This is the first time I can remember, in literally decades, when I haven't been up to my ears in Holy Week and Easter preparations. I miss that whirl, that massive adrenal surge that gets you through eight days of preparations, services, sermons. I miss feeling Easter joy physically, as well as spiritually.
At the same time, it’s been good, in a way, for me to spend this week in exile from my seminary and parish responsibilities. Participating in church isn’t a choice as such; I’m accountable to my church and to God for how I deploy my energies, and I don’t have a genuine excuse for absenting myself. I mean, it’s quite true that I’m not even in the same time zone as my congregation and school, but I’d have wanted to duck out even if I were in Evanston, and I might have given in to that accedie. So saying, “Ooops, sorry, out of town” doesn’t tell the whole story.
There’s a grace, though, in being known so deeply that there’s no point in my trying to justify myself, there’s no point in advancing rationalizations for my impatience or frustration or laziness. It’s what I am, who I am, and that’s the guy God called to serve Seabury and St. Luke’s; and my temporary aversion to that service reflects on me, not on the people beloved by God who are worshipping there today — and at the same time, I’m myself set free to come back to Evanston with a renewed appreciation for a gospel that can wait out my moods, can nod at my kicks and harrumphs, and bring me back a little older and (we may hope) more patient.
It’s Easter. That’s a good time for shucking off the sin that clings hardest where we like it, and get cleaned up, spruced up. A good time for me to see whether I can’t be gentler, more loving, more patient with unchosen circumstances, and appreciate them as part of a complex, beautiful, needle-sharp shimmering gift. It comes as a gift, Easter does, and life does, and I do love them.
Posted by AKMA at April 20, 2003 02:07 PM | TrackBackAs a sacristan, who this year knows the physical joy of Easter...perhaps more so than the spiritual...I give thanks to God for you and your words this day.
See you when you return from the wilderness brother.
Easter is physical, like the resurrection, like everything about us. Perhaps that is why its so early ... The chapel felt empty without you in it this week AKMA, it's good to hear you felt a bit empty too.
Posted by: Trevor at April 20, 2003 03:48 PMAKMA,
For several years, I partnered with my pastor in leading two much-appreciated Communion services each day during Holy Week at our decidedly non-liturgical Presbyterian Church--and then an Easter Vigil on Saturday.
I vividly remember the physical fatigue--how it seemed to drive home the Passion of Christ and led to deep soul-searching and a longing for the celebration of Easter.
I miss that. Thanks for the moving reminder.
Posted by: Dave Rogers (C&E) at April 20, 2003 06:24 PMI swallowed a bit of baptismal water last night as I was starting a siphon through a garden hose to drain the baptismal font after the service. It took four of us to get the tank drained and put away. Some of us were grousing ("what happend to sprinkling a few drops on the head ?") but without much heat. What would have been a tedious and dangerous task for one or two people to do somehow became an enjoyable task when four of us put our hands to it. This bit of humdrum ecclesiastical housekeeping may very well become one of my fondest Easter memories.
Hurry back, ghostly father.
Posted by: Timothy Phillips at April 20, 2003 07:44 PMA blessed Easter, AKMA; see you soon, back in the physical world.
Posted by: Jane Ellen at April 20, 2003 08:09 PMLet's take a moment to reexamine that. What we've done here is create two variables. The first variable is in the Heap, and we're storing data in it. That's the obvious one. But the second variable is a pointer to the first one, and it exists on the Stack. This variable is the one that's really called favoriteNumber, and it's the one we're working with. It is important to remember that there are now two parts to our simple variable, one of which exists in each world. This kind of division is common is C, but omnipresent in Cocoa. When you start making objects, Cocoa makes them all in the Heap because the Stack isn't big enough to hold them. In Cocoa, you deal with objects through pointers everywhere and are actually forbidden from dealing with them directly.
Posted by: Archibald at January 13, 2004 03:40 AMA variable leads a simple life, full of activity but quite short (measured in nanoseconds, usually). It all begins when the program finds a variable declaration, and a variable is born into the world of the executing program. There are two possible places where the variable might live, but we will venture into that a little later.
Posted by: Ebotte at January 13, 2004 03:40 AMLet's take a moment to reexamine that. What we've done here is create two variables. The first variable is in the Heap, and we're storing data in it. That's the obvious one. But the second variable is a pointer to the first one, and it exists on the Stack. This variable is the one that's really called favoriteNumber, and it's the one we're working with. It is important to remember that there are now two parts to our simple variable, one of which exists in each world. This kind of division is common is C, but omnipresent in Cocoa. When you start making objects, Cocoa makes them all in the Heap because the Stack isn't big enough to hold them. In Cocoa, you deal with objects through pointers everywhere and are actually forbidden from dealing with them directly.
Posted by: Lancelot at January 13, 2004 03:40 AMSeth Roby graduated in May of 2003 with a double major in English and Computer Science, the Macintosh part of a three-person Macintosh, Linux, and Windows graduating triumvirate.
Posted by: Holland at January 13, 2004 10:47 AMSeth Roby graduated in May of 2003 with a double major in English and Computer Science, the Macintosh part of a three-person Macintosh, Linux, and Windows graduating triumvirate.
Posted by: Holland at January 13, 2004 10:48 AM