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Posts tagged ‘Easter’

Mar 5

Lent Invitation, No One Excluded

“We must believe that the stone will be rolled back, and we must be ready to poke out our timid heads, take off the linen bindings of death, and walk free for a time, breathing resurrection air.” – Ronald Rolheiser.

“Joy and sorrow. Love and loss. Big wins and even bigger failures. We cling tightly to the beautiful moments, but then the phone rings, a diagnosis drops, or some creeping ache reminds us that everything—everything—is so much more fragile than we’d like to admit. Life can be too much. And Lent is the season where we sit in that heaviness. For 40 days, we stop pretending things will suddenly get better and face the truth: life is fragile, and so are we.

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, when we hear the words no one really wants to say out loud: you are dust, and to dust you shall return. It’s not exactly the kind of thing you’d embroider on a pillow, but it’s a truth we need. Lent invites us to stop pretending we can hold it all together and instead sit with the weight of what we carry—the grief, the regrets, the messes we can’t untangle, no matter how much we try.” – Kate Bowler

Lent is my favorite season
Winter to spring
Desert to oasis
No glitter, fluff, the real stuff of life
Honest, fueled with meaning and purpose in the waiting
Overflowing with hope on the journey, twists and turns too
Resurrection at the end of the journey, always
No shortcuts, so worth the trip
No one “owns” Lent so dare to take the journey
God has been diminished, defined, limited, and boxed by many
God is here for each one of us and loves us like there’s only one of us
So much bigger than our small minds can comprehend and imagine
Kate Bowler has a wonderful devotional guide on Lent –https://katebowler.com/seasonal_devotional/the-hardest-part/

Stone rolling and resurrection air ahead.

“This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.” – Jan Richardson

Apr 1

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The Case for Hope

“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”― Nicolas Chamfort

“The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

When cynicism, criticism and incivility grow loud and try to rule.
Do not partake.
Do not succumb.
We fight the good fight for those who come after.
Planting trees we’ll never see.
Five energetic, bright-eyed happy boys, overflowing with joy and laughter.
The case for hope.
Children on Easter Sunday morning.
The reason to keep planting.
Fight the good fight of optimism, joy, hope, peace, laughter, light and love.
Bountiful and beautiful harvest.

“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.”― Emily Dickinson

Mar 31

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Third Day

“When we pray for guidance, perhaps God’s answer is every way he hems us in, like a river.”― Christie Purifoy, Placemaker: Cultivating Places of Comfort, Beauty, and Peace

EASTER BLESSING

“On this Easter morning, let us look again at the lives we have been so generously given and let us let fall away the useless baggage that we carry — old pains, old habits, old ways of seeing and feeling — and let us have the courage to begin again. Life is very short, and we are no sooner here than it is time to depart again, and we should use to the full the time that we still have.

We don’t realize all the good we can do. A kind, encouraging word or helping hand can bring many a person through dark valleys in their lives. We weren’t put here to make money or to acquire status or reputation. We were sent here to search for the light of Easter in our hearts, and when we find it we are meant to give it away generously. The dawn that is rising this Easter morning is a gift to our hearts and we are meant to celebrate it and to carry away from this holy, ancient place the gifts of healing and light and the courage of a new beginning.” – John O’Donohue, Dawn Mass Reflections at Corcomroe Abbey

Death to life.
Redemption.
Resurrection.
The third day.
Hallelujah.
Called to be Easter people.
Joy. Hope. Light. Triumph.
Not a day, a way to live.

“The sorrow of Good Friday’s sacrifice to the joy of Easter’s dawn of victory is a timeless testament to life’s journey from despair to hope, from darkness to light, from trial to triumph.”― Aloo Denish Obiero

Mar 30

Resurrection Air

“Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.”― Leo Tolstoy

“On Holy Saturday I do my best to live in that place, that wax-crayon place of trust and waiting. Of accepting what I cannot know. Of mourning what needs to be mourned. Of accepting what needs to be accepted. Of hoping for what seems impossible.”― Jerusalem Jackson Greer

The aftermath of grief.
The lingering.
The numbness.
We all have walked this when a loved one dies.
The threshold of never going back to the way it was.
And yet.
Hope.
Gently pulls and then carries you forward.
Day by day, little by little.
From empty heart to empty tomb.
The middle place.
Resurrection air coming soon.
Wait.
Hope.
Trust.
Breathe.

“The resurrection tells us it is never too late. Every so often we will be surprised. We must believe that the stone will be rolled back, and we must be ready to poke out our timid heads, take off the linen bindings of death, and walk free for a time, breathing resurrection air.”― Ronald Rolheiser, Prayer: Our Deepest Longing

Apr 28

A Mystery to Be Honored

“Each person’s grief is as unique as their fingerprint. But what everyone has in common is that no matter how they grieve, they share a need for their grief to be witnessed. That doesn’t mean needing someone to try to lessen it or reframe it for them. The need is for someone to be fully present to the magnitude of their loss without trying to point out the silver lining.” Robert Neimeyer

“It’s that intention of fixing, of curing, of going back to “normal” that messes with everything. It stops conversation, it stops growth, it stops connection, it stops intimacy. Honestly, if we just changed our orientation to grief as a problem to be solved and instead see it as a mystery to be honored, a lot of our language of support could stay the same.”— Megan Devine, It’s OK That You’re Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn’t Understand

Seven years ago today, my Dad passed away from a fall.
I was on a plane from a work trip and didn’t make it back in time.
Life stopped on a dime and then moved rapidly to reality.
We jumped in to take care of Mom.
And Mom took care of us too.
We took care of each other.
Two years ago, Mom was accidentally diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer.
With each passing month, we kept thinking, this might be it.
When would it catch up with her?
Anticipatory grief before the grief of actual death.
She passed on March 7 this year.
Sudden or prolonged, it’s different and it’s loss.
Grief is grief and it’s different for each person and for each person that they grieve for and about.
Whether fresh, 7 years, or 20 years or more, loss, the hole remains along side the love, gratitude, grace and memories.
We dip our toes and then re-enter the flow of life again.
Different and carrying it forward.
Threads of joy, laughter and beauty weave through each day if we allow.
Whether you are in the midst of fresh and/or lingering grief, you are held, loved and seen.
Nothing to solve or fix.
No silver lining.
Walking along side is enough.
A mystery to be honored.
Both life and death.
Live and love well.

