Resurrection Isn't Reversal
Easter Sunday Prayers 2021
 |
Dear God,
I know I was just complaining about waiting my turn for the vaccine, but now that I’ve gotten mine, this part also feels tricky. So, I have some Easter-related questions, God. I’m wondering - that one dawn, so many years ago, when Jesus came out of his own tomb, did he step haltingly toward the light or did he run? Did he know who he was right away, or did that take a minute? Did he harbor resentments about his faltering friends or was he free?
I’m asking because many of us are stepping into the first light of a post-pandemic dawn and one minute I want to run full speed and the next I am unable to move. And If I talk too much about what was lost, I feel like a bummer but if I talk at all about the unexpected gifts, I feel like I’m callous. And I’m not sure I can ever be who I was before, but I’m also not totally sure who everyone else is now, either.
My Easter request is this: Help us remember that resurrection isn’t reversal, that as we return to life, we are carrying our own wounds from loss and isolation. But we are also emerging with new beauty and new wisdom. We are not who we were. But we do get to discover who we are. Help us not foreclose on each other. Maybe just grant us a holy curiosity for a while?
Please give me courage to trust the hope I feel right now. Save me from squandering this moment of new life. Remind me that all the fear and cynicism in the world never protects me from pain and disappointment in the way I think they will. Give us back to each other when the time is right. May we recognize you, our wounded and resurrected God, in our belly laughs and crocodile tears…and maybe … even in each other.
Amen.
I think I’m done for now.
On Sunday March 22nd, 2020 I posted some prayers here. In that first post, I said, “We are going to share prayers here each Sunday until folks are able to gather in person with their communities’ - many of us had our church services cancelled but none of us knew at the time just how long this shit was going to last.
Here we are 53 weeks later. I have sat down nearly every Sunday, meditated, had a coffee, and then asked myself “what do I genuinely want to say to God right now?” You’ve all been so gracious in your response to this small pandemic offering of mine, and I thank you for that kindness.
I feel like the Sunday Prayers project has been completed. (Although who knows, maybe I’ll pop up with some now and again as they arise in me.)
For now, I am focusing on gathering prayers in some new ways (more about that soon). Thank you for praying with me. Thank you for praying for me. Just, thank you.
Onward,
-Nadia
About The Corners
If you’d like to support my work, access more content, and engage with me and other subscribers here, you can subscribe to The Corners using the button below. You will have access to essays, conversation threads, Q & A, and all the archives. If you’d like access to all the content here but a paid subscription isn’t for you, no problem, we give them free to absolutely anyone who emails us at shamelessmediallc@gmail.com (over 1,000 so far!) This is for everyone.
(I’m a big believer in paying for content. I have paid subscriptions to many publications and am a patron of several artists and thinkers whose work I love. BUT I am also someone who had very little money for most of her life and even lived on government assistance for many of them, so I know what it is like to not have extra. This is why The Corners and soon, The Chapel (an experimental gathering of spiritual misfits) is set up as a “those who can pay do and those who can’t need not have to” model).
Your words this morning remind me of something I wrote recently, in part about the Heroine's Journey as opposed to the Hero's Journey. We love the Hero's Journey because it is active and masculine in the classic, archetypal sense. But the experience we've been having in this pandemic is much more of an archetypal, feminine Heroine's Journey, not unlike Persephone walking along, picking flowers and minding her own business, and then being snatched by Hades down to Hell where she is raped and forced to accept the mantle of Queen of Darkness, at least part-time. It is the experience of being done unto, and then having to integrate (as opposed to conquer) darkness.
I think one of the things that so confronted people about Jesus were his "feminine" qualities-- his nurturance, his acceptance of others, his connectivity, his sanctification of service and self-sacrifice. For me, this moment of Resurrection feels particularly potent because of the ways it pulls these two examples of re-emergence and integration together.
May we all find the space to breathe and integrate, so that we may re-emerge transformed and reminded of our holy wholeness. https://ashasanaker.substack.com/p/sht-to-help-you-show-up-march-26
Tried to go to Church this morning - Easter. There were too many people for my long latent PTSD. I sat it out in the car, while my husband and Mom enjoyed the service. My introverted self enjoyed a podcast/sermon, and relaxed. It pays to pay attention.