Arrival: Holy Week
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We ride into our beloved Jerusalem, the sacred destination of our wanderings these past many weeks. Here we will shout our hopeful hosannas, weep with unexpected sorrow, and celebrate our ultimate Answer. As we look about this place of our arrival, do we feel compelled to echo the behaviors of Jesus as he walked through the expectant streets towards Calvary? What do you feel when you look across your living landscapes, when you touch your city's wealthy and impoverished walls, when you are carried away in the lofty cathedrals? Do you feel joy? Do you pray? Do you weep? Jesus, you wept for the city you loved - in your words and actions the oppressed found justice and the angry found release.... (prayer heading used on Iona)
The traveler has important tasks upon arriving to their final destination. Because the entire journey has been intentionally marked and prayerfully pondered, so must the arrival. This is the time to surround yourself with prayers, poems and hymns that anchor your place and provide the touchstone for this final experience. Phil Cousineau speaks to the essential task of "feeling the thrill of completing your pilgrimage...If we remember that the word thrill originally referred to the vibrations the arrow made when it hits the target, than the pleasure is compounded. There is joy in having arrived, moment by moment." We have come far on this Lenten pilgrimage; we have sacrificed, we have given, we have changed.
There is deep value in going through this seasonal process for what began in our winter, has now come to completion in our spring. With fresh, vibrant colors surrounding us, we too see the contexts of our lives with fresh new eyes. We hear with a new kind of clarity. With this sense of lucidity, comes both gratitude and responsibility. The appreciation for the lessons learned on the long journey translates to a new sense of obligation, a fresh response of advocacy. We have come to love more deeply in this season and like Jesus, we weep with the depth of this love for Others and we know we cannot return to pre-pilgrimage ways. We have been changed by the wintery road, and subsequently, so will be our home-lives. New growth has sprung from the soil of the sojourn. How to respond to our changedness may seem overwhelming; in these moments we must pray and pray according to the lessons learned.
Today I share with you a beautiful Holy Week prayer written by the Iona Community's Neil Paynter. These beseeching words seem a fitting response to the Lenten Labyrinth where we have seen and witnessed the pain and suffering of our deepest selves, which is the pain of so many others. May this prayer be yours today as you anchor into the ancient and present meanings of these most holy days.
Visionary God, architect of heaven and earth, unless we build in partnership with you we labor in vain
Help us work to create cities modeled more faithfully on the plan of your Kingdom -
Communities where children are respected and encouraged where young people can express themselves creatively where the experience of old people is called on where the insights and gifts of all God's people are fully realized where shared gardens and plots bloom in once derelict places where all cultures and traditions are honored and celebrated on soulful, carnival streets where gay couples can dance to the beat of their hearts homeless people are received with loving arms and open borders news vendors cry Hosanna! All are fed and loved and set free...
O God, our maker, open our eyes to new possibilities and perspectives, organizations and projects, structures and outlooks...
Help us to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem:
to break down the barriers in ourselves that prevent us from reaching out to neighbors and making peace; to rebuild communities based on understanding and justice, illuminated with the true light of Christ.
Amen
-Neil Paynter