Tag Archives: spirituality

Fear, Grace, Easter

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It’s Easter Sunday, and my Lent didn’t really go as planned, honestly.

I’ve been distracted, let down people, made mistakes I’m not entirely proud of, didn’t pray enough, reflect enough, felt frenetic, worried and anxious. Anyone ever feel like their Lent was like that? Or life in general, really? (for those who don’t observe Lent).

I have learned this from my Lent: I have zero grace for myself. Here’s a moment of vulnerability: there is a depth to beating myself up that I can’t explain. I’m not sure where that comes from (well…).

I think the verse about taking the communion the wrong way always scared the crap out of me in church. Growing up, I was taught that communion was a serious thing. Which is appropriate, sure.

As it passed under my nose, I would take it with trepidation. I’d say a quick nervous prayer “God please forgive me for all my sins – help me not to take this wrongly…”

But I love the prayer we say every week at my Episcopal church after communion – or as they call it there – the Eucharist:

“Loving God, we give you thanks for restoring us in your image and nourishing us with spiritual food in the Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood. Now send us forth a people, forgiven, healed, renewed; that we may proclaim your love to the world and continue in the risen life of Christ our Savior. Amen.”

Seeing communion not just as pardon, but as strength, as renewal. How beautiful.

We (well me really – not sure about others) – tend to see the taking of the bread and wine as a reminder of death and all my sins. But it has zero significance without what happened 3 days later. It’s really a reminder of LIFE. The life given us. Yes – it is about the cross, but it’s also about the empty tomb and how He has given us power, strength, life, freedom.

This is what Lent and Easter is: so much more about the future than it is about the past, about our past.
It’s about hope.
it’s about letting go of all that we’re holding on to.
It’s about grace.

Whether Easter is your thing or not – grace is a powerful thing. It dissolves fear and gives hope.

I have felt this – through (and despite) my distractions and not so calm Lent.  In 2 separate instances, I was reminded of what it felt like to be given this gift. Each of my sisters showed me giant overflowing amounts of grace. I feel all the more grateful and close to them for this. They expressed a tangible example of Easter to me.

Jesus’ gospel wasn’t about mortification, fear and fear-mongering. It was everything the opposite.
It started with Mary at the Advent – “Do not be afraid”. Then all the love and care in between:
feeding the poor, healing the sick
taking the children on his lap
questioning the church leaders of their motives
eating with the outcasts
welcoming everyone
til his death on the cross with him looking down at John asking him to take care of his mother.
And ended at the tomb to both Marys – “Don’t be afraid, he isn’t here. He has risen.”

Grace. Hope. Don’t be afraid.

The other

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across cracked stone
the river runs
pouring
prideful
rubble red and
cold the sky
a broken reflection across
words in flames and placards

the people stand against the banks
in ranks
a rising stench
the sticks and stones that conquered bones
have built with rhetoric
a fear
begun years and thousands ago
summers of sweat
and placing bets

my hand – I win –
just because I was born
here and now and with this
not yours, not you

I am not
at ease with my own evolution
through no fault of your own
but some one rolled the dice
and I came up
able to breathe out of the river
un-drownable.

American.
Straight.
White.

others
maybe not

birth order and color and status and passport
all seem to make a difference
perception and expectation puts a powdered wig
on truth
a spiraling simplification

by them. by us.
by ‘we the people’
and I have the choice to care
or not care

wall

Advent 2015: interruptions and fear

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Over the last month, what has stood out to me as I meditate on the Christmas story is perhaps a reflection of what this year has been like both globally and personally: the prolific amount of interruptions in the lives of the people in the Christmas story.

I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. Can you imagine the complete change in Elizabeth and Mary’s plans – on both ends of their lives? But they welcomed the (unusual) interruption with a willingness and an anticipation that I doubt I could have.

Then there’s the innkeeper. All the inns in Bethlehem were full (a good problem for them of course), and he could easily turn away this interruption as others had done (that most likely wouldn’t benefit him). But he didn’t, and we remember him as the man who didn’t turn away the Messiah.

Then the shepherds, living their regular daily lives, watching their sheep. Probably frightened out of their wits when an unbelievable amount of angels filled the skies. Sounds story-book really. Still, after the sky emptied, they went to the manger and found Jesus there – just as the angel had said. And from then on: lives interrupted, never to be the same. But they ran to welcome this Messiah everyone had been waiting hundreds of years for.

True, this was about a good interruption, for a hope that brought joy and peace. But it still meant the unknown, a change not planned for, fear, possible rejection, a pause for an indefinite amount of time or a completely new direction. For the wise men, they packed up everything in search of something they weren’t even sure of.

