There are many traditions and rituals that surround Good Friday. Beginning with Holy Thursday services last night, Good Friday, including the Holy Saturday vigil observed by some, through to the arrival of the celebration of Easter with the sunrise of Sunday morning,is known as the Triduum of Easter, the ‘three days’.Today people will worship at services that use the service of Tennebrae, a ritual of light that moves into the darkness, reading the scriptures that tell of the crucifixion and death of Jesus. I will participate in all of this but what has become a part of my Good Friday observance will begin at noon today with…..enchiladas.

On the west side of Saint Paul at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church, the community serves meatless enchilada dinners on Fridays throughout Lent. For the last few years I have attended this meal with friends and family. I can honestly say that this is not something I would ever have associated with the observance of Good Friday. But today, even as the snow falls valiantly outside my window, I plan to bundle up and head over to the social hall of this beautiful church whose congregation is made up mostly of Mexican and Hispanic immigrants and their American born families. The food is good, the pride and service impeccable and the experience joyful and welcoming.

After lunch I will walk through the sanctuary of the church. Groups of people will be covering the statues of saints with black cloth preparing for the darkness of today’s readings. Outside the sanctuary,Our Lady of Guadalupe, the namesake of the church, will be decorated with beautiful flowers for what I assume is a part of an Easter procession. The dark,beautiful face of Our Lady inspires and strengthens this community to remember who they are in this land of Anglos and to proclaim the faith of their experience.

It is a powerful visual image that allows me to see the embodiment of both the darkness of Good Friday and the beauty and light of Easter. And isn’t that what we are present to each day if we really allow ourselves to see? This world in which we are privileged to live holds both the darkness of death and the light of resurrection each and every day. "Finally, the word of the cross is not uttered in the past tense. Every time we abuse the poor, every time we pollute our God-given planet, indeed every time we act selfishly, God dies naked on the cross of our ego." writes Huston Smith in The Soul of Christianity. As those who profess the Christian faith, it seems as if our work is to bring more light to the world and contribute less to what brings death. That is the call of each Easter morning, isn’t it?

So as we move into  these ‘three days’, may we all be held in the Spirit that invites us to the land of living. May we recognize fully those places that are shrouded in black cloth and work to uncover them. May we also contribute to planting the seeds that bring beauty, color, wholeness and hope. Blessed Easter!

"In the bulb there is a flower, in the seed, an apple tree, in cocoons a hidden promise:butterflies will soon be free. In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be, unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see. In our end is our beginning, in our time, infinity, in our doubt there is believing, in our life, eternity. In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory, unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see." Hymn of Promise, Natalie Sleeth

"To your table you bid us come. You have set the places, you have poured the wine, and there is always room, you say, for one more. And so we come. From the streets and from the alleys we come. From the deserts and from the hills we come. From the ravages of poverty and from the palaces of privilege we come. Running, limping, carried, we come. We are bloodied with our wars, we are wearied with our wounds, we carry our dead within us, and we reckon with their ghosts. We hold the seeds of healing, we dream of a new creation, we know the things that make for peace and we struggle to give them wings. And yet, to your table we come. Hungering for your bread, we come; thirsting for your wine, we come;singing your song in every language, speaking your name in every tongue, in conflict and communion, in discord and in desire, we come, O God of Wisdom, we come." Jan L. Richardson, In Wisdom’s Path

On this Holy Thursday many Christians will go to church to offer prayer and penance and will hear the story of Jesus sharing bread and wine with his disciples in what we have named The Last Supper.As the scripture writers have written the story there is in the implication that Jesus knew this would be his last meal with his friends, with those whom he had shown the Way. The fact of this is not as important as the idea that Jesus knew that the path he had walked was dangerous yet one he walked with integrity, being true to God’s call on his life. He was probably sure that the results of that would lead to the unfolding of his arrest and  even the possibility of his execution.

Last suppers. Today I am thinking about all those who have sat down to a supper without the knowledge that it would be their ‘last’. Yesterday we marked five years of being at war, a war that is complex,infused with missteps and disagreements, with mistakes and perhaps even some out right lies. But this drama we are all engaged in contains real people who have sat down at table with their families and their friends. And as those same people gather for an Easter, Passover or other special meal, nearly 4000 Americans will find that there is an empty place at the table. For those Iraqis who gather for family meals, we do not even know the number of chairs that contain only the memory of the loved one who once sat there.

