Eep! 2 Weeks!

There's been so much to write about these past few weeks, and I just haven't done it!  I don't know if others have that same experience... when there's too much to say.  There are days when my journal reflects that overload as well, and the result is short phrases and disjointed words.  Because I know it's important, and I want to transcribe it WELL, but there's a logjam from my mind to my typing fingers.

What's been rolling around in that time is a lot of reflection on Holy Week and Easter.  Lent was deep and powerful for me this year, so I had an odd sense of wanting to savor its last few days as Holy Week ticked down to Sunday.  In the small group I attend, a few of us talked about the beautiful focus of Lent-- this time to place ourselves firmly in a process of moving toward the cross.  Liturgically speaking, I've been mulling the last week or so on what focus can come from the season we're now in.  I read Acts 1-2 this morning:

After [Jesus'] suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over the course of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father.

At a lecture I attended this week, the speaker advocated the value of "non-productive  repetition of the liturgy"-- meaning that we're not to put ourselves through Lent, Epiphany, Advent (etc.) for our own betterment and improvement, but for the sake of living in seasons of obedience to God.  In that light, I'd agree that observing Lent doesn't make me a better person... but it can prepare me to be an Easter person.  A person with fresh appreciation of the cross and its rending indignity.  A person who needs and welcomes the wounds on the hands and the side of Jesus.  A person who waits for the promise.  Waiting and teaching in turn can prepare me to be a Pentecost person.  And so on.

All that to say, I'm going to keep turning the soil of Holy Week.  Let's have Jesus appear and stay with us and speak about the kingdom of God.