And the list goes on: Simeon, Anna, Mary and Joseph again on their way to Egypt, Herod. oh. wait. Herod. This guy… like them, he was also interrupted and also afraid. And out of his fear, insecurity, jealousy, he reacted in the opposite extreme.

But here’s the crux – where it hits home, because sometimes I’m more like Herod than Mary. No, I’m not killing toddlers, but I have often responded to fear with fear. And that isn’t a solution. It only creates more fear in us and others.

Honestly, most of the interruptions in our lives aren’t the good kind. Most of them don’t promise good news, hope and joy. Most of them do bring fear, the unknown, possible rejection.

When I read the Advent story, I’m also comforted by the amount of times Gabriel has to tell everyone “Don’t be afraid”. Because Mary was. Zechariah was. Joseph was. The Shepherds were. Who wouldn’t be? Who isn’t when it’s the unknown, the unpredictable, the unplanned?

These are the words I cling to in my life. And the fact that they were afraid – even in the face of good news. Like it’s okay.

The thing is -we’re going to be interrupted. By outsiders – like Mary and Joseph did to the innkeeper. Or personally, like Joseph who found himself marrying a pregnant girl (not with his child).

And being afraid is natural.

Maybe that’s why the words of “o little town of Bethlehem” have really caught me this year:

“Yet in thy dark streets shineth The everlasting Light; The hopes and fears of all the years Are met in thee tonight.”

We’re not alone. I believe there is One who meets our fears, takes our fears, and in the end, changes it to hope. And if you don’t believe in the Christmas story, the essence is still true – we’re not alone and we are – in the end – part of what the Christmas story is also about: hope. Our response to our fears is so key.

It’s finding the willpower, the fight to respond to that fear with “let it be” (Mary), or respond with the right thing to do even though others around you may whisper against you (Joseph), or it inconveniences you (the innkeeper), or you don’t understand it (Zachariah)… Or maybe you make the choice to hurt others (Herod).

I know it’s not profound. I know that this can sound over-simplified. I know I haven’t faced the situations that others have, but I hope that I will not add to their pain by reacting wrongly out of my own. I can only hope (and I know not always, not always will it work out so easily) that I can bring hope for others.

I pray less now

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I’d like to admit something. I got tired of praying. My prayers? They annoyed me.
If you didn’t grow up in the church or are part of a contemporary one now, you may not get what I mean (or totally get what I mean!).

I found myself saying the cliche “I’ll pray for you” and cringing. It became a habit, like a catch phrase for when we have nothing else to say. You know that kind of silence when you’ve heard from your friend about how her dad has cancer or that she just found out she’s lost her job. And it’s a pause. And she’s sniffling. And it’s like a reflexive reaction in your throat to fill any space.. .Nothing..to…say…what … do… aaahh-“I’ll pray for you!”

Or it’s one of those moments when you just want to close the conversation. You’ve heard your friend go on about the issues at home and it’s really just a punctuation compunction flung out… “Hey friend, I-gotta-go, but-I’ll-be-praying-for ya’.”

Yeah…

I honestly believe that words have power. (If you don’t believe me, ask me about the story of how I prayed my brother-in-law into existence…). And I want to mean it when I tell some one that I’ll pray for them and not use it flippantly. And I want to be aware of what I’m praying for like who says “traveling mercies” in real life these days? And why are we asking God to “bless our conversations”?  Like we’re hoping no one will be offended by the mean things we are about to say.

So for awhile, I quit. I quit volunteering to pray before meetings. I quit praying before meals (Was I actually thankful for my meal as I shoved it in my mouth watching Jeopardy?).

And I have to go back to what my grandpa said a long time ago that prayer is about getting to know Christ. It’s a conversation. Not a list, not an aside or a wish or a quick dashed off text “what’s up?”. Not just bubbles that roll off my tongue and float away, empty and unsubstantial.

I know it’s simple. You’d think I’d get it by now. But it’s something I have to remind myself constantly. I have to actually be intentional about. Kind of like how I would want my friends to be with me. How I’d like to be with my friends.

So. I’m trying to pray more honestly now. And I admit, I pray less because of it. Sometimes I don’t pray at all because sometimes I have no clue what to say.

But I don’t want it to speak Christianese. I want to ask myself, ‘do I really mean this?’ “Do I really know what this means?”  “Am I honest in this prayer?”

Telling friends “I’m praying for you.” Well, I don’t mind saying those words, but today I check myself and ask myself, “am I really going to pray for them?”

Sometimes I just say nothing at all but sit with them in silence.