I wonder, would those who sat at the table have done anything differently, said anything more had they known it was their last supper? Would those who surrounded them have tried to mark the moment with important words? Perhaps these are pointless questions but I do wonder. Five years is a long time. In that course of time children have been born and have started school. Others have moved from being gangling adolescents to college freshmen. Still others have moved from the protective world of school and home to the real world of work and ‘making a living’.

But in towns and cities, in farmhouses and apartments, in shanties and tents, five years has caused the world to stand still. Parents sit remembering. Wives and husbands try to reconstruct. Children cry themselves to sleep.  Because in those homes there is an empty place at the table.

"If wakeful Christians harbor a wish for heaven to fulfill, they wish not for an escape from reality, but for a deeper acquaintance with reality. When wakeful Christians lament this life, they grieve this world’s trivialization of itself that obscures the more profound reality of the kingdom of God in our midst. Yet, more often wakeful Christians celebrate life, finding the mark of God’s hand in this world and beginning their praise with the discovery of the holy here. "Holy,holy,holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory"(Isa.6:3).the seraphim sang. Wakeful visions of other worldly praise reveal angels singing of God’s reign on earth as in heaven." A Wakeful Faith by J. Marshall Jenkins

Today Christians find themselves in the midst of Holy Week. Last Sunday, Palm Sunday told of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and the beginning of drama we live out each year that tells of his coming face to face with a ‘deep acquaintance of reality’ which led to his arrest, torture and death. Tomorrow will find churches everywhere re-enacting the celebration of his last meal with his friends. Friday will hold the somber telling of the story of his death.Roman Catholics among us will spend Saturday in a vigil that tells of the whole story of God’s involvement since the beginning of Creation in the cycles of birth,life,death and rebirth which includes the fullness of the gospel.  All this leads to Easter Sunday morning with churches filled to capacity as worshipers once again proclaim that there is a power greater than death.

I have a blunt confession to make. I haven’t quite gotten into the observance of Lent this year. I have talked to others who have had difficulty as well. Perhaps it is because Lent came so quickly after Christmas and Advent this year. The date of Easter is determined by the lunar calendar as the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox. Unless you are 95 years or older, Easter has never been this early in your lifetime. It will not be this early again until 2228. Something about all this allows me to let myself off the hook with my lack of enthusiasm for Lent this year.

I have fond memories of Holy Week as a child. Growing up in a small town with small churches and few resources, Holy Week was the one time a year when the churches came together to create something larger than their individual congregations. Beginning on Palm Sunday night and every night during the week, we traveled from church to church for worship. There was special music at each church and a sermon. The one rule: no one could preach or sing in their home church. As I think about this I am not sure what the total appeal was for me. But I did love it and went even when my parents didn’t go.There was the chance to hear things in new ways from voices I was unfamiliar with, whose way of interpretation didn’t always reflect my own. But there was also something rich in the gathering of these people whose lives were bound by a common heritage, a common faith story, and the chance to share in that message.

As we move into the next few days, I pray for the grace to be present to the story that unfolds….through the scriptures, through the music, and through the faces and lives of those who gather to create a little glimpse of heaven on earth. This Jesus who calls for us to be open to God’s movement and to live likewise did so with his very life. I can only pray that in the year 2228 someone, somewhere will still be telling the story in one form or another. Perhaps it will be infused with a ‘wakefulness’ we can only imagine.

I knew the weather forecast for today and I was not particularly pleased with it. Snow. Like many, perhaps even like most, I am at the end of my fascination with snow. As I wrote yesterday, I am ready for green. So as I looked outside in the early morning darkness I was not overjoyed with the sight of white. Trying not to look too often out the window, I moved around the house, reading the paper, drinking my coffee, getting ready for the day’s meetings that were ahead.

And then I walked outside and was stopped in my tracks. Silence held the morning captive. Even the cars moving by seemed to have muted tires. My eyes moved from the heavy, wet snow on the ground upwards until they were startled with the overwhelming beauty of the snow clinging to the tree branches. I stood in my driveway looking up and down the street, nestled in a lacy, white doily. Walking underneath the maple tree that brings us such joy when it turns brilliant red in the fall, I could see the buds peaking out from under the chantilly flakes. "Not yet, not yet," they seemed to be saying, "But soon, very soon."

My son who has just returned from Mexico and is also finished with winter came outside to head to school. We stopped and looked together at the trees holding what may perhaps be their last heavy coat of snow. "I always think I should take pictures on days like this," he said. I silently agreed and tried to memorize the scene to save for one of those hot, humid days in August when we will be finished with summer.

