Holy Saturday...Waiting in the Liminal Space

"As his body was taken away, the women from Galilee followed and saw the tomb where his body was placed. Then they went home and prepared spices and ointments to anoint his body. But by the time they were finished the Sabbath had begun, so they rested as required by the law." 
Luke 23: 55-56

Today is Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter. It is a day of waiting. It's a liminal space...a place between, a place of transition, a place of transformation. That is how we experience it anyway, 2,000 years after His death and resurrection. The women of Galilee had a different experience. As they walked away from that tomb and the Sabbath began they experienced a death, what they thought was final...an ending. They left that tomb carrying the heaviness of loss and the uncertainty of the future.

And the Sabbath had begun...so they rested as required by the law.

In their deep grief and sadness, in all of the uncertainty they rested. What else could they do?

For the last 13 or so years I have been listening to God for my word of the year. It always comes in the Fall but I take a bit of time to test it out to make sure that it is the right word.  This year my word is "wait". When the word came I thought to myself, "I know what this is all about. Well played God, well played."  Seriously, I thought I knew what I was waiting for and that this was all about learning to cool my heels and settle into that waiting.

And then a global pandemic happened....

This Holy Saturday the world is experiencing the heaviness of loss of what was and the uncertainty that is to come and there is really nothing left for us to do but wait. We are waiting in this liminal space, this space of between, this space of transition, and this space of transformation.

The question I keep asking myself and God is "How do I wait well?" I have tried that anxious approach, the busy approach, and even the "pretend everything is fine" approach...and you know what things aren't fine and no matter how anxious or busy I try to make myself it won't make the enormity of this situation go away nor will it speed up the wait time.

Instead, I will follow the example of those women from Galilee and carry the heaviness of this loss and the uncertainty about the future into the Sabbath that "is required by law".

I am going to rest.
I am going to honor the grief as it comes.
I am going let this liminal space do its work of transition and transformation in my life.
I am going to be present to each moment as it comes. 
I am going to wait in hopeful anticipation of the Resurrection that I know is to come, whatever that looks like.

As we enter the Sabbath of Holy Saturday, I pray that you would be able to experience the deep, peaceful rest of those that know that Sunday is coming and that death has been defeated in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

You are loved and held.

A Time for Untangling

I am a knitter...correction I am a Knitter...that capital K makes a difference. I knit almost every single day. I knit to keep my hands busy when I have to sit still and pay attention. I knit to make beautiful things. I knit to help keep anxiety at bay. I knit because I love colors and fibers. I really love knitting. 

The thing I don't love is .....tangled yarn. 

There is nothing worse that happily knitting away and coming to a massive tangle of yarn. I have a friend that LOVES to untangle yarn. She finds it meditative. I find it maddening. I usually just keep tugging and pulling out just enough yarn to knit with until the tangle is so bad that I have to stop and untangle it. 

They other day I was cleaning up a bunch of  old and abandoned projects. I was ripping back projects that hadn't seen the light of day for months, some even years and rewinding the yarn into tidy little yarn cakes to be used in future projects. 

I was happily winding away and then I came to this mess....

Actually I took this after about 2 hours of untangling. It was bad....really bad. I briefly thought about throwing the yarn away, but it was really nice yarn and I had no place that I hat to be so I took a deep breath, sat down, turned on some music and started untangling. 

Right now I think many of us are feeling pretty tangled which is to be expected in light of all that is going on in the world. I wonder though how many of us are still stubbornly just pulling on the end of the tangle hoping that it will just come loose when in reality it is just making things worse. 

Friends, right now many of us have the time to take a deep breath, sit down with our precious selves, turn on some music and start the process of untangling. Your first reaction may be one of panic or anger....because "DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT I AM GOING THROUGH?!?!?"  I may not know exactly what you are going through but I do have a general idea and here's the thing I do know, no matter how hard you keep pulling on that yarn it will never come loose it will only get worse. 

So today I am offering you an invitation to sit down, take a breath, and begin to untangle yourself. Even if you just take 20 minutes at a time, it will be worth it. 

Would you look at that beautiful cake of yarny goodness!

Today I pray that you would find space to sit with yourself and The Holy Spirit and mindful begin to untangle your knots. I pray that you are gentle and patient with yourself. I pray that in those moments when you come to the knots that seem impossible you would breath deep and let the Spirit guide you. 

You are loved and held. 

Naming Ants....The Spiritual Act of Presence and Boredom

I can count the number of times I left my hometown as a little kid on one hand. We were pretty poor so there weren't a lot of opportunities for travel.  Every August my Aunt Janet who lived in Warsaw, Indiana would come and visit us. I looked forward to her visits every year because she would play endless games of Scrabble with me. Even though I was a little kid she never took it easy on me. I would prepare for her visits by reading the dictionary. It was GLORIOUS!

There was one summer that we got to go and visit her! I felt so fancy telling my friends, "Yeah...we're going to be out of town for awhile..." To this poor kid who never, EVER got to go anywhere the phrase "out of town" felt so fancy and cosmopolitan! My mom never learned to drive and I can't remember how we even made it to the mythical land of Warsaw, Indiana but I remember being there in Aunt Janet's house.

Aunt Janet's two boys were both grown up so she didn't have a lot of stuff for a little kid to do but I didn't need a lot of stuff to do because I had Aunt Janet and I had my imagination. The most distinct memory I have of being at Aunt Janet's house was sitting on her front porch steps watching the ants bustle about the sidewalk and giving them all names. There was Lloyd and Minerva and Jessica, and Mike....on and on we went giggling as we came up with new names.  I have no idea how long we sat there because it was so much fun that time didn't matter.



I hadn't thought about that in years until the other day when Becca, my 7 soon to be 8 year old, and I and I were talking about what it was like growing up in a time without a lot of technology and in my case without a lot of physical resources.

I do remember saying "I'm bored" a LOT. But I didn't always have an adult who was available to entertain me, Aunt Janet was a once a year treat. Her spiritual act of Presence to me when she was physically present was such an incredible gift that it filled in the spaces when she wasn't there, even after all of these years. She taught me that boredom was a gift in which we can look around and see things that we may never have noticed before. In the boredom we can name things and in that naming we are present to a world in a way that fosters connection and delight.

Today may you lean into presence and boredom as your spiritual act of worship to the Creator of the Universe. May your eyes be opened in new ways to your connection to creation, to each other, and to The Holy One who lives in sacred community. May The Spirit anoint you with holy boredom and presence in a way that you encounter His grace, mercy, and love.

Know that you are loved and held today.