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.a blessing for (your) resurrection.

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I hear you

sing of resurrection

of glorious arrival 

of all that hoped for

regained, returned, reclaimed. 


Yet, 

Mary arrives to the tomb

un-expectant for what she is soon to discover. 


She arrives to grieve, 

to reach out

with the desperation 

and love 

of one walking through so much loss,

reaching out

for what can no longer be grasped. 


We may snicker

at her confusion

thinking Jesus the gardener. 

We may chastise

her blindness. 


A blessing

for (your) resurrection, 

unforeseen, 

unimagined, 

yet unrealized. 


A blessing for all 

still hoped for

as you bear the weight

of heartbreak,

loving all that remains lost. 


As I've sat with Mary's reaction in the midst of this season of COVID, I've found myself appreciating her lack of recognition of Jesus right in front of her. In fact, I find it tremendously beautiful that she doesn't recognize him until he calls her name. (see John 20:1-18)

I appreciate the general hope of the Christian story, and biblical tradition. We learn and teach that God is good, trustworthy, and wily and unpredictable. As God was present and faithful to our spiritual ancestors, so we can depend on God to be faithful to us. Yet, as I walk through my own life experiences and times like this one of unforeseen futures, (will I stay healthy and survive this? will my loved ones? will the economy survive in a way that also evolves to honor all life in its care, not just the powerful or elite? what becomes of me in this season? will i ever reach this dream or that one for my life? who will we be after this is passed? what is my work in this moment of history where my gifts can best intersect with the needs?, will we finally learn to collectively prioritize people over profit? will this help move forward racial and social justice in our policies and economic values?), I find myself needing also the hope that is specific to me, my life, my story, my journey. I need to know that God is not just there in a big way, but also a precise way. 

Mary gets an encounter with Jesus that speaks specifically, directly, to her, in her name and her story. 

And to give her some credit, why would she recognize Jesus? After all, he died. She witnessed it, and it's been a few days. Furthermore, his return seems transcendent, otherworldly, both recognizable and also, something completely new. 

Mary didn’t recognize Jesus. I’m not sure that I would recognize the new either. Because usually when I'm dreaming or planning, I’m expecting things to look a certain way. 

Resurrection doesn't return what we lost.

Resurrection is an emergence of something we hadn't imagined.

Resurrection is not about return of something in its same shape. Or something we let the universe borrow for a second. Death and loss has taken something from us we won’t get back: the old chapter. The old ways, the old dynamics.

There is loss,

waiting,

grieving,

sitting,

stillness,

boredom,

doubt,

darkness.

There are tools for making our way through this enduring season. We can trust that we have been through it before. We can nurture hope from the stories of others who have been through it before.

We don’t go forward,

we don't experience resurrection by trying to stitch back together what we lost.

We don't undo the death.

Our loved ones who have passed, our imagined dreams for our life, old chapters and lost storylines, in some ways they remain gone.

We won’t get the senior years or original wedding dates back. We won’t get the old chapter back, or the picture perfect image for how our life or this year would go. We bury loved ones and friends. 

We will find ourselves losing what we were never ready to lose.

I don’t know if we are ever ready for the losses.

But we are moved across the threshold anyway, guided and dragged along.

It hurts. Grief is appropriate.

Grief is not easily glossed over, nor should it be. Grief is not easily silenced by a new shiny hope or dream. If that is what we are doing, we are neglecting the work to which grief invites us: to sit, to honor, to feel, to sift, to discern in the stillness what comes next.

If we allow it, that grief and sitting will begin to introduce us to a deeper part of ourselves, and gift us with what we need to enter the next season of our lives. In order to recognize it, we go inward, we pay attention to internal cues. We pay attention to the things that speak up in the innermost wisdom and knowing, and say

Yes, this. 

There it is. 

Ah. I feel a resonance, a tingling, a nudge. 

Beneath my storylines and expectations, comes from within me a still small knowing that guides me, if I'm paying attention. Hearing them stirs a resonating feeling from my soul to my senses.

In this Easter season, 

as well as in this COVID-19, quarantine, social-distancing season, 

when we're musing on and looking for the resurrection story, 

It is appropriate to recognize that resurrection does not mean exactly getting back what we lost, or what we let the universe borrow. 

Rather, it’s the arrival, the nexus, of something new; something so off our radar and yet-unimagined that we might not even recognize it. 

PS: I would love to hear your experiences of resurrection, whether realized or not yet found. Please share in any way that serves your communication: words, picture, poetry, song, etc. 

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