Convergence of riches

Yes, the tree remains in the corner of the living room. The cats love it. In fact, so do we.

A convergence

Of riches:

Palm Sunday

Beginning of spring

Pussy willows

Fully greened

Kitten in the middle

Of the Tree

Once Christmas

Now Holy Week

Soon enough Easter.

We may drape it in red

For the Passion,

Perhaps plastic Easter eggs

To symbolize

The empty tomb

Yet one more tradition

To create

Out of scraps of spring

Branches of pussy willow

Kitten in its boughs:

Convergence

Of riches.

Holy Week 2015

This is scrambling time for clergy of high liturgical bent everywhere. I am released from these particular details, being a counselor these days. I well remember the Easter Sunday we went out to brunch and I literally fell asleep in my plate. There is no BCP liturgy for the Easter Egg Hunt. And by this time, I figure, even if there was such a thing, the details would be lost well before Easter Brunch.

There is no week

More full of special liturgies

With all their component parts.

This is what all that training

Was for.

This is what all the planning

Is for.

This is Holy Week.

Everyone

Every congregation

Has his

Has her

Has its

Own way of doing things.

And

It will all end up

On Easter Sunday

With the liturgy

Of the Easter Egg hunt,

Three to five eggs

Per child.

By this time

In this week

With all its component parts,

Who’s counting?

Normal

In an odd ways this feels like Easter again.   Holy Week always feels like the scheduled time to consider endings and beginnings and the triumph of new beginnings.  Harold Camping*s prediction caught more people this time around than 1994. I think media saturation has a lot to do with it.  Whatever the cause, there was no rapture this time either.  In an interesting way, the possibility that Jesus was coming again on Saturday at 6 PM, made the conversation about Jesus* Second Coming (a major tenet of the Christian faith) more real. Now we are back to normal.  I think for a few, it may look a little different.

Today we return to normal.

Some people never left

Normal.

Of course the idea of normal

Has always been

Our creation.

Good, bad, just the way it is

God-given, God-forsaken:

Normal remains

In the eye of the beholder,

The throat

Of the speaker.

Over the weekend:

Floods, tornadoes,

Volcanoes,

The cleanup in Japan

Continued still,

Continues now.

New tears and cleanup

Today

To the south of us.

New prayers as well.

This is normal

When we think of it

Really think of it

None of us are ever

Left behind,

Bereft.

We are in it

Together.

This is normal.

Today I return to survey the garden.

I cannot yet drive to the garden store,

So I assess what God has planted.

I pick four lilies of the valley, fragrant,

Two purple columbine, intricately made.

I declare this normal and wonderful.

I declare this good.

Reminders of all the colors

As my daughter prepares the dye baths for the Easter eggs, I remember past years holding dyed hands up for Easter communion.  I also remember a piece written by Martin Bell in The Way of the Wolf entitled Wood and Nails and Easter Eggs.  It*s worth a look-see by googling.  It is still just as powerful as when I first read it years ago.

The birds sing all afternoon

In the garden,

Still the forsythia winds and blooms.

Now the four bunches of daffodils

Bought with paper skins

Closed tight

Have opened.

They trumpet, blare, yellow

In the living room.

On the sideboard

The sprays of forsythia,

In their turn

accompany the pussy willows,

Fur catkins now with small green leaves.

They curve yellow quiet

In contrast.

We get ready to color eggs

Before church.

Our fingers will be dyed many colors

By the time we are done.

At church

We will celebrate what God has done

With bells and dyed hands.

The dye will take a couple days to wear off.

I will be more than glad

To have reminders

Of all the colors

on my fingertips,

Even as I am surrounded

By loud daffodils

Quiet sprays of forsythia,

Pure gold.