for which I am utterly grateful, might also just by default of that sense of being housebound, keep my eyes at ground level.

Paul encouraged the Church at Philippi to keep their eyes lifted.  We are citizens of a greater span of reality than just what physical sight can render.  There are bigger things going on, things wild and wide, and profound, and unfathomable, like the sky. 

A bigger story is being written.  Even now, as we share our insights and meditations and reflections with one another, about the earth healing, and the slowing down of all our ways, and the time with family, and the very real increase in appreciation for every moment of normal life we've ever taken for granted.  These are just glimpses into the bigger thing that's happening.

With an eye towards heaven I feel the constrictions relax.  Deep breathes of faith and peace are possible.  My soul can heal from all my fretting.  I can let God be God and let go of my own crazy.

Heaven's hope never fails, it never gives out, it never let's go.

Of course we pray that all our courageous efforts will bring this microscopic enemy to its knees far sooner than cottage-opening time. 

And when that happens, I will hurry out on to the water, and breathe in the sky in ways I've never done before.

Called to Peace: A Sunday Blessing

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, 

since as members of one body you were called to peace.  

And be thankful.

Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly 

as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom 

through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, 

singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.  

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, 

do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, 

giving thanks to God the Father through him."

The Apostle Paul to the Church at Colossae

Colossians 3:15-17

Every pastor everywhere is a little like Paul this morning.  

Heart aching with separation, Paul penned the letters that make up a significant portion of the last half of the New Testament.  That's what a lot of our Bible after the Gospels is;  letters from a pastor who couldn't be with his people.

It's an awful place to be.  And most pastors all around the world, during this time of physical distancing, know it.  Especially on Sundays.

My long study of Paul for the current course work I'm doing (in this fabulous long haul I'm doing called my education) has me digging deep into the psyche of a man who above all things loved Jesus and the people he was called to serve in His Name.  This tough-as-nails shepherd suffered more physical, mental, social and emotional anguish on behalf of his flock than I can get my head around.  And a big part of it was just the torment of being away from them when he knew they were suffering themselves.

And so, to the group he had had to leave behind in Colossae, he sends his blessing, his instruction, to let the peace of Christ have authority (to rule) among them.  Yes.  Peace.

I feel the calming of his words as if I were part of his congregation.  Yes.  Peace.  That's what we're called to at all times.  But in these times of fear and disorientation, how much more so?  

Of course, this isn't a 'peace' that doesn't acknowledge the seriousness of what's going on.  Or pretends like it's not affecting us, because it is.  It's rattling me.  It should.  A pandemic is no small thing.  

Yet Pastor Paul reminds us, and reorients us, and re-frames for us what we're supposed to be about, always, but especially now.

Encourage each other, he says.  Sing to each other, and teach each other, and remind each other of who we are in Jesus.  And do it all, yes, even sheltering in place, to the glory of God.  Yes!  Thank you! I need to be reminded.  Even in this, I can be about what I say my life is about; bringing glory and honour and worship to the God of all peace and power and strength.  Oh how we need His mercy now!

I am so grateful for every Pastor who has worked so hard this week, most of them using tools and technology they have had to wrestle with in new ways, who are making that effort to comfort and reassure us today, this Sunday.  I am grateful for the words of Pastor Suradet at Hot Springs Church in northern Thailand, and his calming presence, even on line, as he reminds us all to 'hold on'.  I am grateful for my Pastor at Highview, Erin, whose message I will certainly benefit from later today, and who is leading through something none of us has been through before, and doing it so that we can be encouraged and reminded....and blessed.

I am grateful for Paul, and for how the letters themselves (his first century version of an online message to the people) remind me that when everything else is stripped away, and you can't be together doing your service on a Sunday (or any time), what remains is love.

All of this, I can feel it, lays its peace down inside of me.

Love each other well, dear friends.

Be blessed and encouraged and strengthened.

Let peace rule.

The Big Disconnect of Online Connection: It's Not As Easy As It Sounds

We're really not even that far into it, and I'm already so done with everyone saying that "we can all still stay connected" through social media.  Or that "we can still be the church" with an emphasis on 'live stream' services or 'group chat' small groups or 'on line meetings'.

No.  We can't.  Not all of us can.

I'm 62 years old and have obviously navigated my way through enough technology to be able to establish a blog and link it to my Facebook page.  I have email and texting and do messaging and even video chats through Facebook.  I have Skype on my computer and have used it to help complete long distance learning from the other side of the world.  So I'm not a techno-idiot.  Not completely.

But in these days when we can't be together and everyone's singing the praises of their particular online platform, I will come right out and admit it.

I'm feeling overwhelmed, stupid and left behind.

Earlier this week an online meeting was set up for a leadership team I belong to.  The email was sent out the day before with the 'easy' link I just needed to 'click' on and I'd be part of the meeting.  But when I went to sign in it asked me to download Chrome or Firefox, both of which I know I already have on my computer, and, well, that's all it took.  I do not want to wrangle through a tangle of internet technobabble, be forced to make a decision about whether or not I 'accept' something I don't understand, click on this, unmute that, find all the icons, all the while knowing that other team members are patiently wasting their precious time waiting for me to figure it out.  I bowed out of the meeting.

On a good day I would press forward with something like this.  But right now, with the entire world all trying to figure out a new way of being human at the very same time, when I can't go to worship and physically be with my community, when precious people I love who are not in Canada are facing the same threat but in a far more precarious situation, when because of all this (and oh so many more layers of disorientation I could list) I have myself and others to stabilize and reassure, I have no emotional band width for working my way through the technology.

Not now.

