"When you eventually see through the veils to how things really are, you will keep saying again and again, "This is certainly not like we thought it was!" ~Rumi

Have you ever thought about how many things in life can be described by this statement of Rumi? How many times have you been surprised by a long awaited event or situation that is completely different than what you imagined it might be? A new job? An anticipated vacation? A budding relationship? Parenthood?

So many of life's comings and goings are so full of surprises we barely recognize what we planned for, hoped for. We see through many veils, don't we? I am constantly humbled by my dreadfully inadequate lens on the world. We each see with such particularity and yet so often approach situations and people with the notion that 'everyone sees it the way I do.'

I am thinking of those early disciples of Jesus again. Approaching what we in the Christian church call Holy Week, I am reminded of the false starts, the huge mistakes and smaller missteps, made by the the often over zealous friends and followers of Jesus. From our nearly 2000 year perspective, it is easy to think they had to see where this story was headed, the challenges, the tragedy, the triumph. But, of course, they did not. Their veil, their lens, was as equally flawed as our own.They could only see the world, and the Jesus they loved, with their own particularity. As the final days of his life played out, some remained steadfast, others fled, some must have been courageous and others filled with a desperate fear. It was 'not like they thought it was.'

And yet it seems that even the surprises and grief that came to them in those days lifted the veil and changed the lens of their walk in the world. As tragedy has the gift to do, their world was opened in ways beyond their imagining and they were bound together in a common cause, a common connection that has fed each of our Christian communities to this day. From this tiny little band of misfits in a remote and misunderstood part of the world, churches have been born, people have been transformed, communities have been nurtured.

If they knew, I am sure their words might be……"This is certainly not what we thought it was!"