Holy Week Recollections: An Intro

I never really participated in Holy Week activities when I was a kid.

Holy Week was very much about a fancy Family Dinner and chocolate bunnies. My grandmother would always come to visit for Easter, and she was a White-Gloved Washingtonian who had an unfortunate tendency to look down upon our little lowly not-so-upper-crust family. She’d come in on Sunday with huge baskets of fancy gifts for all of us, kiss us all with too much affection and exuberant appreciation of our ‘fancy’ Sunday Garb (tutting a bit over our wardrobe), and then she’d start in on Mom, picking on the dinner, and the place settings, and the dust, and the neighbors, and her neighbors, and her awful friends, and her terrible pastor, and the all the awful selfish gossips in her church. Sigh.

We never really participated in community Easter-egg hunts, Maundy Thursday services, Good Friday services, Sunrise Services, church retreats or devotionals… and I wonder if it wasn’t because my Mom was spending the week doing laundry, and yard-work, and dusting, and cleaning, and menu preparation, and cooking… all in anticipation of the White-Gloved Washingtonian Wonder.

Shame about that. Really.

Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate the importance of learning theology through experience. As such, the Church Calendar and the liturgy of Holy Week are central to experientially teaching the importance of many MANY key points of Christian Doctrine.

So, while I cannot hope to depict even a reasonable systematic theology of Holy Week, I figured that I need my own little review of Experiential Theology, and – at very least – I could work through some basic reflections.

 

Happy Holy Week! Or something…

For those few of you who might actually be reading this, I’m feeling better now. Every now and then, stress at work, stress at church, stress with kids, stress with husband, stress with moving, and stress about applying for future work… all kind of converge upon me in a huge Squid of Evil. This was one of them evil moments. Perhaps Mars was passing thru Gemini this past week?

Well – I took the weekend off… line, and I spent some quality time with family and friends. Good things happen with you take your eyes off of your own crap for a little while. It helps one put things into perspective, become more productive, and recognize that God moves in ways that I cannot begin to comprehend, so why beat myself up trying?

Life ‘curvatus in se’ SUCKS, doesn’t it?

 

The Shame of Motherhood, Part II

What can a woman do with this shame? I can think of three options. There are three options — not because homiletics teaches us that there must be, not because of the Holy Trinity, but because of the simple fact that God offers a third way out of all sin/shame.

God does not offer Might. God does not offer Despair.
God gives us Peace.

And so, the mother must choose what she will do with her shame. Will she fall into despair, depression and endless anxiety – over her children? Will she become an authoritarian bitch who must rule all in her sight – to protect her children? Or, will she live in Faith? In fear and trembling before God, giving her children’s lives over to the Only One who can save them?

For a mother to live in Faith with her children is damned near impossible. But, even for that which is impossible, in God there is hope.

 

The Shame of Motherhood, Part I

Every mother lives in sin. Seriously. This has less to do with the fact that the mother does not have a penis, but everything to do with the simple fact that all adam (humans) are sinners. In the light of this, let us consider the Shame of Motherhood:

Motherhood creates scars so deep, the poetic author of Genesis 3 felt it was important to explain/discuss/define. With motherhood one becomes afraid and envious to the core of our very being. We have procreated, we have brought forth another life, and we are – quite literally – ONE with this miniature human for a rather long time. Therefore, we feel deeply, biologically, RESPONSIBLE.

The weight of this responsibility cuts us to the very quick. It causes us to behave in irrational ways that we would never have considered possible of ourselves before. It causes us to lash out at people we love with all our hearts. And, it can cause us to turn away from God and all that is good… for the sake of the child.

The Shame of Motherhood is the Curse
of Fear, Envy, an insatiable Lust for Security.

Have any mother read and give you a thoughtful response to her curse… and if she didn’t have to be so strong for the sake of her children, she may break into tears.

 

The Crowbar and The Miner’s Canary

So, I recently had this odd little revelation of conciliatory identification. It’s an odd one, so hang tight:

I’ve had some of the worst “church” experiences in my life these past few years in Massachusetts. Odd things, rumors about which would instill fear at best – and hopelessness at worst – such things would transpire at this strange little place that I had called my “church”. I often wondered why, oh why did God have me here, and I often discussed leaving with my husband — but each time one or the both of us would feel like we needed to stay.

Well, these past few months, as the attendees in our large sanctuary dwindled down to eight adults and seven kids… I began to wonder. Does nobody like me? Does everybody hate me? Must I go eat worms? …surely, it’s my singing, yes? or my wardrobe? my kids or my husband? … do I smell funny?

So, I began to think that God brought us here to be a crowbar. Yes. We came so that we could stand in stark contrast to those around us… poor yet blessed is not something these people understood. Young yet educated? Funky yet orthodox? I work outside the home? We’ve followed God’s calling to the detriment of our finances? What?? AND we expect people to participate in God-stuff at times other than 9-12 am on Sunday mornings? egads!

– and so people began to leave. They moved off to find churches where they could be comfortable, or powerful, or be happy, or whatever.

Soon, I began to feel used by God, like a temporary tattoo on the arm of a kid in a sprinkler — looked nice for a while, but it couldn’t stand the dribbles and was ripped to shreds. This is not a good feeling, and so I sang my self-pity song: Big ones, Fat ones, Skinny ones, Juicy ones, look at the little ones squirm!

But, one morning as I lay in bed wondering “How long, oh Lord? How long?”, it dawned on me: This “church” was sick for a long time before we got here. I haven’t been the crowbar as much as I’ve been The Miner’s Canary. Yup. You know those little birds that were taken down into the mines? They weren’t there to whistle while you worked, they were there so that if there was poison in the air, they’d die first. They were the warning signs so that the miners could make a run for it.

I’ve always been an empathetic person. I’ll pick up on the emotional vibes first and then realize what’s happening later. So, as this “church” has been dying… it’s been killing me.

Now, I’m a big fan of being Christlike and all that, but this is ridiculous. Well, the end is near, and at least I haven’t turned green & gone belly up. Yet.