Today I’m writing from my hometown—not the one I’ve adopted as an adult but the one where I spent the first eighteen years of my life. It feels a little funny to be here. It’s not because I’m (supposedly) a grown-up hanging out in the spaces where I used to be a kid. It’s not because of any troublesome family dynamics or because I’m supposed to be somewhere else at the moment. That’s the thing—I’m not supposed to be anywhere else. That’s what’s strange.
It’s Holy Week for those of us who hang around the church—the first Holy Week in seven years that I’ve not been working as a pastor. So this year I’m not scurrying around attending to details for services, writing reflections, looking forward to the quick approach of Easter morning, and basically camping out in the church building. Instead, I’m spending spring break with my kids and watching and waiting as this holy time takes on another rhythm altogether—one that is helping me see this week’s events in a whole new way.
On Monday, I played at a water park with my kids, because that’s just what you do on spring break, right? As I collapsed into bed that night, I was reminded of the power of life—of its vigorous persistence (like my kids insisting we go back up all the steps to the big slide “one more time”) and also its limits (my thirty-five year-old legs complaining about the workout.)
On Tuesday, I watched The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe with my son. He picked it, and I refrained from telling him that C.S. Lewis based this story on Jesus’ story of death and resurrection. He loves to give me a hard time about going to church and, as I have written about in a previous post, only talks about “God” in air quotes. I thought it was pretty big of me not to tease him about his choice and his subconscious obsession with “God.”
When I came back downstairs to finish the movie after putting my daughter to bed, I noticed that my son had skipped back to the part where Aslan the Lion (Lewis’ Jesus figure) is killed by the White Witch. That seemed really dark to me, especially since I struggled to keep watching through that scene when it came around the first time. It was hard to for me sit with the darkness that overcomes the light (spoiler alert—at least temporarily) for me, but evidently something about it interested or resonated with him. Perhaps he’s more comfortable with darkness. Perhaps he’s better at trusting that it isn’t the final word, that light and new life are always coming. Perhaps he’s taken on a little more of the Jesus story than he realizes—the part that Holy Week teaches us—that we aren’t alone in our struggles or darkness, because divine love is with us even through death (the final one and all of life’s little deaths) and is always creating and recreating life.
Or, maybe he just likes violent parts. That’s always a possibility too.
On Wednesday, I went to a “Lenten Lunch” with my mom at the church where I grew up. I saw many familiar faces there that I have loved for a long time and that have noticeably more wrinkles this time around—just like me. There was a speaker at the lunch who told the story of his mother’s struggle with terminal cancer and how she and the family worked to help her “die better.” He had us all put on hospital bracelets on which we had written our names, reminded us that we would all someday be patients who were dying, and encouraged us to prepare well for the end of life. I heard all that, but I was more struck by how the speaker’s story and his mother’s story were so intertwined, about what a powerful impact she had on who he has become and is becoming. I wondered what story my son or daughter would be telling some day and about the ways our lives are intertwined.
Tonight I’ll go to a Maundy Thursday service. “Maundy” comes from the Latin “mandatum” and is the first word Jesus speaks when he addresses his disciples telling them, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” We’ll share communion—a reminder of the last meal Jesus shared with his friends and also of the importance of our current day connections to each other and the divine. On the night of this last meal, Jesus also got down on the ground and washed his disciples’ feet, teaching them that to lead is to love and serve each other—that that is stuff of which salvation is made. There won’t be the traditional foot washing during the Maundy Thursday service tonight, but I am sure I will get to wash my son’s muddy feet after he’s finished stomping around in the creek in my parents’ backyard.
Right now he’s splashing in the same waters and slogging through the same mud where I spent hours as a child, building dams, digging up clay, and daring myself to climb higher and higher for a scarier and more thrilling ride on the rope swing. Being here to wash his feet, to be present to him as he explores and risks, and to attend to his needs reminds me that parenting is holy work, a responsibility as sacred as it gets. This is true even when it involves a sassy eight year-old who doesn’t want to get clean and often sees my help more as an interference or, on his more dramatic days, some kind of great oppression. Wonder how far back in his head his eyes would roll if I mentioned the word “salvation” when I was toweling off his feet?
This post will be published on Good Friday, the day that Christians remember the suffering and death of Jesus. Doesn’t really sound so good at first, does it? There will be a service of shadows, scripture readings, and probably (hopefully) a good deal of silence. It’ll be a chance for me to mull over what I’ve learned from this Holy Week with my children—
- about the tenacity of life and also its fragility;
- about trusting and sitting with the darkness, knowing light and life will eventually find me;
- about how twisted together our stories are and how we shape each other, hopefully for the good;
- and about the power of our human connections, our lifeline to Spirit, and our everyday acts of salvific love and service, especially the seemingly mundane and small ones.
Good Friday is just that—good—for all these reasons, and because it reminds us of the generosity, commitment, and hope of the Love that holds us and calls us forth. Those are good things to remember as a parent during this and each holy week.
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Leah Lonsbury is writer and mom who has worked as a pastor for two progressive churches, taught high school English, and worn a variety of other professional hats. A native of Kansas City, Missouri, Leah went to seminary in Atlanta, Georgia and now resides in Madison, Wisconsin. She currently spends her time chasing her two children, working for justice in her community, volunteering with the Alliance of Baptists, and writing preaching resources for The Immediate Word.
The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the blog contributor’s. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider. Writers may have conflicts of interest, and their opinions are their own.