Embracing Easter

Well, if you're still reading this Lent Blog - props to you. You might be one of those people who have a difficult time moving on when time has passed. Okay, that might just be me.

So I was not ready for Easter this year - as you can tell from my last post. Sunday came around and I was not ready to celebrate the risen Jesus. This is not because I don't believe that Jesus really rose from the dead, but rather I was not ready to rise from my season of Lent. But here I am two days late and slowly coming around to embrace the fact that Easter is to remind us to hope.

As Nouwen puts it in the Easter Sunday reading, "There still is fear, there still is a painful awareness of sinfulness, but there also is light breaking through. Something new is happening, something that goes beyond the changing moods of our life. We can be joyful or sad, optimistic or pessimistic, tranquil or angry, but the solid stream of God's presence moves deeper than the small waves of our minds and hearts."

Yes, the season of Lent has passed (except for the Eastern Orthodox who celebrate it this coming Sunday - I probably fit in a little better with their calendar). But, I'm coming to a place of hoping in hope again and in allowing God's presence is walk with me through the mountains and the valleys.

It's been wonderful journeying with all of you through this season. I love you all lots.

Fighting off Easter

For the past two weeks, I've dreaded the thought of Easter coming. Maybe because I would rather moap in my world of greys, blacks, and browns than the happy pinks, yellows, and pastels that indicate that spring and new hope is here. Darkness has become my friend. It is familiar, predictable, and has become a place I can call home.

I have a love-hate relationship with Lent. I love that it's a season where I can travel to the deep abyss of my soul and have permission to deal with the ugliness of my heart. I can commiserate with those who are experiencing the same pains, sins, and woundings. I despise Lent because in my pea-sized brain I'm petrified that in 5 days I'm suppose to be coming out of this season and happily stuff my face with pink, purple, and yellow marshmallow rabbit-shaped Peeps.

I'm not ready to celebrate Easter and the thoughts of everything being wonderful and cheery because my heart is definitely not painted with crayola-colored pastels. Can I push the snooze button on Easter?

Palm Sunday in Tijuana

I hate driving in Tijuana.

I'm sure there are worse places to be behind the wheel, but anywhere that it takes you three hours to go a mile or two at least deserves an honorable mention. Take a roadside festival, a political protest, a couple of strategically placed stalled vehicles, and the ever-lovable Tijuana police department (who, as the running joke went, "in their infinite wisdom" closed down several roads, apparently at random), and it was neither a very restful nor a very worshipful experience of Palm Sunday.

But we did get the crowds. Hallelujah, did we ever get the crowds.

I did a bit of reflecting upon it today. (The experience itself did not greatly facilitate reflection.) I thought about the thousands and thousands of people cramming themselves into that dirty, ugly little city, all trying to get home. I thought about the beggars, street vendors, and crooked cops. I thought about the abandoned kids I'd spent the weekend with. And I thought about how if we really believed someone could come along and fix the whole fucked-up mess we've made of this place, we'd probably take our jackets off and lay them on the ground to make a road for Him too.

That week 2000 years ago didn't turn out quite how anyone in the crowd expected. A lot of what they thought was about to happen, we're still waiting for. Maybe a lot of what we think ought to be happening, we're still waiting for too.

Waiting is hard. Disappointments are hard. Inching along towards the goal, getting nowhere fast and sometimes just getting nowhere--that's hard too. And the thing about Palm Sunday is that you know the worst is yet to come.

But so is the best. Hang on, folks. We're getting closer.

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i just remembered that today is palm sunday.

It was this Sunday almost 2000 years ago, that Jesus entered into Jerusalem to a group of people hailing Him as messiah, yet it was these same people that would not stand by him (or maybe even turn against him) six days later and have him put to death.

and so i started thinking about Jesus and what he must have been thinking as he rode into Jerusalem,, hearing the praises of people that he knew would turn their backs on him at his darkest moments. how did he take it? was he grateful for their praises, even if it were for that time? did he despise them for their two-sidednesss and fickle hearts?

it's quite interesting because it makes me think about how he accepts me now, that one day I would be praising him with hands lifted high, and the next i would be consciously choosing to forsake who he is, his Lordship in my life, his relationship to me as friend. does he accept my praises of today even though he knows my sins of tomorrow? truth is that he loves me the same today and the day that I forsake him.

I'm confused because i can understand how it would be hard to accept the love of someone whose love for you seems to be constantly changing and inconsistent, but i wonder then, why is it so hard for me to accept God's love for me, which never changes?