One of the many blessings of being married clergy...is having a wife who is so centered, grounded and supportive. Enjoy this blog post she wrote to be posted here!
As we held our Palms today and heard Mark’s gospel
proclaimed I was most struck by the line where temple veil was torn in two. At
this moment of Jesus’ death, there was no longer separation of sacred to profane.
Thus it is a time to remember that our bodies, our lives…doing dishes, weeding
a garden, making food for our families, caring for elderly parents or small
children…all of our daily activities are holy.
There is never a moment when Christ is not present in
our lives—even when they seem mundane.
The Ancestral Pueblo people of the Southwestern United
States constructed kivas like the one in this photo which I took at Bandelier
National Monument in New Mexico. These Ancient Pueblo people were aware of the sacredness
and sanctity of the earth and of all their daily activities. That brilliant ray
of sunlight streaming into this sacred and quiet place in the earth reminds me of
the need to always be in communion with this holiness.
In the Catholic tradition, the joy of Holy Week is
that we take very ordinary materials, palms, oil, water, and incense in order
to not to MAKE us holy but to remind us about and to re-connect us to our own
inherent holiness.
Carrie Newcomer
reminds us of this sacredness of the ordinary in her song Holy As the Day is Spent.
My favorite line is “folding sheets as folding hands.” Maybe you could start
this Holy Week by listening to this song and being aware of how very holy your
own life really is…it really is...really.
