Resurrection Unbound

Reading for Easter Vigil

With churches closed for the last few weeks of Lent and also for Easter due to the COVID-19 pandemic, churches of all sizes and denominations have scrambled to find ways to stay connected. At a time when we need each other most, we cannot gather – at least not in person. Clergy on Twitter and Facebook have reached out to each other with suggestions and support, everything from hosting Zoom bible study to sharing cringe-worthy stories and videos of when things went sideways. The English rector who lit his sweater on fire during evening bible study and calmly patting out the flames on his shoulder before continuing his meditation was a prime example that it’s okay for things not to go perfectly. No one needs perfect right now. We need what is honest, heartfelt, and genuine even if it’s messy, awkward, or clumsy.

As we all realized that churches would be closed for Easter, and likely beyond, there was almost an immediate knee-jerk response from clergy and laypeople alike that Easter would be celebrated the first Sunday our congregations could gather. That quickly shifted to discussions of the need to celebrate all of Holy Week together as many people would be grieving losses and would need the journey to the cross, the darkness and grief of the tomb, and then, and only then, to celebrate the victory over death. It didn’t take long for the liturgy police to point out that Easter is the first Sunday following Passover, which follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox and thus, is a feast which absolutely cannot, must not be moved. To quote Doctor Who, ‘Fixed point in time. So sorry.’

I was, and still am, pretty solidly in the camp of celebrate Holy Week whenever we can gather again, even if it’s July. Why? Because somehow I have a hard time accepting that God is bound by our calendars or our sense of timekeeping. God rested on the seventh day – so for the sake of argument, what if God started creating the world on a Wednesday and we’ve been celebrating this Sabbath on Sunday thing wrong all along? Just as the Sabbath is about remembering to take time to rest with God, so too our remembrances of the events of Holy Week and the celebration of the Resurrection are about taking the time to retell the stories and celebrate the promises of God which have been fulfilled in Christ.

Of all the days on the church calendar, the Easter Vigil is far and away my favorite as we tell the stories of God’s promises throughout the generations, waiting in the darkness for the light we know will come. This year, it was a little different. For the first time, I had the opportunity to read for the Vigil. I read not in a church but in my sons’ bedroom because it was the quietest room in the house. I read not in the darkness of evening, but in the brightness of mid-morning, waiting patiently for the young football player and his father to finish working out on the field to their hype music with it’s window-rattling bass. I read not to the familiar faces of my congregation but to a stuffed dog who propped up my iPhone so I could record with a steady camera angle. I read not on Holy Saturday but on Monday morning so that I could email the recording to our choir director, turned tech guru extraordinaire, who would have to splice together all the readings, songs, prayers and sermon that would make up our Easter Vigil. I spent Easter Vigil not in my lovely church but in my bedroom, not at 7:30 but at 9:30, not with others but alone, and yet – not alone. The end result was beautiful and moving in ways I could never have imagined. Each from our own homes, we came together and yet did not gather, separate and yet united.

Time feels strangely fluid in these odd days we’re living in right now. We have to remind each other what day it is. Most of our social obligations have been cancelled en masse, for how long, no one knows. And where is God in all of this? God is beyond all time, unencumbered by our human record keeping and calendars. The victory over death happened over 2000 years ago, it happens now in this moment, in this breath and in the one we are about to take, and it will happen until the end of time because in ways we will never be able to fathom, the resurrection is unbound by time.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

An Invitation

I had an invitation last week to spend time with a very old friend. The timing wasn’t the greatest. I had two finals to finish – one in philosophy and one in comparative theology – both writing intensive. The kids have stuff going on as their school year is winding down. One is testing for his learner’s permit this week and his summer job has started. The usual to-do list and urgent errands have been amplified the last few weeks with lots of extra time being Mom Taxi. So even finding time to get out of the house alone wasn’t going to be easy. But I just knew I couldn’t say no. Thursday evening, instead of taking advantage of the a few hours of free time to work on my finals, I went to Our Lady of Peace and spent that time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.

That sounds all peaceful and lovely, doesn’t it? It was. Except for the part when my brain went into overdrive. This is a crazy thing to do. I have so much to do. And I haven’t been to adoration in years. Besides, this is such a totally Catholic thing to do. And I’m… I’m… well I don’t know what I am. A has-been Catholic? A would-be Lutheran? A hell-bound heretic? Why did I decide to do this? I wonder if the lightning strike will take out the whole church or just me…

Yeah, it got a little intense there for the first few minutes. But, here’s the funny thing: Jesus and I have already had this conversation, on more than one occasion, and he has no use for all those nice neat boxes that I spend so much time trying to fit myself into or fight my way out of. Jesus knew I needed a reality check and during that time I spent sitting there in the quiet, candlelit church, he gave me one. The only thing that mattered in that time and space was that I had showed up to spend time with him.