It makes me wonder if COVID-19 is taking out my peer group in more ways than one.

Two things in particular have encouraged me this week.

One is an email I received today from my church introducing a brand new Ministry Team at Highview called "Tech Help Team".  "If you are looking for a friend to talk through your simple tech-related woes, we have complied a list of Highview regulars who might be able to help."

Now there's some innovative, people-sensitive leadership!  Thank you!  I'll still have to work my way through my aversion to anything that requires the math part of my brain that died in grade four (an ego issue I'll just keep on working through my whole life, apparently), but at least it's acknowledged that this stuff is hard for some of us.  For enough of us that a whole Team has been put together just to help us stay together.  Thank you Highview!!!!

The second thing that encouraged me was a blog written by Small-Church hero Karl Vaters, entitled
So Your Small Church Live-Stream Stinks - Here's Why That's Okay  (see what I did there?  I even added a link, provided it actually works I guess).  Well worth the read.  He reminds us, as he so often does, that real ministry is about the people, no matter how those people are staying 'connected'.   These days, I am feeling that more than usual.

I do realize the irony of the fact that I am expressing this thinly disguised rant by use of a particular online format, and that there are many within my circle of life that do not spin in this orbit.  That's why I've been on the phone so much in the past seven days.  Voice to voice on the phone.

Because I'm concerned, actually, that somewhere in this 'new way of doing church' (and considering this isn't going to be just a blip of a few Sundays) the Church might inadvertently block out some important sage-wisdom badly needed in this time when literally every single person in charge of any group of people whatsoever on the entire planet hasn't ever lead through anything like this.  Collectively, we have no idea what we're doing, including being the Church.  But collectively, I think we have a fighting chance.  More than that.  We can prevail and reinvent and be something different and beautiful and strong.  But for that to happen,  I think we really do need all hands on deck.  

And I'm willing to put my hands and shoulders and my whole stinkin' heart to that task.
Because, beloved Church, I love you more than you can possibly know.

Just....bear with me a moment until I figure out where I'm supposed to click.

Promises I Make To Myself: Fostering A Healthy Inward Focus In the Midst of a Pandemic

"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess,

 for he who promised is faithful.  

And let us consider how we may spur one another on 

toward love and good deeds, 

not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, 

but encouraging one another 

-- and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

Hebrews 10:23-25

Time to talk about self-care.

It only makes sense that as we make sure all of this doesn't become 'all about me', that we're also taking care of 'me' at the same time.

This is one of those oxymoronic both/and truths I've had to learn how to balance as someone who has had a caregiving role for most of my adult life - parent, daughter, pastor, missionary - but is true for every single one of us.  Especially now.  We can't reach out and offer care and support to others if we're not caring for and nurturing ourselves. And a co-relating component of this is, that the greater responsibility to care for the well-being of others, the more important maintaining that balance will be.

Hopefully, most of us already have good general practices of self-care.  But in times of stress, especially when regular routines are disrupted, it can often be the case that our self-care is the first thing that gets sacrificed.  It goes without saying that doing our best to eat properly, sleep well, and get some exercise, on top of the extra hand washing and....of course...can't say it enough....social distancing, is absolutely essential these days.

But I think what I want to address in this post has more to do with the spiritual elements of inward focus that can help us stay healthy and strong during a time of extreme stress.

With the humility of realizing that all the crises I've led through before pale in comparison to the global affect of this one, and the humility of knowing that we are all stumbling through this together collecting our wisdom together as we go....I would like to offer three  promises I'm making to myself that I'm finding are helping me stay healthy and strong as we press into these disorienting days.

As I invited yesterday, it would be great to also hear of your insights too, shared in the comments.

Promise #1:  I promise to make gratitude a daily habit.
At a time when it might be easy to feel restricted, distracted and afraid, it's essential for me to remember that there is still an astonishing amount of beauty and goodness and blessing to be found in each day.  And I'll see it.....IF I'm paying attention.  When I stop to list all that I'm grateful for, the list goes on and on.  Yesterday it was something as simple as the sunshine and fresh air of our walk around the block.  This morning with fresh snow on the ground, I am simply glad for the comforts of my home.  And here's the thing; when I'm saying thank you it's harder to be afraid.  So, one of the first promises I want to make to myself during this time is that I'm just going to build thank you into every day.

Promise #2:  I promise to release what I can't control and be responsible for what I can.
My niece first shared this meme on her Facebook page, and it's just such a good visual.

What's inside the circle is enough.  That's enough for me to make good decisions about.  The rest of it is way out of my control, so....I release it.  Like me, you might have other more specific things in that grey area outside the circle.  Things that matter a great deal, and you find yourself putting mental and emotional energy into 'fixing' it.  It's hard.  I know.  But it really does seem to go better for me if I keep this promise to just focus on what's under my control.

Promise #3:  I promise to hold unswervingly to the Hope I profess.
Now, more than ever, my faith in a God who is writing a bigger story, brings hope for brilliant redemptive outcomes.  Not to get into the cosmic debates or unhealthy 'end times' weirdness that global events often produce, but there's a simplicity for me in remembering that disease isn't part of God's end game.  That social distancing and separation isn't where He's going with this, ultimately.  That chaos and death and fear are not His domain and that He has the annihilation of all those wretched powers firmly in His mind.  I will not give in to the despair of fatalism.  I will not cave under the defeat of paranoia.  Instead, I Hope.  I hold on to that Hope unswervingly.  This is the God I profess, I worship, I love, I trust.

Another week of staying home is ahead of us friends.
Stay home, those who can.
Stay safe, all of you.
Make good promises to yourself.
We'll see this thing through to the end...together.