little easters

This year through Lent, Holy Week and Easter, my inner emotional journey did not quite match up with this particular cycle of the church year. I didn't really set out to give anything up for Lent and the church of which I'm a part did not follow a particular theme that led us deeper and deeper toward Good Friday and the cross.

But it's not as if I didn't 'get' that part: the anticipated emotional turmoil, the being troubled about the sinful state of my being, etc. Oh, I 'get' that alright. I 'get that' to the point that when I heard a sermon on Friday about how Christ's decent into hell meant that he went there to be with me because I put myself there in my own little hell, well, she was preaching to me. I 'got' that. But naming how I was feeling was only that. Naming it. Just because it had a name doesn't mean it went away.

And so I wasn't sure what to expect on Easter morning. I helped lead the service that I had helped plan. We did an Easter Lessons and Carols service where we traipsed through Scripture like we sometimes do right before Christmas to see that Christ is who was prophesied about. The promises of salvation and resurrection are there too, just like those for incarnation. So that was cool, but it just kind of washed over me instead of through me like I hoped it would.

I was finally able to articulate this to a friend yesterday over coffee. That I didn't follow the dramatic decrescendo to Good Friday and even more dramatic crescendo (or subito forte, for any music geeks reading) of Easter. I was apologetic about this but she appropriately gave me the permission I needed to have for this to be okay.

So I didn't have this grand Easter 'resurrection from the death of Lent' experience that I've had in the past, but instead have tried to claim the little Easters that have sprouted in random places. The sum total of them maybe get me to a place of joy and rest, but they've been separated enough that they've really only provided small respites as they come. Here's a few:

- fresh strawberries with French Silk ice cream
- a house full of family that was totally empty a few days before
- a phone call with an invitation for a beer and a pool lesson
- a purple hyacinth that replaces the smell of Easter dinner with the smell of spring
- a meeting where the agenda was prayer and love, and only that
- a morning walk in total sunshine

In some ways it's a comfort to know that the realities of Easter are not confined to the date on the calendar that we set aside to remember what happened. As 'Easter Chrsitians' we live in a 'resurrection reality' all the time. But sometimes this means that Lent is not confined to the six weeks prior to Easter either. It gets to--has to--be both. The dying and the rising. Death and life. Both.

something I wrote for something else

Rehearsal/Performance

I’ve been in choirs for a large part of my life. And have always been an enthusiastic participant, especially on the day of a performance when the director told us to “sing it like we mean it.” This was kind of hard to do in middle school when most of our songs were either about ice cream or the state capitals, but as I’ve gotten older, the text I’ve sung have gotten richer. And this has often made it easier to “sing it like I mean it,” because when it comes to singing about God and Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit in the world, I do mean it. This has lead to some really rich performances.

But not that long ago, in the middle of a choir rehearsal, it hit me that just because a song text was worthy of being sung in truth during a performance doesn’t make it any less true during a rehearsal. And all of a sudden, singing texts like “worthy is the Lamb,” and “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace” over and over again in a rehearsal became a devotional experience for me. In rehearsal we actually experience part of the reality of the performance.

I’ve had this discussion about worship as well. In a class I’m helping teach, we have talked about what happens on Sunday morning as a rehearsal for the worship that is happening in heaven. As with any metaphor, this breaks down eventually, but the truth remains that when we gather together for worship on Sunday morning, we are joining the hosts of heaven in the worship of God that is happening day and night around the throne.

Read Revelation 4 and 5 to get a glimpse of what worship in heaven is like.

truth

The costs of discipleship and obedience to Christ are huge. And if you commit to it, your life will never ever be the same.

not good at

Found this whilst blog-surfing:

Be silent.
Be still.
Alone.
Empty
Before your God.
Say nothing.
Ask nothing.
Be silent.
Be still.
Let your God look upon you.
That is all.
God knows.
God understands.
God loves you
With an enormous love,
And only wants
To look upon you
With that love.
Quiet.
Still.
Be.

Let your God--
Love you.

~~Edwina Gately

flashbacks

I'm finally getting iTunes up and running on the new computer and am currently going through my CD collection... almost entirely made up of CDs purchased in the 5-6 yr period of late high school and early college. This collection is comprised of what was hottest in CCM, Family Christian Bookstore, etc. at the time (roughly 8 yrs ago). Needless to say (then why am I saying it?), my music tastes have changed somewhat since then, but it still is quite the journey. I'm letting myself listen to the first track or two on each CD as it is downloading and that's been quite enough to bring me back, thank you very much. Yikes.

nothing but

Conviction about something I need to do has been growing for a while now to the point that I can no longer avoid the truth about it. It all started with this quote:

"Do not be surprised, therefore, when you have yielded your
service, given your affection, and poured out your heart to that pleasure of
yours, your idol, your own lust and mischief--do not be surprised, then, if you
have no appetite for Christ, or for that heavenly food." --Robert
Bruce

Then I heard Dallas Willard speak and something he said got under my skin and hasn't left. He talked about how the mind of the flesh stops at things that are natural to us. And we use this as an excuse all the time for our words, actions, etc. "Oh, that's just what comes naturally to me." or "that's just how I am." Well, guess what, if we claim to have the Spirit of God, natural is no longer where we're allowed to settle. We need to expect the supernatural. From ourselves and from God.

Then all of a sudden it was the beginning of Lent and I briefly wondered about giving this thing (or these things) up because I had read about someone else who had found herself needing to do it.

Then one of the Lectionary passages from a week ago was about the Samarian woman at the well that asks Jesus to give her water that would never make her thirsty again and he said to her, "whoever drinks the water I give her will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give her will become in her a spring of water willing up to eternal life" (Jn 4:14). And I realized that I was not satiating the thirst I have with the Living Water but with the cheapo stuff that won't ever really satisfy.

Then last night I watched a documentary of sorts about community revival and transformation. And I knew that some things needed to change in my life. I couldn't just look for the small obedience anymore.

So.... drum roll please.... even though Lent is almost over and Easter is quickly approaching, I'm giving up books for awhile. No reading. No reading anything but the Word of God. When I'm thirsty for words, for stories, for companionship between pages, I need to be reading my Bible. When I satisfy this hunger with anything but God, I've essentially said that God doesn't count. And there's nothing true about that.

This seems silly as I type it. It's more drastic in my heart than I could make it on 'paper.' But I'm going for it. Who knows where it will take me...

to catch up

1. I finished A Year of Living Biblically. I was kind of disappointed by the end.

2. Started and didn't finish a considerable number of really bad books.

3. Fell in love with books by Adriana Trigiani. She writes about a charming fictional town in the mountains of Virginia called Big Stone Gap, and the people who live there are normal: they use bad grammar, can't maintain consistently healthy relationship and screw up in a variety of other ways. In other words, not so neat and clean, but the writing is.

4. I also started reading both Wild at Heart and Captivating, both by John Eldredge with input from his wife Stasi. I don't completely hate either one of them yet, but I don't buy everything either. Though I think that's probably what I feel about most things I read.

5. Having it be sunny today makes me feel like someone took the lid off the tin can of my world.