I was invited: Come. Be Still.

So I came. And I was still – or as still as I get. And that was still enough to be reminded that Jesus sees me with different eyes and when I can be still, or at least somewhat still-ish, I can catch glimpses of what he sees. And when that happens, my life doesn’t look quite so crazy.

 

 

The Cookie Meditation

Something Yummy This Way Comes…

It starts as soon as the weather gets cold, sometimes as early as September, definitely by late October.  There’s a chill not only in the air outside but inside too.  Not in the house but in me. The only thing that chases that chill away is to bake and it has to be cookies. I never really paid it much mind until this year.  I felt so lousy for most of the past several years that a batch or two was about all I could pull off and the urge to bake was only another ache to be tolerated.  But this year, even with being back in school and the craziest busy season I’ve ever seen at work, I baked nearly every single weekend with energy to spare.  Batch after batch after batch. Snickerdoodles, Date Bars, Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Snowflakes, Molasses Spice Drops, Scandinavian Butter Cookies and Mini Chocolate Chip cookies filled the cookie tins. I even wore out the old mixer. (In my defense, it was as old as I am.) I baked old school, grinding dates with my Grandma’s 100 year-old cast iron meat grinder and dusting confectioners sugar with Mom’s 60 year-old sifter. I spent my Saturday mornings sipping a strong cup of Irish tea, paging through the bright pink book known around here as simply The Cookie Book, and scoping out new things to try.

But why?  I knew I was looking for something but what? The warmth of the oven? The comforting smells of butter, chocolate, cinnamon, ginger and other spices? The nostalgia of doing what my mother and grandmother and great-grandmother had done for years? Maybe another batch would help me figure it out…

The funny part is, I don’t eat most of them. The boys do. Mom does. My sister does. I take them to work. I randomly drop them off to friends or neighbors. I’m in it for the making, not the eating.

I started to pay attention to what I was doing. I’m not a neat cook but I am a logical one. There’s a system to my madness. I have to work left to right and the ingredients go back into the cabinet once I’ve measured out what I need. I’ll only use one set of measuring spoons even though we have two. I have my good cookie sheets that no one else dares to use. My phone is my timer and I know how many cookies I can get on the trays before it’s time to rotate trays from oven to cooling rack.

Cookies are all about precision. Even when I tinker with my nearly-perfected chocolate chip recipe, I know exactly how much extra brown sugar I can sneak in or how much less vanilla I can use. So I was furious with myself when I screwed up a batch of chocolate snowflakes using baking soda instead of baking powder. They were beautiful but they were hard as rocks.  Such a simple thing really.  Most of my cookies use baking soda and I reached for it out of habit.  It wasn’t until after the cookies were done that I realized what I had done wrong.  Mom and I ate them anyway. Chocolate is chocolate after all and, dunked in hot cocoa, they softened up quite nicely.

But that mistake slowed me down a bit.  I paid closer attention to what I reached for, intentionally reading what I needed and not working out of habit. I noticed something else along the way. In seeking out new cookies, I was gravitating towards recipes that were more labor-intensive than my old favorites.  Most needed to be mixed then chilled for a few hours and then rolled into balls, then rolled in sugar, cinnamon or some combination of the two.  It takes time to roll 70 cookies into perfect little balls.

And it finally dawned on me last night, as cookies covered every flat space in the kitchen that this is what I was seeking: the time to slow down and work logically, methodically and precisely when everything at work and school and with the kids was out-of-control crazy.  I need the time to make a huge mess and then bring it back into perfect order.  There are only so many ways I know to pull that off: writing, stitching and baking. If I pull out my stitching or sit down at the kitchen table to write, suddenly everybody needs something from me.  But if I pull out the mixing bowls, the kitchen miraculously empties for a couple of hours.  Left alone in my mess, the crazy burns out in the oven, the stress washes off in the sink and the chill inside dissipates … at least for awhile.

What comes out of this oven is only as good as the combination of what goes into it.  Life is like that too.  It’s okay to have out-of-control crazy but only if there’s a slow down somewhere to balance it.  So if you happen to wander into my kitchen during these colder months and it looks like the cabinets may have exploded, it’s okay. I’m just meditating. And if you leave me be, I promise you, I will bring order from chaos and something sweet will come of it.