Easter began for me — as it perhaps was for you — in church. I arrived early because I got the time wrong so I got to witness the struggle of whether or not the sanctuary lights should actually be off as the worship bulletin indicated. They flickered on and off as different volunteers tried to prepare for the morning’s joy.
It began without music and without light. There was apparently a bonfire outside in the garden from which a spark of Christ’s light came to light our way into this celebration. It was clumsy and awkward as people passed the light around on candles usually seen on Christmas Eve. (Or at least that’s what I assume to be true.) I had been traveling with my children and parents for the ten days prior. Lent hadn’t really happened and I had skipped Holy Week. And maybe it’s true that you can’t really understand the wonder of resurrection without first knowing the death and destruction that too often comes first. Maybe.
It seems that there is enough of that out there right now. There’s enough to cause us lament and pain. There is more than enough fear and hate. Violence and war persist so that we need to find a way to live into the resurrection. It can't just be something that happened but something that we become.
Last week, I wandered through the mystery of proclaiming the resurrection with one of my directees. She’s preparing to officiate the funeral for a beloved family member and the rest of the family doesn’t quite share her faith so she is trying to find some way for this certain faith in resurrection’s power that she knows in her heart to be come alive in the way she leads her family through this farewell.
I don’t have an answer. I don’t think that there is one way or one right answer but somehow we step together into the unknown and point to what we can see and feel. There are bulbs that become a flower and butterflies that emerge from cocoons but resurrection is more than these things. It goes beyond what we can explain with all that we know about the world. It speaks to what we might become beyond the death and destruction. It dares to imagine that there is more than all of this and that is so hard to put into words.
Prayer is beyond frustrating when we don't have words. Words are how we communicate to each other and to God. We rely on our vocabulary, however meager it might be, to convey our hope. We need words even as we stumble over them to try to give meaning what seems so amazingly impossible to explain. This is where some bump into doubt. It can’t be so because there is nothing that proves that it really happened. Maybe. Or maybe not because words are not the only thing that are true and there are other ways that we connect with the world, each other and with God.
Rainer Maria Rilke writes to the young poet, “Things aren’t all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, who life endures beside our own small, transitory life.” The letter goes on to encourage this young poet to go into himself and figure out why it matters to find words at all. It is those unsayable things that birth art and wonder. It is those things that make resurrection become real and it is those things I hope we all experience in this Easter season.
If you find you are looking for a way to focus your prayers in the Easter season and find that leaning into the monastic practice of fixed prayers throughout the day appeals, I commend to you the wonders of Pray the Day from Vibrant Church Communications. I’ve worked with Jo and she’s a blessing in this world.
I have been working on some new resources of downloadable retreats to take into the world and find rest and renewal. It’s taking longer to write as I keep adding to these digital files and it gets richer and richer. I’m having so much fun creating these and though I wish I had something to offer now, I was reassured that there is need for such simple retreats after reading this exploration on “faux self care” and seeing that OnBeing is releasing their own version of a retreat series.
If you are interested in spiritual direction and are interested in a first conversation with me, please reach out or go ahead and book an appointment here. I am currently welcoming new directees and would be delighted to explore the holy threads of this life with you.