The feeling of returning from vacation is this strange moment where you transistion from extraordinary back to ordinary. For me, today it was checking in my plants and chickens, unpacking the car, looking at my planner and getting my mind around the upcoming week. It was adding RV maintenence to my to do list and thinking about what else needed to be done before we put the RV back in storage.
This moment of touch down, returning to life comes after vacation or a long weekend. It comes after a big game or Christmas or long awaited birthday party. It happens after birth, after getting married, after gradation, after the death of a loved one. You go from a time cut off from the world, suspended in moments that form you, then you go back to school, to work, to the daily grind of living.
In these moments, I have to put myself back together. I remember the past... what was happening before and what I need to take care of. But I also have to rearrange the pieces of myself and create space for new pieces... the pieces changed by those moments outside of normal life. I have to make sense of my new normal. Coming back from vacation, my new normal is the same as it was, just a few new to do items. But after the birth of a child or the loss of a loved one, the new normal is completely upside down, backwards and inside out from what life was before. I can hardly even ferment what I thought was important before.
Sometimes, moments with God are like this. Outside of time, separate from ordinary life and then... I have to come back to myself and take the pieces and rearrange my life around a new direction or a new self. It's hard to do this. There's a disconnect between "normal" life and "God moments."
A new baby forces change. It's an uncomfortable transistion to sleeplessness and selflessness. But quiet moments with God are not so forceful. Up in the mountain top, everything is clear. But as I muddle back to life, somehow I get less certain... confused. .. longing to just go back to the mountain.
Tomorrow is palm Sunday. The disciples are about to step out of life to journey with Jesus to the last supper, to huddle together at the terror of the events that play out in his last day and dump them out in the locked upper room where they gathered together and tried to figure out what's next.
Holy week is an invitation to join the disciples on this journey. To be blown apart by Jesus and stand on Easter morning scratching our heads wondering how to rearrange life around what God is doing. It takes time. Easter is a season that ends with Pentecost. The pouring of the holy spirit who helps us organize the pieces and become the new creation. Between now and then, it is part of the journey to feel unsettled or confused. Those early disciples definitely were.
May this week blow me apart and push me to consider how the pieces of my every day normal life are changed by it.
Amen.
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