Death has been working overttime lately.
I am involved in 3 funerals this week, and a freakishly high number of my pastoral cohorts are also balancing the normal demands of their ministry with the valid needs of parishoners grieving losses expected and unexpected.
A young man in my congregation, recently graduated from high school, has enlisted in the Marine Corps. He is being sent to basic training (when did they stop calling it "boot camp"?) a month earlier than we had expected. The congregation had planned on doing a special sending liturgy for him before he left...but now that he's going to be gone so fast, he won't be able to be there for it. I feel cheated of the chance to invoke every particle of protection around him that I can, even though logically I know that my prayers for his safety are efficacious whether he's in California training to be a soldier, or standing right in front of me in the safety of our sanctuary.
This is so much about what life as a person of faith is, and frankly: it sort of sucks. Part of me wants the "Happy Happy Joy Joy Shiney Happy People Holding Hands" style of a life of faith. But my life is and always has been distinctly cruciform. Why do I love Good Friday more than Easter Sunday? Because most of the time, I feel like I spend my time with my eyes riveted on that hunk of bloody meat that is my Lord. I crave the feeling of rough and splintered wood beneath my cheek. I seek to bathe myself in the blood and water flowing from his side.
People mock me for this. Think that as a Christian, I ought to be more focused on Easter, and the joys of the Resurrection. And maybe someday: I will be. But right now? There's just too much death. Too much suffering. Too much fear. Too much pain. Frankly, I'm more comforted by a full cross than an empty tomb.
At least the Cross gives you something to hold on to.
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