The Eve of Holy Week

Once again - the anticipation of the journey into and through Holy Week.
It is quiet and slightly hushed in my home tonight. Inside it is in its usual
state of clutter. Outside the landscapers have completed the annual spring
clean-up.

Funny how it speaks to my personal sense of order and disorder. I appear
to be cleaned up and ready for life on the outside - just like the yard, but
inside my feelings and senses are in a slightly disordered state. I await the
journey of Holy Week, its daily countdown to remembrance of the
crucifixion and the dark time that follows until the Vigil and that journey
from darkness to light and the ecstasy of the pure light of Easter Morning.

Every year I watch and contemplate my own steps and the liturgical steps
that lead and challenge me. I want and need to enter the mystery and seek
some newer understanding of it all. I want and need to do this and I want and
need to open myself to new possibilities. The role of seeker seems easy
initially, but the work must be steady and focused. In my congregation
opportunities to serve, sing, read and just be present encroach on the
quietude of the week. But these are the tools that open me to a deeper
sense of it all.

I have chosen to take the book called "The Last Week" by Marcus Borg
and John Dominic Crossan with me. It will be my daily fellow journeyer
as I walk and remember.

Being a person of faith is work. And it offers one so much more if one
is attentive and open.  My prayer is to watch and in watching renew
my inner self in a different way - still honest to my own short-comings,
but ready to really journey.



R