ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

We are fast approaching what is the climax of each church year—the celebration of Easter.  The span of weeks that is the church year from Advent to Easter is intended to tell a continuous story.  That story of the redemptive life of Jesus and how it changes life for us is what we are here to remember and cherish and wrestle with the meaning of.  Easter is the most important part of that drama.  We start with the anticipation of Jesus’ birth in Advent and wind our way through the ups and downs of his life until his death, but the story must continue until the resurrection.  It is that coda to his story which gives shape and meaning to the life of our little church community.

Sometimes it is hard to get a grip on the meaning of our own personal stories.  In the “Sound of Music,” Maria sings a famous song with the words, “Let’s start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start.”  And that’s how most of us understand our lives; we start at the beginning.  We think of our biographies in chronological order, but that not how we find the real meanings.  The trouble is, the beginning is a very hard place to start.  None of us were really there at the beginnings of our lives.  If we are lucky, our parents told us a few stories about how cute we were or what infuriating things we did, but few of us have any memories of consequence before the age of three or four.  Even after that the memories are pretty sketchy for a while.  And what about before we were born?  Did our spirits and souls just pop into that womb out of thin air?  Where we came from and how we developed our personalities is really quite a mystery.

Likewise, we have no idea of how our stories will end.  Where we will die and when and how and what will happen between now and then is still a big blank.  And what of the “afterlife,” if there is such a thing?  Our end is as much a mystery as our beginning.  Where we came from and where we will go is not for us to know right now.  We are all just here in the middle of the tale.  We are middle people.

Of course, while he was alive, so was Jesus.  So were all of his disciples.  They too were middle people.  They too had trouble figuring out what their stories really meant.  Only after all of it was over, did the meaning become clear.  So the story of Jesus’ life did not start at the beginning at all.  It is a story that really unfolds backward.  He only began to understand his life on the road to Calvary.  And for us, understanding his life begins with this resurrection event.  Every other part of the story is seen from that point of view.  Without the resurrection, it probably wouldn’t have been long remembered at all.

The power of the resurrection experience enabled the disciples to really discover the meaning of Jesus’ life.  Only from the perspective of resurrection did they begin to reclaim and understand the days of his preaching and teaching and ministry.  Things that might have seemed unimportant at the time were suddenly at the heart of the story.  And some of the moment that seemed so big turned out to not matter so much at all.  The meaning of everything didn’t emerge until they had glimpsed the mystery toward which it all pointed.  And that mystery was, of course, the redeeming power of eternity and the transforming power of God’s love.  The real meaning was defined by what came before the beginning and what came after the end. 

And so here we are, right in the middle of our stories.  We are each somewhere in the midst of that transit that we all make from the mystery of our beginnings to the mystery of our ends.  The reason why our faith matters is that the meaning that we find in our days here in the middle, hinges on what we believe about the reality of before the beginning and after the end.  Yes, the meaning of it all; the meaning of the everyday moments as well as the big turning points, is ultimately beyond our understanding.  But we stake our lives on the connection that we discover between our life here in the middle and the mystery from which we come and to which we will eventually return.  That’s what defines the whole thing.  That connection is what the whole long journey is about.  That connection should be at the very heart of our days.  And so faith.

At Easter, it’s hard to be anything but awed by the power and the mystery that is at the heart of each of our individual lives.  May we each be moved to think on the big purposes and deeper meanings of who we are during this holy season.  May you find God’s awe inspiring grace working in your life.  May your spirits and souls be touched by the power of new life.

No Snow in the Carribean

For the first time in many years, Maureen and I took a real winter vacation this year.  The first few days in February found us on the island of St. John in the Caribbean.  I don’t say this to make you jealous, but what’s the point of going to a place like that if you don’t produce, at least, a few envious glares when you return.  When we checked into the Eco-resort where we were staying (in a canvas structure overlooking the sea), the person working at the desk, after seeing our registration form, informed me that she too was from Maine, having grown up in Yarmouth.  This theme continued all week.  The chef at the restaurant did his training at Hugo’s in Portland.  The headwaiter learned his trade at 555 on Congress Street.  Our bartender used to work at The Grill Room on Exchange Street.  We went into a store to buy a birthday gift for Maureen.  We were waited on by two young women, one from Woolwich, Maine and one from Limington.  Everywhere we when it was the same.  We were surrounded by Mainers and other New Englanders who went there on vacation and never wanted to come home again.  It wasn’t hard to understand.  As we were lying under a tree on the beach where the temperature each day was 79 degrees, it was hard to remember why we chose to live in a place where the high temperature was 7 degrees the day we left.

While the escape was great, we did return in time for the 35 inches of snow that came the week we got back.  And last week as the snow continued to fall, it was hard not to think of those ex-Mainers down there on some Caribbean beach.  The break was supposed to make the rest of the winter more bearable.  Instead, it has just made it seem so much harder.  I have been longing for spring and especially for the end of the snow more than ever.  That is, until yesterday.

As this latest heavy wet snow fell on us, as usual, I found myself dreading the cleanup—starting the snow blower, wielding the snow shovel, the aching back, the sore muscles—all of it.  But on Sunday, as I left the house and walked over to the church at 7:00 a.m., I was suddenly struck by the beauty.  The snow was heavily coating, as Robert Frost put it, “every least twig.”  It was glorious.  I realized that I had forgotten to notice it most of the time this winter—the absolute beauty of it all.  There is something so extraordinarily wonderful about the winter that we can so easily forget when we only think about the work or the inconvenience or the discomfort.  There was no Caribbean beach vista that was any match for the white wonderland that surrounded us right here in the cold.  Those ex-Mainers, sweating in that stifling heat down there, should be jealous.  Every now and then they must miss it—the shear beauty of a Maine winter.

It is indicative, of course, of one of our primary spiritual problems.  We spend so much of our lives longing for something else.  Sometimes some of us long for other climes, other homes, other jobs, even other partners.  Our lives are not quite what we once dreamed of and we are sometimes disappointed.  We have our discontents and it is perfectly natural for us to have them.  But so often, those feelings of discontent come to define our relationship to the way things are right now and we miss the beauties of the moments that we are living in.

When we begin to long for vacation, we so easily lose our appreciation for the lovely parts of the days that we are living in now.  When we become impatient for a long hard work day to end, we are most likely to miss some striking moment that might remind us of why we took this job to begin with.  When we fantasize about the life we might have once we win the lottery, we are likely to forget how extraordinarily lucky we are to have what we have.  When we are disappointed not to get something that we wanted, that feeling can temporarily blind us to all the other gifts that already fill our lives.  The key spiritual discipline that most of us need to learn, is to live in this moment, this place, this season, this marriage, this life—fully and graciously.  If we are unhappy with who we are or how we are, we can seek to change it, but in the meantime, the life we have is what we have—it is what we are and it is the gift that God is giving us right now and right here and we need to find the specialness of it and the beauty of it and the joy in it. 

And so, I don’t need the Caribbean breezes to blow through my life right now; that was then, and this bitter cold north wind is now.  I love it. I am finding the gift in it.  I am living in the moment.  The snow is beautiful.  I enjoy it.  Who needs the beach?  Those people in the Virgin Islands probably wish they were here.  I tell myself this—over and over.  Who needs spring?  Winter is my friend.  Over and over, I tell myself. 

Is this working for you?  I didn’t think so.  But every now and then, look up, pause, open your spirit to where you are, and see the beauty around you, even here and even now.  God’s grace is in such moments. 

Happy Winter,

David