STAFF BLOG

If we were to make a list of all that has changed over the two months, none of us would have any trouble filling a notebook! Everything from our daily schedules to our wardrobes have changed, and in short order. One change I find especially interesting is how quickly even our vernacular has changed. Words and phrases that were little used or absent from our conversations just months ago are now so commonplace that even my seven year old son is routinely using words like “quarantine”, “shelter-in-place” and “zoom” in his everyday conversations. Have you noticed that even how we bid one another goodbye has changed? Parting phrases like, “See you later” and “So long” seem to have been replaced with well wishes such as “Stay safe” and “Keep healthy.” I think this shift reflects that even though more physically isolated and separated from one another during this season, in some ways are experiencing a deepening connection to our communities and neighbors. We seem to have a somewhat heightened concern for one another and for the well-being of others, and I pray this long outlasts the virus! To that end, the phrase I increasingly find myself using to sign off on emails or as I send a socially distanced wave to a neighbor, is “Be well”. I believe it is my current choice for parting salutations for a very simple reason….I’m tired…and because “being” requires so little of me. According to the dictionary, to “be” simply means “to exist”. In the midst of pain for a hurting world, news-fatigue, at home learning, constant zoom meetings, big decisions, huge learning curves and a vast array of yet unanswered questions, “to exist”

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. –Hebrews 13:8 My, how things have changed! My, how things are still the same! Do you feel that tension in your life? As we work from home and teachers virtually “homeschool” students, we’ve experienced a tremendous disruption in our daily patterns. Yet, at the same time, the same work or learning, the same chores, many of the same things which made up our life before the pandemic are still here. I guess the general human observation that “the more things change, the more they stay the same” is true in this sense. It’s also true, however, to say that our current experience changes us. Or, at least, we are adding new things to our lives: more dog walks and bike rides, more food, more on-line interaction through platforms like Zoom.  Also, I’d like to think we will all come out of the pandemic kinder people, more generous, more thoughtful, more open to our neighbors. Only time will tell. Once we have more freedom to move about, that’s when the actual test of civic virtue takes place. Will we retain a greater sense of community and responsibility in loving our neighbors? Like society, the Church has been changed and is challenged to ask itself what are the good things about this change we can keep.  Many churches (including Holy Cross) have made greater use of technology to keep members connected and reach new people. We are grateful for your continued participation in what we are doing, but what other changes will happen as we adjust to the overall changes around us? For some, the changes will be exciting and welcomed; for others,

“Dad, may I be the one to slam the book this year?” I remember myself asking when I was a teenager. I was with my father as he was preparing for Good Friday service. He had his heaviest book from his library beside a mic in the sound booth. At the end of the service, the book would be slammed shut as those present made their exit in silence reflecting on the seemingly final act, the stone closing the tomb, following Jesus’ crucifixion. He replied, “why don’t you practice?” I quickly realized that my hands would not be big enough to make the sound that I remember even today. I think about these Holy Week memories fresh in my heart and mind as we experience a global pandemic and shelter in place orders require that we stay isolated and distant from one another for our safety. I ask myself several questions. What does it mean as a church that the season (Lent) when lament is most available to us is so very different this year under current circumstances? What role does lament have not only in my understanding of Lent and the events of Holy Week but in circumstances where suffering is ever-present in my life and the life of the church? How does Jesus’ lament on the cross instruct us when we are suffering? And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46 “The language of lament has served the church throughout the ages. Laments are fairly common within the Bible and are the hardest texts to deal with. They raise uncomfortable

There’s one image of Jesus that sort of freaks me out (in a good way!). It’s the optical illusion you may have seen make the rounds in an email forward or on social media. At first glance, it is a rudimentary black & white line drawing of Jesus. You can make out eyes, nose, and even the long hair we are accustomed to seeing in common portrayals of Jesus. Stare hard at the four dots that run the length of this Jesus’ nose, however, and in thirty seconds close your eyes. Suddenly, a much more complete, clear and beautiful image of Jesus appears. You can check it out for yourselves here. It’s cool….and crazy….all at the same time! I know that there is a scientific explanation behind the optical illusion, of course, but I think there is real-life spiritual implication there as well. This Lent, our theme has been “Eyes on Jesus”, based on Hebrew 12:2. “O come, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” When we began our Lenten observance together at our community meal and Ash Wednesday worship on February 26, how would we ever have guessed that we would entering Holy Week and the climax of the journey just a few weeks later pondering how to worship from home via Zoom with homemade palms? To say that this has been a unique Lenten journey is an understatement. We are being asked to trust in ways we have never been asked to trust in