Easter-ing Words

So...tell me you saw this theme of Easter-ing words coming, right?  When you have a good theme going, you continue to stay open to the spirit working and wiggling in your life.  Now, Easter is more than just one Sunday...it is actually 50 days.

Wait...don't worry...I am not going to give you fifty words.  But I do want to invite us to savor and stay in this Easter mood/mode for this week.  I know that if you walk into the store today, all jelly beans will be 50% off and you can stock up on that plastic grass...even though you will forget that you did and buy some more next year.  The big plastic grass corporation is counting on you to just keep buying...even though the stuff will never, ever go disappear or disintegrate.  It will, however, gladly cling to your carpet so tightly your vacuum cleaner doesn't stand a chance!  (I am totally joking here).

What sorts of words might we decide to dance around in these days?

That's the spirit!  I am delighted you asked!  I am actually just delighted you are still reading this blog post at this point.

Let's start with the word, "Easter-ing".  For me, Easter is less about a day and more about a way of life.  I am riffing here on a phrase used by Wendell Berry, where he invites and encourages us today to "Practice Resurrection."  That sounds odd.  Does Berry mean we should all be buried in a stone, cold tomb and wait for God to rise us from the dead?  That would be literally practicing resurrection.  But as a poet...Berry might be up to something else here.  To practice resurrection is about openness to God's presence filling and moving us in other ways.  I believe the message of the church has always been, to quote Robert Frost now, "take the road less traveled."  This is not easy.  There are lots of pressure out there to take the road well traveled.  We do this when we endless shop and feel like we don't have another.  We take the road well traveled when we schedule ourselves so much that any space in our calendar causes us to twitch uncontrollably.  We do this when we, especially in the church, ask, "How many people attended Easter service?  Or how as the offering?  Was it more than last year?" 

To practice resurrection would be to ask the question instead, "Was anyone's life transformed because of Easter morning?  Or did anyone move an inch toward letting God's love lead the way rather than the balance of his/her bank account?"

To understand "practicing resurrection," we might look at the first line of the poem, "Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. Want more of everything ready-made. Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die." (By the way if you want to read the whole poem, click here.)

To be sure, initially we might feel defensive or offended by Berry.  I find myself saying, "But I deserve that raise and vacation with pay!"  Or, "I have to race into the store to get the ready-made meal for my family...we have to be twelve places tonight!"  Berry is challenging the script of the world.  The world tells us, "More, more...not enough."  But so often the more isn't really more.  It is just stuff we stuff our life with.  We keep consuming...or being consumed. 

To practice resurrection is to break out of the cycle.  No, I don't mean move to Montana and go off the grid...unless you really want to.  I think it is about one step at a time.  Maybe this week, I decide not to go buy some sandwich in a plastic container that will be around as long as that plastic grass I got on clearance today.  Maybe I make the sandwich.  While I make the sandwich, I give thanks for the earth that grew the wheat...and the cow that helped give the milk to make the cheese.  I sense my connection to creation, rather than zooming past the soil and sky so fast it becomes a blur. 

To practice resurrection will slow us down.  To practice resurrection will cause us to see the world different.  Yes, there are still too many crosses and weapons in the world.

And, there are glorious ripe, red strawberries.

It isn't either/or...it is both/and.  Embrace of God that holds and enfolds the good and the bad...and even the ugly.  To practice resurrection, might ask for God to move, especially in those bad and ugly moments with more than a trace of grace...with more than a dim light we can barely see.  We are praying for God to stir in such a way...just as the light streamed forth from the tomb.

I pray you might find ways to practice resurrection...making Easter a verb (or Easter-ing) every day this week.

Blessings