The great gift of living in a place that moves through the seasons is that you have the opportunity, the blessing to notice the cycles of Creation. Birth, life, death, rebirth, over and over again. Sometimes we are ready when those cycles arrive in our lives, and sometimes we want to hold them off or stop them all together. Other times we want them to come sooner than would be best. Trusting in the internal rhythms of seed and soil, rain and sun, wind and breath, we come to be surprised by the beauty of it all. Always on our way from ‘not yet’ to ‘very soon’ and finally to the amazing ‘now’, we are held in the wonder of the world.

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted." Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

"Lord of All Nations and All Peoples, we rejoice today in a special servant of Yours, St. Patrick. Irish or not, Catholic or not, we all dance a gleeful jig on this his joyous feast day. His green feast day gives us all a chance to wear the green of spring and life. Four days from now our old friend winter will loose his lease of life. Packing up his ice and snow, his chilly winds and frosty breath, he’ll soon be gone. The green of this day foretells of rich vegetation soon to grace our countryside; proclaims the fresh and new to the tired and weary; announces to one and all that spring is on her way! Lord of All Seasons, winter is on his deathbed, but songs and mirth are greening all around us. Blessed be St. Patrick, bishop and man of prayer. Blessed be all saints, and the wee folk as well." Edward Hays, Prayers for the Domestic Church

Ah, St. Patrick’s Day. I have just driven down the streets in Saint Paul where green is being worn by every man, woman and child. Though the city, and certainly the church celebrated on Saturday due to the day falling during Holy Week, there was still a ‘wearin’ of the green’ for as far as the eye could see. And what a welcome color it was with the skies as gray as a goose and peppering the people and streets with slushy snow. How we long for green right now….and so are thankful for this celebration that allows us to pull out all the green clothes we own, put them on and head out to create a little interruption of the monochromatic to the world.

As I attended the St. Patrick’s Day mass at the Cathedral on Saturday morning, I was struck with the joy that green can bring into a room. Looking around there was kelly green, forest green, lime green,pale green, green feathers, hats, shirts, pants, jackets, even a few heads of hair that had been dyed green. All that beautiful, rich color even outshone the priests in their Sunday-best vestments.

St.Patrick’s Day is a celebration adopted by many for all kinds of reasons. But I would venture to say that a part of the attraction is trading the browns and blacks of winter in for a brilliant green, at least for one day in our snowiest month of the year. Ask a person who has just returned from a warm weather vacation what the best part was. Almost all will say ‘the color!’  After a certain amount of time we simply crave the sheer beauty and stimulation of color and its residual effect on our spirits.

And so if you haven’t already, I invite you to search for your green clothes and put them on. It doesn’t even matter if they don’t match very well. Put them on anyway. And head out into the streets to join the others proclaiming the message. "Winter’s work is over. The spring lies waiting to be born. St. Patrick has given us the signal. Wear green and coax the new life to begin." I promise you will be well received.

"Then God said,"I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey." Exodus 3:7-8a

A land flowing with milk and honey…..what a wonderful image…that earthly place that is filled with what will sustain, bring joy, feed the spirit.I believe each person has within them that place, that land, perhaps the place they were born or the place of their ancestors. This land is the place where their soul rests and finds recognition in the soil that fed their bloodline. It is the place that is in their DNA whether they are aware of it or not. We are, after all, earthbound beings and this is our home.

Last week we sat and listened to a woman named Dorothy who told us about her people, the Gullah people. These people are the direct descendants of the slaves brought to our country who reside in the island areas of South Carolina. They have worked hard over the years to maintain their identity, culture,language,music,food and to keep their ties to the land that was forced upon them. She told us how the people had built their cemeteries on the shore, near the water, because they believed that when they died and were buried, their spirits would be able to cross the water and go home again, to Africa. I was mesmerized by this idea, by her story, by this deep longing for the land. Now with development and some complicated land ownership laws, these cemeteries are being removed to make way for beach houses and other buildings to support the local economy. How will their spirits find home again?

The scriptures are filled with stories of people who are displaced, in exile, enslaved, who are trying to make their way home  It is one of our common human stories even when we are unaware of it. We each carry the cell memory of our ancestors deep within us that calls us to prefer mountains over water, prairie over desert, the sand over stone. Some people have spent their lives searching for ‘something’ that is just outside their reach only to arrive in a place they have never been and feel completed.

