In the Christian church, today is the feast of Pentecost.  It is considered to be the birthday of the church because it celebrates when the Spirit descended upon the disciples and filled them with the fire of courage to go and spread the message of liberation witnessed to them.  Vestments and banners usually are red, filling the church with a sense of the energy that must have rushed into the room that day. It is a joyful feast, bringing the fifty days of the season of Easter to a dynamic close. I like to imagine that ragtag group, gathered together “in

A couple of years ago it occured to me that we spend a lot of time in church talking about what practices to take on for Lent, but when Easter comes, the glorious season of resurrection, we slip back into our ordinary lives.  Hopefully we arrive transformed by our Lenten journey, but the season of Easter is not just that amazing day when the tomb was discovered empty.  We celebrate Easter for 50 days, days that grow longer and more brilliant as blossoming continues and we head toward the summer solstice.  What might it mean to practice this resurrection in our everyday lives?

I love the wide space of Holy Saturday.  Lingering between the suffering and death of Jesus on Friday and the vigil Saturday night proclaiming the return of the Easter fire.  For me Holy Saturday evokes much about the human condition.  The ways in which we are called to let go of things or people, identities or securities and then wonder what will rise up out of the ashes of our lives.  The suffering that we experience because of pain or grief or great sorrow and we don’t know if we will grasp joy again.  How often do we simply wait and hope that