“The reality of grief is far different from what others see from the outside. There is pain in this world that you can’t be cheered out of. You don’t need solutions. You don’t need to move on from your grief. You need someone to see your grief, to acknowledge it. Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.”― Megan Devine, It’s OK That You’re Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn’t Understand

Apr 21

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Miracles Abound

“If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.” – Gail Sheehy

“Miracles happen everyday, change your perception of what a miracle is and you’ll see them all around you.” – Jon Bon Jovi

With ease, open to receive, to give.
Rapt attention, a shift in perspective, fresh eyes, listening ears.
Senses on and in tune to experience the same in a new way.
Ordinary becomes extraordinary.
Miracles in nature, in flowers bursting to greet spring, in spirit and soul.
Come alive, look longer, breath deeper.
In this day, be present and awake.
Be there fully.

“The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” — Ireneaus

Apr 17

Eastertide

“The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created spring.”— Bernard Williams

“The very first Easter taught us this: that life never ends and love never dies.” – Kate McGahan

Easter is the culmination and completion of the Lenten season and the beginning of Eastertide, the seven Sundays following referred to the “Season of the Spirit.” Beginnings and endings and all that resides in between, where we live daily, often looking backward and forward, missing the extraordinary in ordinary days.

The transition from winter to spring, with winter windchills returning yesterday to remind us that she’s not done yet. Transition and transformation are not done in one day but in a series of days held together, in seasons. The cusp of ending falling into beginning. Again and again.

Thresholds, waiting, hoping, dawn, resurrection. May you remain present and senses ablaze through each day of each season, passing through the doors to newness of life.

“Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul.”— Victor Hugo

Apr 10

Carry Easter Forward

“Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.” – Martin Luther

“Here is the amazing thing about Easter; the Resurrection Sunday for Christians is this, that Christ in the dying moments on the cross gives us the greatest illustration of forgiveness possible.” – T. D. Jakes

The Lenten journey is complete.
Culminating in Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday.
Completed on Easter Sunday.
The third day.
On the fourth day, Monday, we are called to be Easter people.
And to continue on Tuesday, Wednesday…and each day before us.
As Father Malone advised at Sunday Easter mass, “leave the bandages.”
Jesus resurrected, left the burial dressing, the bandages behind in the empty tomb.
Calling us each to leave our bandages behind to become Easter people.
Our bandages of hurt, pain, offenses-both given and received, anger, unforgiveness, wounds, remorse, resentment, the past.
Put it all down.
Carry Easter forward.
Resurrection requires us to leave the old to become fully new.
May you accept the daily invitation to a peace that passes understanding, a hope unending, and love without limits.

“We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace.” – Pope Francis

Apr 9

About Love, Real Love

“A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”― Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyła)

Easter morning.
New life.
About love beyond comprehension.
No boundaries, walls, only windows open wide.
A love without condition, denial, unforgiveness, resentment, demands, boasting, anger, fear.
Redemption.
Forgiveness.
Spring.
Resurrection.
Unfamiliar, unbelievable, incomprehensible.
Yet offered to each and all, no exceptions, exclusions, no small print rules and regulations.
Say “Yes!” to this offer of love.
Be renewed and freed from chains of the past and fear of the future.
Today, the tomb is empty.
Love, pure love is risen.
Happy, happy Easter.

“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” – Saint Augustine

Apr 7

Bear the Weight and the Wait

“How great is the love of God! He loved me long before I knew His name. He wooed me, chased me, enthralled me, and captured my heart. He didn’t prove His love at a candlelight dinner. There were no long-stemmed roses, but there were thorns. Yes, there were thorns.” – Katherine J. Walden

“Good Friday is not about us trying to “get right with God.” It is about us entering the difference between God and humanity and just touching it for a moment. Touching the shimmering sadness of humanity’s insistence that we can be our own gods, that we can be pure and all-powerful.” – Nadia Bolz-Weber

Enter fully into the heaviness of this day, Good Friday.
What is Good about this?
Carry a sliver of the Cross.
Jesus bearing all but your sliver.
On the edge, flounder, a thread of hope.
Held in grace and love.
Remember and remain.
For when Sunday comes.
The third day.
Redemption. Resurrection. Easter.
It means nothing without the angst of Good Friday, the weight.
The hollowness and exhaustion of Holy Saturday, the wait.
Sunday comes, but not without Friday and Saturday.
Sacred, holy ground.
Preparing us for transformation to Easter people.
The gift of spring.
Hope fulfilled.
It is and will be done.

“We focus on Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, but we forget to pause in the stillness of the days between. Find time today to be present in that place of waiting. There is treasure to be found in the sacred peace that comes as you breathe in that place of quiet surrender. Don’t rush through the space called “Between.” – Katherine J. Walden

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