Where is your land of milk and honey? Where does your spirit find its home? Th poet John Soos writes: "To be of the Earth is to know…the restlessness of being a seed, the darkness of being planted, the struggle toward the light, the pain of growth into the light, the joy of bursting and bearing fruit, the love of being food for someone, the scattering of your seeds, the decay of the seasons, the mystery of death, and the miracle of birth."

No matter the soil of our home, this is the miracle of who we are.

Have a blessed weekend………………………….

"Every long journey is made of small steps
Is made of the courage,the feeling you get
When you know it’s been waiting, been waiting for you
The journey’s the only thing you want to do.
We cannot know what you go through or see through
    your eyes
But we will surround you, the pride undisguised
In every direction whatever you view
You’re taking our love there with you."
                            – Ann Reed

At the beginning of Lent I began to create a file of songs about pilgrimage, being a pilgrim, and songs that spoke to being on a spiritual journey. The file is filled with hymns, camp songs, folks songs and other songs that fit our Lenten theme of ‘Passport for Pilgrims.’  Journey is a subject of countless songs no doubt because it is a theme we all recognize so fully in our lives. This song by Ann Reed was one of the favorites that I found.

I thought of it again this past Tuesday when one of my co-workers brought her new baby in for us to see. As we passed this beautiful little one, so new to the world, around our circle we each offered her an unspoken blessing by our exuberant welcome. As we ‘oohed and ahhed’ it would have been nearly impossible not to make note of this journey both she and her parents were beginning. "Every long journey is made of small steps….." The small steps she makes each day in her growth is a beautiful beginning to a yet uncharted journey.

This song could provide such a blessing for so many of life’s big moments..birth, baptism, first day of school, marriage, graduation, leaving home, so many moments of transitional joy. It could also provide a blessing for those life moments we don’t plan….illness, divorce, failure, despair, death, so many moments of equally transitional sorrow. In some way each of us awakes to an uncharted journey each and every day. The small steps continue to take us to places we have planned and those we would not have chosen. It is the way of life.

For me, the true beauty of this song is in the final few lines:"But we will surround you, the pride undisguised, in every direction whatever you view, You’re taking our love there with you." In the many times I’ve headed down a new path or been pushed there, what has given me the courage to continue when the going gets tough and when I feel discouraged, is the deep knowledge that I am held by this unconditional love and compassion. Even when I have not necessarily received it from those I expected to offer it, I have somehow known that the One who breathed me into being extended that blessing with an unimagined grace.

My prayer is that it may also be that way with you….in your small steps, in your big life, on your sacred journey.

Some time last year I heard Susan Werner being interviewed on public radio. She told of traveling to more than 20 churches across the country and then sitting down to write the songs that make up her CD "The Gospel Truth."At the time of the interview, I was running errands and actually sat and listened in the Target parking lot. I was so taken with her lilting voice, her hard questions that melted into beautiful lyrics, the longing and power in the timbre of her voice.

Words like: "Excuse me sir what did you say, when you shout so loud it’s hard to tell. You have that I must change my ways for I am surely bound to hell. Well I know you’d damn me if you could. But my friend, that’s simply not your call. If God is great and God is good, why is your heaven so small?"

I find that powerful stuff. There have certainly been times when I have been a visitor at a church and have felt something similar. And being someone who has given much of her life to the daily workings of the church, I pray that no one ever leaves a worship service with the same feeling. But I am sure it has happened and I feel the pain of that.

Werner’s words carry a deep longing for what I would call the kin-dom of God…..that gathering of people that lives in the Way of Jesus. A community that is loving, peaceful, accepting,non-judgmental, hopeful,compassionate and unconditional in its pursuit of goodness."I got plenty and then some, what do I do? I got plenty and then some, what do I do? I go out and help somebody get plenty and then some too, that’s what I do." The connections that gird the social action of the church runs through each song.

The pain of being rejected by people who profess belief in a God of Love also finds voice in her lyrics: "How do you love those who never will love you, who are happy to shove you out in front of the train? How do you not hate those who have loaded their Bibles and armed their disciples?  And I can’t find forgiveness for them anywhere in this, and with God as my witness, I really have tried." Those words break my heart because I know so many people who could sing those words with such conviction.

But perhaps the song that most touches me is Sunday Morning."Sunday morning there is someplace that I’m supposed to be. Keeps returning, the feeling keeps coming over me. Just like music, or like sunlight on a a distant memory. Sunday mornings.Sunday mornings." In this song she remembers what it was like to be a part of a family that attended church together, the rituals, warm feelings and sense of safety and belonging that brought to her. As she grew and felt more alienated by her view from the pew, she finally left. But the longing continues and led to the creation of these songs.

