As I began to write this blog, I struggled to find what I would “give up” for Lent. How does one prepare for Lent when they are already intermittent fasting for health, gave up sugar and drink decaf coffee?! Maybe wine but we rarely drink the cheap stuff, so that already limits our consumption. After practicing this season for many years now, I am running out of ideas. Scouring my soul to find any sort of vice that I could lay down for a season feels rehearsed and lackluster.
I long for structure these days; boundaries and routines. These got pulled out from under me when the Pandemic hit back in March. It’s now the end of June and my life feels like a swamp rather than the above picture of neatly plowed fields, each with their own design and purpose. My friend Camille says to look for the things that spark life in me to help me trudge through the swamp. Clues to get me from one mossy stone to the next.
I resisted writing this blog about hospitality not because I don’t think the topic is important but because my brain is fried due to being in quarantine so long. I can’t even begin to write about what it means to practice hospitality when we can’t even have people in our homes! Yet biblical hospitality calls us to something entirely different. It is far more than just baking a pie and sitting around a lovely set table, it’s about welcoming the stranger and feeding the hungry.
In our current circumstanced with sheltering in place, we find that our limited access to our usual routines, self-care, and companionship have made us, well, a bit more cranky. For my household, we all find ourselves constantly apologizing and trying our best to stay clear of the resentment zone. We live in a 1000 sq. ft house and it’s hard to get away from one another! Many of our fights are being resolved by learning to apologize better (check out this great podcast on apologies) and chalking it up to quarantine-induced behavior. Apologizing isn’t the only thing needed, however, our willingness to forgive one another is also necessary.
This week for the Practices of Resurrection Eastertide Series, we are dedicating time and brain space for contemplation and meditation. With today’s current environment that is riddled with troubles and doubts, our minds and our homes are chalked full of anxiety, and often accompanied by a sink full of dishes! In the midst of this chaos, it’s easy to forget The Good, and the ability to see Jesus in our every day.
Today marks the second week of Eastertide, the season of which we celebrate the risen Christ. For fifty days we get to celebrate and feast, remembering Him who annihilated sin and death once and for all. For fifty days we have the chance to lean into the power of resurrection and worship with joy knowing that it is finished! Christ has risen and our souls, once darkened by sin, now rise with Him in victory. This time is set aside specifically for the people of God to remember, celebrate and become more deeply acquainted with our redeemed ourselves.
We are officially ten days into Lent, the season to remember Christ entering the desert for forty days and forty nights. Lent is traditionally a season for the church to engage in spiritual practices such as fasting, prayer and almsgiving. Lent is strongly themed around self-denial and remembering our finite mortality. Just as Jesus fasted for those forty days, he was hungry, expressing his most basic human need: food. Although Jesus was also God, his choice to take on our humanity came with limitations.
So many things in this life feel haphazard, unexpected, lacking purpose, and are often terribly painful. Much of what we experience we didn’t even choose and there’s nothing we can do about it. Living with infertility for the past 4 years has taught me this. This isn’t, however, a blog about infertility, but about the paths we find ourselves on, the hand of cards we hold, and how we are able to continue to trust God despite it
It was 2015 and I was stuck in a job where I felt like someone’s “minion” rather than an employee. My husband was working swing shift and we only had a few windows of time to see each other each week. We did what we could do to spend quality time together but they were few and far between.
Colette Eaton 