Holy Week.

Last year I had a someone ask to schedule something during Holy Week. I politely declined, saying that I had other obligations to attend to. This person asked what I could possibly be doing for three or four nights in a week and I said simply, "It's Holy Week."

"Holy how?"

I think it is interesting when different parts of your life intersect. My friends are drawn from many different places, but these days, the majority are friends via work or via church. I love throwing parties to bring all of these folks together. Maybe it's a sick social experiment, but I've found that these different groups of people have lots in common that they might not realize.

It's also easy for me to think back and remember the days when I didn't go to church (most of my life, really). I started going to Phinney almost six years ago, but I remember the other twenty when church wasn't a part of my life. I have become a kinder, gentler person and much of my internal angst has quieted after I started to examine faith and the role it might play in my life. I'm never very vocal about it. It's just not a Lutheran thing, to be honest.

So occasionally I get some offhand comment about "those crazy church people" at work and I just smile and shrug. I know they don't mean me per se, but I like to think that they might have a richer, fuller understanding of faith if they knew a wider variety of people who practiced it, lived it.

Yesterday was probably my favorite service of teh church year... well, at least in the top three. Palm Sunday. The beginning of Holy Week, a journey from the Passion story to Maundy Thursday, Good Friday (not all that good, actually), to Easter Vigil on Saturday, and then culminating in Easter Sunday.

"I'm not sure how best to explain it," I said to this person last year. I didn't want to go into details and become that crazy church freak that this person likely envisioned. "I'll use a metaphor. For some Christians, it's like combining the World Series, the Superbowl, and the Final Four into one week."

"I still don't get it."

"It was just a metaphor. If you were a big sports fan and all of those events were happening in one week, you'd be busy, yes? That's the magnitude of it. That's why this isn't the best week to do what you suggested."

Now were I some crazy nut who just wanted to convert this person, you'd insert the "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?" conversation here. Fortunately that didn't happen because that's not me. The person simply nodded and mumbled something about finding another time and that was the end of the conversation.

So, dear friends, if I am slightly distracted this week, it might be for many reasons. I'm starting new classes. I'm finishing up many things at work because it is the end of another quarter. I'm juggling several other events or tasks that just need to get finished. All of these, really, might be why I am not fully present.

Or it might be because I am deep in thought, still analyzing the mystery and overwhelming complexity of faith and trying to apply it to my life so I can be a better Sarah for myself and others.

... just sayin'.

xoxo
Sarah