An Invitation to Practice Resurrection
“There is nothing else. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”
Dallas Willard
I have been in a hurry for most of my life.
My journey to slow began while raising a child on the autism spectrum. When I finally realized our son actually needed the world to slow so he could process it and thrive, I began the long journey to slow and de-clutter our family life. Honestly, most of those early years trying to slow down were done with pain and sadness.
I still wanted to go fast.
Then came heart surgery for my husband, Mike, and doctors orders to de-stress our lives. His near heart attack was a wake up call for us both. His slow recovery followed quickly by a wicked pneumonia made us ask hard questions about purpose and pace.
Then, began my deep desire to stop the blur of a fast-moving life and still enough to hear God’s whisper and savor everyday life. I say “began” because slowing takes time and practice even after you honestly want to do it.
I’ve taken my earnest quest for slow savoring into holidays, trying to take my time preparing for, entering into, and reflecting on each season. This year, I let myself enter deeply into Lent, pausing to look around at the pain and suffering without being in a hurry for Easter.
I have liked to believe I would be different, but when I read these words from Jesus to Peter, I knew better.
“There is a part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there is another part that’s as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire."
Matthew 26:41 (Message)
I finally saw that I am a part of all the personalities around Jesus on the way to the cross. I am at different times, a secret disciple like Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimathea, a Judas trying to force Jesus to be who I want him to be, a James or John who thinks he’s ready for more than he is, a mother who asks for places of honor for her children, a Peter who believes he will never betray his friend, a thief on the cross, a doubting Thomas. I am certainly a Mary Magdalene who looks right at her Savior and doesn’t recognize him until he speaks her name.
A few nights ago while sleeping, I thought I heard someone call my name. I thought it was about something I had forgotten, for some reason maybe my youngest child’s birthday. I was out of bed before I realized it wasn’t part of a dream. I had not forgotten her birthday.
It was Jesus’ calling me in the night, something I ask him to do most nights before I fall asleep.
I know it was him for that tender musical way he says my name like a bell or a song. There is no bargaining or deals being made. It is not clear what he said in precise words, but the gist is to wake up, rise up and go.
Where? I can’t say I know except homeward. But as Jesus asked Mary to go with his friends into a season following resurrection, I begin right where I am like these tulips in my neighborhood coming to life again.
My first invitation was not rush to Easter but savor the work of the cross. Now, my invitation is to linger in Easter. Easter is not only a single day. It is a 50-day season from Resurrection Sunday to Christ’s ascension into heaven. We have seven weeks to explore and celebrate all it could mean to have new life born inside us.
In the words of Wendell Berry, let’s “practice resurrection”.
In his poem, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, Wendell suggests,
So friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
. . .
Ask the questions that have no answers.
. . .
Plant sequoias.
. . .
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap.
. . .
Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
Here are some ways I have already begun to practice resurrection:
Keep meeting at a local pub to read and discuss Bread and Wine - readings for Lent and Easter with a small group from my church. This is one place we ask those unanswerable questions.
Listening to overflowing - a playlist for Eastertide I curated this playlist to spark our imagination for what it means to live in resurrected skin and turn our full faces toward God with no separation between us and our Maker.
Noticing firsts when I rise in the morning (1st thoughts, 1st prayers, 1st actions). Turning them first and last toward Jesus.
Noticing what’s blooming in my neighborhood. (At this writing - tulips, candy tuft, grape hyacinth, snow drops, hellebores, Dogwood and tulip Magnolias)
Baking sourdough bread, two loaves at a time to give one away. There is no way but slow in the feeding, kneading, and rising of sourdough.
Showing up with my wounds - kindly, forgiven, and risen in Christ. Practicing resurrection means vulnerability and forgiveness and well, practice.
Planning to get dirt under my fingernails filling my front porch planters with Johnny Jump-ups.
Saying yes to new writing projects.
Whenever, though, (we) turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there (we) are - face-to-face! (We) suddenly realize that God is a living personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone . . . Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face.
2 Corinthians 3:16-18 Message
How will you practice resurrection?