Holy Week

It’s Holy Week.

I want to take this time to thank you for patiently reading the words I send. One of the challenges in our modern society is that we have technology overload; and the economy of attention means that we are too often distracted.

There are hundreds of internet tools designed to help manage information: Digg, StumbleUpon, News Feeds and blogs and telemarketing and facebook and tons of websites that will make you more informed, slimmer and more charming.

So you get a cheer for reading this letter. And its almost the end of Holy Week, and I hope to see you at least on Sunday to celebrate the party.

For, as Kool and the Gang said in the cosmic soundtrack, “its a party going on right here. So celebrate. It’s all right.” When you think of Easter, consider that song. It’s an Easter song.

Let me review this week.

Maundy Thursday, its all about the mandate: love one another. It’s Jesus’ seder, where he remembers that as the captain of the ship, he’s going to the pirates instead of us. Whatever happens, tonight remember those who have sacrificed for us so that we have been freed. We’ll be having a dinner here at the church, and then the church remains open all night for meditation.

Good Friday: the passion, with betrayal, the rivalry, the envy, the fear, all that makes up human nature laid right before us. We are stripped naked and vulnerable. Let the illusions be stripped; all that is absent be revealed. The moment of panic, of terror of being alone, the fear of being judged, of being judged wrongly, of being unable to escape.

And then the whisper Saturday night. After the long night of the soul, the possibility of love.

Easter: may we have forgotten all the evil done to us;
that we have no reason to envy any other person. We have been rescued by the simple voice that is constantly urging: what you do matters; your life counts; every hair on your head; that we may stand up again and see the horizon before us and welcome what comes.

We have been liberated from fear by love’s perpetual, creative power that makes our bodies move like magic, from the strength of a young body or the will of someone who needs a cane. Every time make a mistake, lose a little hope, we fall, and yet we do not end the journey there. We stand up again. And it will be alright. Love has conquered death before. And for that reason why not again? Let’s celebrate.

Resurrection!