We Live, at the Same Time, in Two Realms…

We are living in the glow of the fifty days; yes – fifty to top the forty days of lent. We live in the fifty days of wild joy. The words of the Easter Entrance Song still ring in our ears: “I am risen and still with you.” The One our hearts seek was not kidding. He will suffer, and then after three days, he will rise. Yes, and so will we.

Why is it that in the midst of the wild joy of the fifty days of Easter, we wake up with the same pandemic limiting us, the same bills, the same laundry to be done? We are Christians, and as such we are pilgrims. We walk between the now and the “not yet.” We live simultaneously in the struggles and ordinariness of time/space, and in the promises of the gospel. Sometimes we wonder what is really “real.” The answer to that is a simple “yes,” for they both are “real.”

That is why the daily immersion in the Word is so important. It helps us “walk on water.” We don’t want to so sink into the pandemic, the bills, and the laundry that we drown. Nor do we want to have our heads so in the clouds that we neglect the pandemic, the bills, and the laundry. We need to navigate both realms. The early Christians were wrestling with this very challenge. How do we tend to our daily life in the light of the resurrection? How do we balance the both/and? The gift of his Spirit will teach us how. Our present Focus Statement calls us to develop a strong sense of presence…being “all there.”

 

Lord, are you “real?”

In your risen life you show us how we shall be.

No ghostly bloodless soul,

but flesh and blood even in your new life…even the wounds.

You show us…you are a living Word.

Send me that Breath that unites what we tend to break asunder.

Keep me whole, for in your risen glory …

you carry your whole story…

joys and tears, friends and fears,

and so shall it be with me –

nothing lost – really me.