Singing New Songs

Last week, M and I got back from a week’s pilgrimage in the Holy Land, starting in Be’er Sheva, moving through Bethlehem, Jerusalem, the wilderness and, via a dip in the Dead Sea, on to Galilee, Nazareth and Capernaum. It was wonderful, challenging, exhausting, exhilarating, hope-filled, sobering, humbling, uplifting, energetic and gentle.   It will take me a very long time to process all that I saw, heard and experienced along with our fellow pilgrims – nearly all of them ordinands from my college. However, with 10 days or so having passed since we got back, I’m starting to feel like I can put some shape to my overall impressions of what God was doing in me over there.   It all feels important and like I will never be quite the same as a result of this journey so this blog seemed like a good place to share a few of those first thoughts*….. On our second full day, two moments of clarity hit me in the crowded, busy, ornate Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, ...

I've had a week or so to think about my first Holy Week and Easter in my new church. With essay deadlines just beforehand and a busy schedule, it all felt quite intense. But the intensity I felt didn't come from the busyness. I seemed to feel every conversation, every talk, every hymn and song much more keenly than I would do normally. The sense of walking through the week from Palm Sunday to Easter Day was very real - following the steps of Jesus as he went, inescapably, to his crucifixion and then the joy as he rose again on Easter Day. I have felt like layers of meaning and understanding have been peeled back slowly and deliberately this year more than ever before. On Maundy Thursday evening, there was a communion service with washing of hands (rather than feet), followed by stripping of the altar and the rest of the church and then a silent Watch.  My wonderful and thoughtful supervisor, knowing that much of this was quite new to me, invited me to help throughout the se...