Easter, again

I haven't been paying much attention to this blog lately, but maybe Easter is a good time to begin again. My life is moving in a different direction, and at this season, the pace is accelerating -- there are things to do and deadlines to meet to make myself ready to leave Manchester and become an intentional interim minister. I'm excited and energized by the prospect!

The blog started as a way to keep in touch when I was on sabbatical in spring of 2007, and has shifted emphasis along the way, but now I'm back in pilgrimage mode, this time entering on a project to be a kind of 21st century circuit rider. I see this as a return to my original intention, to keep in touch as I travel and to record what I learn. Two years ago at Easter I was in San Cristobal de las Casas, in Chiapas, Mexico, experiencing the traditional ceremonies that mark this Christian high holy day in a rather traditional place. There were a crowd of people who followed the procession of Christ carrying the cross, many dressed in black, on Good Friday. Then all was festivity on Easter Sunday. This year I am again celebrating with my ambivalent congregation, lifting Christianity out of "Lo the Earth Awakes Again" with the help of Rebecca Parker and Rita Nakashima Brock, wondering why it's so hard to include Christian holidays as among the many traditions we honor. Where will I be next Easter? In the land of Unitarian Universalist ambivalence, I'm sure, but someplace different, with its own traditions and its own Easter hangups.

I'm hoping to learn much about congregations in transition, and in the process to learn about who they are and how they do church. I have ambitions to help them be their best selves in the world, overcoming old habits that keep them stuck in the past. Can that happen? Maybe sometimes. And maybe sometimes it is sufficient to be with them, love them, and do church with them more or less the way they are used to having it. I feel the season's joyance, as the hymnodist suggests, partly from the spring and partly from the liturgical calendar. New possibilites waft through my life on the fresh breeze. It is good to be alive and good to be part of this faith tradition.