Happy BRIGHT WEEK!

In all my years, I had never heard of BRIGHT WEEK.   This is the period of the week after Easter and is a time of celebration, of joy, it is setting our focus upon the “Now, what….” Of Easter and living this amazing news. I look at it as kind of a training camp to get conditioned and on the proverbial same page of being a resurrection people to continue the work of the Risen Christ.  

BRIGHT WEEK is living the lyrics of that, for many, first and greatest hit of Sunday school songs….”This Little Light of Mine.”  Yes, it is shining one’s light and shining the light all over and to keep shining brighter and brighter, even in the face of any threat or attempt to snuff out.  BRIGHT WEEK is brilliant….literally and metaphorically!  I’m envisioning handing out candles as persons leave Easter Sunday worship as a re-minder to continue the story and light the darkness.  

Why had I not known about this previously???  Learning it know, I share the light which is standard fare in living this Jesus way.

You know how you can know in your head a fact, something that you could recall if on JEOPARDY and the category is Christianity.  Now, I know that the Risen Christ stayed around for 40 days (gotta love those Biblical numbers) post Resurrection, appearing, cheering and steering the disciples in what they/we were to continue to build.  Easter is major…the biggie in the Christian faith and, I confess to having had and still having a “Whew….got through that and now I’m going on vacation” mindset. 

The Resurrection is not the end point it is the starting point. So, how am I to live differently post Resurrection?  Has anything changed? How will this be evidenced in my life?

Who would've believed 'em?

The greatest news the world would ever know was messaged on the lips of women.....Who would've believed them??? As we know women didn't carry too much cred nor power in 1st Century Palestine...(we can debate how much things have changed in a later post....) Though the four gospels differ on the number of angels, what was said, who else was there....the one constant are the women....and ain't that always the way....

As the tales are told of that first Resurrection Day, Mary Magdalene tells the disciples that Jesus is risen and they will see him.  For many understandable reasons, the least being the messenger's gender, the disciples need to see it for themselves and sprint off to the tomb, finding it empty, just as the woman said.

The message of Jesus is love.  So in terms of love, how do you know? 

Referencing those whom I love and who love me, there is an energy, there is trust, one wants to be with the person, there is a tenderness, one writes letters (has to be a letter, folks...tweets just don't cut it...#gimme a break), one spends time with, takes walks, goes out to dinner....

With all that said, consider how similar the actions with the followers of the Risen Christ and those times evidenced when the community is gathered. There most definitely is an energy....you feel it and I dare say, if you don't have it nor feel it, it may be time for a pause and a ponder. 

There is trust....I'll go where you send me...gulp...yet, one goes.  Prayer, study groups, readings, retreats, making daily reflection a priority....we spend time and attention. My favorite version of the oft-quoted Micah 6.8 is "What, O, mortal does God require of you, yet to do what is just, to love tenderly and to walk humbly."

Scripture supports the number of letters penned and sent and received. Our witness to those words are our responses. 

We walk our witness...don't tell me...show me by feeding, quenching. advocating, stirring and spicing it up.

We gather at table. Sure, it's nice to eat in house....yet, how much better when we go out?  When we extend the grace of the table to others....

The story is told of persons in prison wanting to celebrate communion. There was no officiant, no bread nor wine.  The people gathered in a circle, turned to one another, opened their arms and hands and said, "This is my body given for you...."   This works for me on a lot of levels, namely being the sacrament is to continue far and wide beyond the end of the table and the doors of the building.  

If Easter is to be more than a day, we must make it so.  Who would've believed Jesus is risen?  A whole lot of folks if we practice resurrection. If we love. If we labor to make the world look as God would've have it to be.  Then, we would hear a whole lot of folks saying, "The church is doing what???? I don't believe it......."

To your stations

My faith journey picked up during my adolescence.....go figure. As a youth, Good Friday was a time to be somber and reflective, don the black clothes and attend a service of worship.  Normally, it was a Tenebrae service in the evening.....which made sense as the name itself suggests darkness. 

Being protestant we didn't do the Stations of the Cross.  When I lived and worked in Erie, I involved myself with the Benedictine Community.  The times spent with those Sisters, the Bennies, was a spiritual spark and strengthening that serves me still and onward.  During one Lenten Season, I was invited to participate as a reader in the community's annual Good Friday Peace Pilgrimage through the streets of Erie.  

The set-up was a modern day Stations of the Cross with stops planned to raise awareness to the suffering of God's children in these days. As we walked the seven mile pilgrimage (cars were also provided to make certain all who wanted could participate). The stops of reading and reflection, prayer and stirs to act with love and justice were:

• the armory to lament the blood and treasury continued to be afforded to support the USA's military-industrial complex; 
• a "girlie bar" known around the city as a place that objectified women; 
• the space at a location where a person was murdered for his sexual orientation; 
• a kids park whose swings and slides were adorned with graffiti and messages not fit for the eyes of children nor for that matter anyone. 
• a food pantry to reflect on the many weighed down by poverty;
• there was the reading and reflection at the understood-by-all line that lead into what locals still called the "colored part" of the city; 
• an overlook of Lake Erie where the shoreline was littered with trash.

Where we to participate in a Stations of the Cross pilgrimage for these days and times in which we live where would you have us stop and pray, lament, and repent for a life change to be more just?