Hidden Messages
I have been experiencing a lackluster couple of weeks filled with anxiety and writer’s block. I face each day with resistance because I honestly want it to be better than the day before but doubting the possibilities of that being true. If I’m to be honest with myself, there is no great reason for these feelings. There are new opportunities for spiritual growth; new members of the family awaiting to be born even as I type.
I spent my lunchtime in relative darkness, eating my power greens and relaxing but still at my desk. So in an effort to distance myself from my work, I turned off my computer monitor. When lunchtime was over, forgetting I had turned off the monitor, I tried to wake it up by moving the mouse and when that didn’t work I clicked it a couple of times. (Yeah idk – it made sense at the time.) The screen was still black and I remembered I had to turn it back on. (Duh)
As the screen came back to life, a Word document was opening up. No doubt I had clicked on something while the monitor was off. I giggled and wondered what I had accidentally opened. Of the 70 icons (I know that’s a lot.) on my desktop it was a sermon I had written two years ago entitled, “Resurrection.”
It was clearly something I needed to read. Here are some excerpts.
Like the apostles/disciples our experience of our lives – our embodied realities betray us. When we only listen to and/or observe our own personal circumstances we are limited to natural responses. Our grief re-orients our abilities to be logical, to sequence patterns or to notice trends. Our physiology automatically reacts to traumatic events by telling us we either need to run quickly and away from danger or collapse where we are. We find ourselves stuck in the grooves of our last major course of action even though time moves on around us we can’t determine the significance of that timeline – it is outside of our personal spiritual space travelling parallel to it keeping us grounded to our lifetime trajectory while simultaneously foreign to it. We won’t realize until later that we have missed something. For now…for now, we go through the motions of accomplishing that important task. We don’t know to take the time to wonder what we are doing in the midst of doing it.
We need to take a while individually and corporately to think about our next action steps after Easter and ask ourselves before we carry out our plan(s), is this a new thing? Or is this a continuation of an old thing? Are we responding out of our grief or are we responding as a post-resurrection people? Do we stay in the past with an axe to grind? Or do we have the courage to move forward modeling the lessons Jesus taught us?
Because he lives…
We can face the ridiculous striving for power of the American elite and work towards justice knowing that the Just judge will have his turn when kingdom come.
Because he lives… we must illuminate ignorance and remedy our denial regarding climate change and be better stewards of Creation.
Because we know he holds our future we must end the horrors of our lifetime – child abuse, sex trafficking, domestic violence, inadequate housing and economic disparities for the most basic human necessities of food, water and access to proper healthcare.
We must shake ourselves from the denial that is wrapped up in our own privilege of living in the United States, go beyond our borders and realize that life – all life is worth the living just because he lives.
He is risen!
He is risen indeed!