Living Seasonally

Hi, Y’all! How are you on this blessed Tuesday? It’s a good time for a coffee break and conversation, don’t you think?

In the church tradition I participate in, Easter like Christmas is celebrated as a season not just a day. We refer to the time from Easter Day until Pentecost as Eastertide. This spiritual rhythm of seasonally remembering is the ground work for our everyday living as we follow Jesus.

Yesterday morning as I put away the table-scape of grass and eggs and bunnies I had created for our Easter dinner, I found myself praying that I wouldn’t also try to pack away the theology of Resurrection but let the same power that raised Jesus from the dead make me alive always to the presence of God.

With all that goes into preparing a celebration that inspires and transforms those who participate with us in worship and in family gatherings, it is easy to let the “whew, that’s over” take hold as we pack the Easter decor away and begin preparing for the next thing. But Easter is about new beginnings not a finalities. Following Jesus in the Way of the Resurrection is an everlasting journey. The intentional rhythm of the Church seasons keeps us grounded in God’s story as we continuously walk the Way of Love, moment to moment, day by day, week in and week out. Our life isn’t a series of encapsulated events but ever flowing movement toward the full realization of God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven.

Like the disciples who had to learn to recognize Jesus again after The Resurrection we, too, work out what it is to live this Resurrection Life. Each week as we come together for community worship (however that looks like in or out of a pandemic), we celebrate the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The act of receiving Holy Communion is the framework of the Resurrection Life. We bring our whole self, our life to God’s table. We give thanks and ask God to bless what we have been given, and then we offer this blessed, God-given life to others as we “go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”

The difficult internal soul work we’ve done through the season of Lent with God’s help enables us to better receive the gift of The Resurrection we celebrate at Easter and The Resurrection frames our ordinary, everyday, everlasting life.

I’m grateful for all of you who are on this journey with me and I’d greatly appreciate it if you would invite others to join us. As we journey through Eastertide and into Ordinary Time, my plan is to provide a short coffee break for you on Tuesdays and Thursdays with something for us to ponder together. Please share your thoughts in the comments section and let’s make this as conversational as we can. If you’d like to contact me directly, you can send a private note from the “Let’s Get Together” page on the website.

God’s peace, my beloved resurrection friends,
Mother Nancy+