Being part of an Episcopal church for the past 9months has been quite the journey. Given the timing of this with the major changes in my life, it’s been a steady home that I’d been longing for. The liturgy calls me to participate and slowly I’ve been getting to know people too, so that mingling after church is less scary (at least on some Sundays!).

This is the first year I’ve been so aware of the significance of Holy Week. Although I’d always been aware of Palm Sunday and what it represented, it never seemed to be something that I needed to engage with. The weight and sorrow of Good Friday that combines with the hindsight knowledge that the actions of Christ that day meant my sins were atoned for, followed by the joy of Easter Sunday as we celebrate the resurrection and all the good news that this brings…these I got…these I acknowledged and (some years more than others) lived in. But Palm Sunday, that was just setting the scene for the real action – I’d always just skipped over it.

And yet, I was reminded yesterday that it was so much more than that. As Fr. Jerry encouraged us to find ourselves in the story I realized there is a lot there…from the crowds singing “Hosanna”…to many of those same people shouting “crucify him” or running away in fear… I’ve pondered this a lot and become more aware of the times that my life is contrary – the reflection of myself that I see isn’t always the most encouraging. It’s hard to do the real work of liturgy…preparing the path for the King.

And today we made it to the Good Friday service with the Stations of the Cross. We’d missed the Maundy Thursday service with the craziness of work, rainy day traffic and general tiredness and I was eager to be in a place to actively remember and participate in the story. Being with a kid who was experiencing the story for the first time (at least at an age where she could engage) was a new experience. This girl has a big heart and a questioning mind. As she fell asleep on my lap tonight, after asking me to tell her more & more about the story of Good Friday, I was struck by what a blessing she is – and how much of a small prophet she is: challenging me to live the words, understand what this truth means and feels like…and ultimately finding rest and peace in it.

I have some great friends. In the midst of this mess I’m going through and all that entails, I have some really good friends.

Good friends who open their typical Friday night family gathering and say “you are welcome, any week, with or without your kid”. Others who listen to the current saga and when I’m ready to give in say “that’s not right, you deserve more/better”. I’m grateful for each and every one of them.

But after all these encounters, I leave. And this weekend especially, as the kid’s with her Dad, I leave alone. The pain of separation hits me again – the alone time stretches ahead of me, as far as my eyes can see. Then I get the two conflicting feelings of wanting to curl up to hide and wanting to run, as far away as possible…something to help me escape from this. Who, in their right mind, would embrace loneliness?

And yet, once again, I stumble upon a “blessing” from John O’Donohue and I stop short – letting the words sink in, wash over me and shift my perspective.

FOR LONELINESS – John O’Donohue

When the light lessens,
Causing colors to lose their courage,
And your eyes fix on the empty distance
That can open on either side
Of the surest line
To make all that is
Familiar and near
Seem suddenly foreign,

When the music of talk
Breaks apart into noise
And you hear your heart louden
While the voices around you
Slow down to leaden echoes
Turning the silence
Into something stony and cold,

When the old ghosts come back
To feed on everywhere you felt sure,
Do not strengthen their hunger
By choosing to fear;
Rather, decide to call on your heart
That it may grow clear and free
To welcome home your emptiness
That it may cleanse you
Like the clearest air
You could ever breathe.

Allow your loneliness time
To dissolve the shell of dross
That had closed around you;
Choose in this severe silence
To hear the one true voice
Your rushed life fears;
Cradle yourself like a child
Learning to trust what emerges,
So that gradually
You may come to know
That deep in the black hole
You will find the blue flower
That holds the mystical light
Which will illuminate in you
The glimmer of springtime.

Oh, I feel those old ghosts coming back – they are so familiar that at times I welcome them in without thinking about it. These are days when I must consciously decide to call my heart to a different way – one that embraces the new without wishing it away. A way that takes the time to shed the shell and allow the new to emerge in its time. Spring will come in due course, until then we catch glimmers and hope as we wait for the renewed life waiting to burst from the ground.