Easter-ing as a way of life

On Easter Sunday, you were invited to name and notice the chrysalis experiences in your life.  Building on the image of transformation and transitions; deepening our exploration of ways we are changing, not all cocoons are healthy or healing.  

Wait...re-read that last sentence.  Not all cocoons are healthy or healing ~ some cocoons transform us in unhelpful ways.

Sometimes we wrap ourselves in stories that are not helpful.  We can tell ourselves a story dripping and drenched with anger or anguish; we can tell stories where life is a constant battle and only the strong survive; we can tell ourselves stories where life is a zero-sum game ~ and you are either winning or losing.  Or, we can tell ourselves a story of abundance rather than scarcity.  We can tell ourselves a story of generosity that is generative.  The story God longs to author in our lives is that when we share love with another, we cannot control the outcome.  At the same time, we do have agency over how we show up and open up.  I can be like a bull in a china shop or a hammer that only sees everything or everyone as a nail.  I can force my way through life acting and speaking as if it is my way or a highway.

 

God shows us another script to live by during Holy Week.  God’s story of realizing and recognizing our, “Hosanna” prayers for saving from brokenness toward healing.  God’s narrative of a table where all are welcome.  God’s narrative that embraces the vulnerability of a cross and an emphatic, “Yes” to life on Easter Sunday.

 

What is still resonating or reverberating from two weeks ago about transitions in your life?

Are you still praying, Hosanna, save me from bitterness/brokenness and save me toward a way that trusts and lives the good news?

Are you still coming to the table seeking to live how God delights in diversity?

Are you still laying down the fears, frustrations, hurts, wounds, and pain at the cross of Jesus letting the vulnerability of God meet you?

Are the helpful ways you are cocooning yourself in transformation?  Are there unhelpful or unhealthy ways you are wrapping yourself in negativity or frustration or fear?

Are you open to how the struggle lets loose vivid colors for your wings to unfurl and fly?

Are there moments of resurrection and renewal?

 

Easter is more than a day, it is a way of life.  Easter is a way of moving with holy anticipation that God still surprises Earth with Heaven every day; even when we go to a tomb expecting that there is nothing to see there, God shows up in ways that can baffle and bewilder us.

 

Where has that been truth last week, since Easter, for you?

 

May you and I continue to ponder prayerfully God who is transforming and meeting us here and now.

 

Prayer: God of moments when we cocoon ourselves with that which does not offer life, help release us and renew us.  From practices that hurt and harm, help us.  From words that wound, heal us.  From ways of being that cling to Your love as a finite resource only for us and people like us, challenge us.  Save us toward a way of generosity, trusting that as we live Your Easter-ing way, so Easter becomes our story every day.  In the name of the One who shows us how the tomb becomes a womb, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.