It is Easter Day. I find joy spilling out of my soul, rolling with waves of delight, sparkling in sunshine.
This Easter is the first I have not worked in many years. It is the first I have not approached in some tiredness after the rigor of Holy Week services. It is the first in which I could take Holy Saturday without pressure to spend several hours in stillness, waiting, watching, wondering, probing the darkness.
Yes, I missed the privilege of offering the resurrection hope in words and sacrament to the congregation. I even saw a message arising, doing so after the many years of disciplined message planning.
But it was not mine to give. Not now, not that way. Many others did so, and I relinquish that to them.
This year, it was mine to receive. To discover as life was breathed into death and it was transformed, that my own life could find new hope again.
I have written about my complex call to retirement from being an active clergy to a life of more contemplative writing. I was called in; I was called on. It was and is scary, uncertain, and was colored by much loss in my life.
So easy to ask, “Have I done the right thing?” “What if this doesn’t work out? What will happen to me then?” “Am I crazy?”
But I am not crazy, and I have followed Jesus.
And today, I saw light again, light which will show me step by step where to go, and with no assurances that it will turn out well . . . but that it will turn out to be a walk with God.
I can ask no more.
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