On May 1st, we will finally get to celebrate all that God is doing at our school for Holy Spirit School Sunday. Teachers and families will be welcomed. We will have breakfast as we do every first Sunday, but this month we will gather in the gym to accommodate the size of our attendance. The students will bless us with presentations of things they have been working on like songs from their production of “Lemonade” (my daughter has been practicing!). I also just met with one of our baptismal candidates for this Sunday and she shared that she will be one of the cheerleaders who will cheer for us on May 1st. It will be a wonderful morning.

As you may have noticed in church on Sunday, I got a little emotional when I realized that we are entering into a Holy Week that has all the markers of normalcy. The church was full for Palm Sunday. Many of you have signed up for the overnight vigil on Maundy Thursday. Most of the bulletins are printed (with the only exception being Easter, which is unique this year as my first time experiencing a Bishop’s visit on the holiest of days). Thirteen Hundred Easter eggs have been stuffed with candy and are ready to be hunted! We are about ready…

Our newcomers class recently discussed the centrality of worship to the way our church experiences and explores the Good News of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. We literally live out our faith in a yearly journey we call the liturgical year. Every step reveals and deepens our connection to the never-ending promise of grace and hope and as we approach Easter, we approach the most important and pivotal moment of this shared journey.

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;

Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

- Strong Son of God, Immortal Love, Alfred Tennyson

This is the opening of Tennyson’s prayer, In Memoriam, in which he explores faith and hope in reaction to the doubt and loss he experienced when he lost a close friend.  The beauty of this poem is the way he leans into the promise of God’s providence in the midst of his loss.  In Memoriam, originally titled The Way of the Soul, is an immersive exploration of finding hope. 

I find myself pulled into prayer almost constantly as news of what is happening in Ukraine comes to me over the car radio, on evening television, in articles, and on social media feeds. Yard flags, lapel pins, and even the lights on our taller buildings here in west Houston offer yellow and blue reminders of what is happening halfway across the world. One cannot help but become emotional when seeing scared children or hearing accounts of people who have lost everything due to the war. Like many of you, we have made donations and hope to discern more that can be done.

Among other things, we discussed this quote in adult Sunday school this past Sunday:

One day a little girl sat watching her mother working in the kitchen. She asked her mummy, “What does God do all day long?” For a while, her mother was stumped, but then she said, “Darling, I’ll tell you what God does all day long. He spends his whole day mending broken things.” - Festo Kivengere

I believe it is natural to have an unspoken inclination to think that God is busy. Another way to express this is to think that God is too busy to worry about me. There is so much going on. The war in Ukraine is certainly in the news and on our minds and it is of the utmost importance that we pray for the people in harms way. We could probably come up with a pretty long list of things that should take precedent over our personal needs and worries. The problem with this sentiment is the assumption that the amount of care available is finite. To take it one step further, care is a pretty inadequate euphemism for love.

I was amazed to discover how many Maren Morris songs I knew when my family went to the rodeo on Tuesday night. My daughter is a fan which is why, when we were offered tickets by a friend, we jumped at the opportunity to take her to the concert. I knew at least the chorus to at least half of the songs she sang…which is remarkable because in order to write this Spirit Shot article, I had to look up her name to make sure I had it right. Either way, I have not been able to get the catchy hook “Baby, why don’t you just meet me in the middle?” out of my head since.

I often imagine the very early roots of Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The desire to celebrate one last bit before spending several weeks in humble preparation for the holiness of Easter seems like a natural inclination. There is also something beautiful in recognizing that the transition to Ash Wednesday and Lent is ever eminent in that celebration. The fun times roll for sure, but in context, the party isn’t the point. The first time I heard that the streets of New Orleans are completely shut down at midnight on Shrove Tuesday I was amazed at how seriously the transition was taken.