An Easter People

If you were a card maker and worked for Hallmark, what kind of card would you make for “after Easter people?”

This was the question posed to me as part of our regular Wednesday night service at church.

My first response was, “well I AM an Easter people. “So why should I worry about “after Easter”. If I don’t live in the hope of the resurrection, then why bother with it all? I know what the group leader meant. Our group came up with the card tag line of “It is after Easter…do you know where YOUR disciples are?” This was a direct reference to the “hidden people” of the Upper Room. How big was the upper room anyway?! But truly…our lectionary reading this week is from John 20 and tells of doubting Thomas. I love Thomas and can’t say that I wouldn’t also want to touch hands, feet, side, and anything else of a friend and teacher with whom I was close and loved. But then again I tend to stand up for underdogs.

Jesus lets him touch. Lets Thomas gouge his hands into the holes (I would assume they are still there?). Remember earlier, Jesus didn’t let Mary touch him as he had yet to ascend to heaven. He tells her to go and tell of his presence. At least I think this is the story. So why Thomas? I wonder if it is not that Thomas doubted but that Thomas’ experience of Jesus needed to be different than Mary’s. Thomas was not there when Jesus appeared earlier to the disciples in the upper room. Maybe he went for more wine? After all it had been a frightful few days.

But if we are an Easter people, we live in the hope and that hope looks and feels (literally) different for each of us. I don’t doubt Mary’s experience of the risen Christ. I also don’t doubt Thomas’. After all he made the declaration we recite in creeds and criteria...”my Lord and my God”.

In class today I admitted to being a closet conservative. Well sorta conservative. Much more to the right of some of my classmates at any rate on some issues. I can claim that and live with it. For me, the resurrection is what makes Jesus who he is, what makes Jesus’ life so radically alive. Yes he was subversive and up ended the systems of the day, but the resurrection tells me (literally or figuratively) that he was God’s all the way.

As I said in class, with the words, “who is it that you say I am”, Jesus allows us to declare who he is. And by that, we declare ourselves to be an Easter People.

Tenebrae

Crucifixion Brokenness

I have just gotten home from our Tenebrae Service. The liturgy of Tenebrae is characterized by the gradual extinguishing of candles while a series of readings and psalms are chanted or recited. It is a service of shadows. It is a remembrance of Good Friday. We began the service with 7 candles lit and ended in darkness…or what was meant to be darkness. We had a little more light than care for. I have been to some services that ended in inky darkness and felt my way to the doorway through a game of trust.

But we were fine. We read an “account” from those at the foot of the cross; Mary the Mothr of Jesus, the soldier, Mary Magdalene (that was my part. I think it is the red hair), John, Joseph of Arimathea. It was a fictional account certainly. We really don’t know what it was like that day. I am not sure I want to know.

I left (after having dissected the service every which way) thinking of broken bodies and burials. I recall the broken body of a little boy in the ER a few months ago. I knew then that he would forever remind me of the broken body of Christ. I saw him held in his mother’s arms. Limp and lifeless. Bruised and battered. Pink cheeks still.

Perhaps it is this image we keep with us this day. A day that I had to remind myself that was a Christian holiday and yes things were still open. A day that still says "Friday" on the calendar.

It is an image of a mother left with her child. A mother whose tears washed her son’s body and whose tears were mixed with blood and dirt and shame.

A mother with no answers.

Not on Friday.

Deep End of the Pool

I am depressed. Or at least my counselor and I think I am.

I had tried to “break up” with her but I couldn't. She let me go for a bit. I knew she would. I was “stuffing” she said. She was right but I couldn’t sit in the shit 24/7 and function. But then the shit hit the fan over something relatively minor and all the walls cracked at the same time.

So we are back together again.

She tells me I am “very high functioning”. I think I knew that. I function very well, thank you.

But I know where I am.

I am in the darkness.I have been here before. In the depth of the deep end of a pool. The bottom is elusive though I try nearly every day to get there. I think I find it only to have it slip deeper down. I know this darkness. It has come before and gone. It will go again. I have known it from early on.

I lose people. People I need to have around. They die. They don’t do it on purpose but their loss is profound.

I need a touchstone. The one I have has slipped. And I have no more. Maybe that is it. The realization that I have lost the bedrock; the one or ones who keep me secure. And you can’t go buy one at Lowe’s. Touchstones just are. And you just don’t look for them. They seem to find you.

I am waiting to be found.

Spring Break and more

I think the saddest sight I have ever seen is an empty dog collar. I took Summitt to be boarded today. I am off to Chicago to meet Heidi and we decided to board her. We told her it was Spring Break puppy camp. She has been before. And she did fine when the lady took her back to her “spa”. But it was sad holding her collar and her leash.

Now for the fun part. Heidi is having me “flown” to Chicago this week. She is working and has a day between appointments. We love Chicago and have been a couple of times before; once in December and once in July I think. So we will hang out at the Field Museum of Natural Science and see Sue the big Tyrannosaurus Rex. Fun times. And then there is Geno’s East pizza. Always a good choice.

Now to stave off an anxiety attack once I get there and land and have to flag down a taxi. I seem to get overwhelmed at odd times in big cities. I did it in DC one year and then had one in Water Tower Place in Chicago at Christmas on our trip a few years ago. I don’t have a time crunch so that will help. I just need to sit tight until I have my bearings. We talked through the whole process before she left. This is not hard. I am 41 years old and speak English (although it is likely my cab driver won’t!). I have a cell phone. I can do it.

I think. I am not so sure where the anxiety comes from. I don’t recall a trauma as a child. My anxiety dreams seem to work on the premise that I get left or I can’t find something or cant’ get somewhere. So maybe that is it. I have a therapy appointment on March 24. May be a topic of discussion.

But mostly it will be good to be. We have gotten some relatively good news regarding treatment and this is somewhat of a celebration trip. Might as well take advantage of it despite the fact I have a mid term and 5 article reviews due on Monday March 10 when I go back to school. I think such things should be outlawed but who am I but a lowly grad student!