holy week

"Holy Week" (the week before Easter in the Christian liturgical calendar) came upon me by surprise this year. I didn't even realize it was happening until Monday. This statement is revealing and incriminates me for my non-attendance at a regular church service Sunday morning (where I could have experienced "Palm Sunday" and therefore known that I was on the doorstep of Holy week).

I kind of like that it came upon me by surprise though, it reminds me of the time my sister and I read the gospel of Mark aloud to each other, all the way through. It was my first year at seminary and I needed to read Mark and thought it would be a fun exercise. It was actually an interesting experience. I still remember how struck I was, as the story began to unfold in the final chapters, by the injustice of what I knew was about to happen. I got caught up in the story's rhetoric, it grabbed my heartstrings, and I found myself wanting to yell at the characters "No! Don't do it! Don't let the story go this way! I know where this path leads and it's not a happy ending!" Just like a horror movie where I as the audience know what lies behind the door that is just about to be opened.

This is how I feel about holy week, it came upon me so suddenly that I want to resist it, I don't want it to go this way... and yet I am also strangely desirous of its unfolding. I am learning to let go and let myself fall into a timing in life that is not entirely my own. "Things are unfolding in God's time," I wrote in my journal yesterday, "and I'm learning to trust that unfolding." There are pieces of my life that have needed to speed-up, and pieces that have needed to slow down.

On the morning of Palm Sunday I taught a class at a church young adult event. The class was called "Homosexuality and the Bible: Opportunities for Responsible Exegesis", I had agreed to teach it not necessarily because I felt like I could, but because I didn't want someone else teaching it. The class turned out so well that now I feel like it was a confirmation that I am in the right place, doing the right things, at the right time. The path of theological academia is the path that is right for me right now, and I trust that I will be called into places and times where the work I do can give life to others.

I am excited to see what the rest of Holy Week will be. I trust that it will unfold at a divine pace, and I trust that it will hold surprises for me, just as I trust that my life will unfold in the fullness of time and hold many exciting surprises for me.