If you want to hear the beautiful music that accompanies these words, I invite you hear Susan at Hennepin Church on April 11th. If you cannot make it, I commend her CD to you. She is a minstrel with a heart of gold and a deep search for faith.

"You’re not going to see people like this again for a long time, he said & I said I always saw people like this & he looked at me for a moment & said, You’re not from around here, are you?" Brian Andreas, Traveling Light

Back now on Minnesota soil, surrounded by the blinding light of sun on snow, I have found myself daydreaming about last week’s trip to the beach. I have been caught staring longingly off into the distance, remembering the green grass, brilliant colors of flowers,warm temperatures, sumptuous food I didn’t cook and the slow pace that usually overtakes a person when they have the sound of surf as their background music.

I have also been thinking about the interesting people we met and those we only observed. One young woman in particular keeps coming to mind. Thursday afternoon we walked the sand on Hilton Head Island. People were running, riding bikes, flying kites, reading and just sitting, soaking up the sun. I was walking with my head turned toward the water. That’s when I saw the first fin move above the waves. Soon there was another and another and then people stopped to watch. Dolphins!

As we stood there staring, my eyes were diverted by a young woman in a bathing suit and tank shirt, camera in hand. She was walking in a way that was so determined I had to stop looking at the dolphins and watch her. Her long, lithe strides took her right into the icy, cold water, her arms now lifted high above her head to keep the camera dry. She was so focused, so intent on getting as close as humanly possible, I began to feel this affinity with her desire. Inside my head I was cheering her on. "Go, go, swim as near as you can….swim with the dolphins!"

The beautiful mammals moved down the beach, following the wind and waves. Someone called out to her, "Look, there they are!." She was now an extension of all who watched. But she was the brave one, moving through the waves, the water nearly up to her neck now. She was close to them now but they of course kept moving while she was pushed constantly back by the power of the waves, the force of the undertow.

Back on the land, a woman dressed in warmer clothes called her name. Her mother? Finally, she began to move back toward shore. Did she get the picture she wanted? Did she get close enough?  I don’t know. Somehow as I left that scene I was certain of one thing. I am sure that was not the first time the one who called her name had seen the determined, confident walk that led her into the sea. A smile began to form on my face…..and I stood a little taller.

"I hope it will be said we taught them to stand tall & proud, even in the face of history & the future was made new & whole for us all, one child at a time." Brian Andreas

"The sea does not reward those who are too anxious,
too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as
a beach – waiting for a gift from the sea".
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

I have spent the last several days on beaches. Some were filled with retired folks walking leisurely with seemingly not a care in the world. On others college students played volleyball and Frisbee, full of the exuberance of spring break in a warm climate.Peppered among these people were families with young children building sand castles and trying to outrun the waves as they rolled onto shore. And there were plenty of us who fell in between all these descriptions.

The common bond of all these people? Shells. All along the beaches people of varying ages and stages of life periodically bent over and retrieved from the sand this treasure….a sea shell. What is the amazing appeal of these fragile things? Is it the tiny, unique and intricate beauty of each one? Is it that they were once home to something alive? Is it that they somehow connect us with the sea, that place from which humans most likely emerged to walk the Earth? No matter one’s view of the genesis of Creation, all humans came into the world through the water that held us…our mother’s womb . Our first home was water and the majority of our body is made up of water. So it only seems right that we should walk the sand and recover these little containers of life that was once held in the vastness of water.

At each beach, I started out telling myself that I will only pick up the ‘very unusual one’. But before I know it there I am, pockets full, hands full, no more room….until the next walk. On this outing the only thing missing was the occasional addition of the shell that one of my sons knew I couldn’t live without. Off on their own adventures now, I missed their contributions to my obsession.

At baptism we often use shells to remind us of the vast bodies of water that nurture us, nourish us, connect us,cleanse us, give us life. This Earth on which we travel is mostly water, a shell of sorts on which we ride, tucked into its curves and crannies, we listen for the whoosh of its water within our ears, within our heart.  We grow and outgrow, abandon our shell homes and take on new ones. Yet this Earth home remains constant,true. Perhaps that is what draws us to these jewels we find when the tides deliver them at our feet. Bending down, we reach out and pick up and we remember. Young ones new to this earth tuck an oyster shell in a pocket and remember. Those full of the promise of what is yet to be press a scallop shell into the hand of another young one and remember. Reaching down and saving a conch shell from being drawn back into the tide, those who have walked the beach many years, remember.

And so it goes……………..on and on and on.