Random thoughts on the sunday after Easter...

While it is often a "low" Sunday, I cherish the Sunday after Easter for a couple of reasons:

+ First, the lectionary reading is always about the doubts of Thomas, and doubting has taken a bad rap over the years. For some reason, doubt has never been one of my charisms - for most of my life (except about a year of a true dark night) I have been grounded in the gift of faith - which I have gathered is not the norm. Not that my "faith" is particularly strong or unique - most of the people in my church are far more faithful that me - it is just that I have almost always had an organic, abiding trust that God was in loving control so I need not worry about too much. So this Sunday gives us all a chance to celebrate and explore what doubt might mean in our journey in faith. It is also a time to affirm that doubt can also be another path towards faith - the questions being as important as any answers - or the emptiness being as true as any thing else.

+ Second, most of the time the folks who turn out for the first Sunday after Easter are those who REALLY love church. I am a church geek - I have almost always experienced church as a true and loving community of hope and grace - and I think those who show up on this Sunday have come to a similar conclusion. Not that church is always right - it isn't. And not that church is the ONLY place to find/build community - that isn't true either. But for those seeking a connection with the love of Christ in Jesus.... church often feels like home. And on this Sunday - just like the Sunday after Christmas - those who gather are mostly "just folks." Simple sinners and wounded ones who find some solace and healing in Christ's grace.

+ And third, after the drama and high pageantry of Holy Week and Easter, going to church on the Sunday after feels grounded, simple and true. Don't get me wrong I love the boldness of the high holy days - but I don't live most of my time in those places - so I mostly cherish the low Sundays as part of the real journey of faith. I give thanks for the "mountain top" celebrations, but prefer to dwell down in the valley.

So, at the end of a "low" Sunday - after I have mostly rested during the week after Easter and am preparing a humble pot roast for my honey who is worn-out and taking a nap - I return thanks for the ordinary blessings of these times. Like Mary my prayer is:

Sing out my soul, sing of the holiness of the Lord,
who has delighted in a woman,
lifted up the poor, satisfied the hungry,
given voice to the silent, grounded the oppressor
blessed the full-bellied with emptiness
and with the gift of tears those who have never wept;
who has desired the darkness of the womb
and inhabited our flesh.
O sing of the long of our God: sing out from deep within my soul.

credits: Jan Richardson @ http://theadventdoor.com/2008/12/16/mary-magnifier