LIttle Easter

The second high and hearty season of the church is about to peak - so hold on!! There is so much going on around here that the building mortar is trembling. The newly refinished pews are tensing for the masses. The entire staff has been on high test coffee for weeks now, in preparation of this important time in the church.

I have tiptoed into my office and hunkered down every day trying to keep the nut jar, pretzel jar and the bowl of gum full to meet the stress demands, and finally, after I realized sometime last week that the humming I kept hearing was not, in fact, a faulty florescent, but the thinking waves zapping off of staff- well, I just stopped. I just simply s.t.o.p.p.e.d., and I reflected on the season and how much work goes into making the wonderful services that happen here come together and how easy it is if you are one of the artists putting together the puzzle, how easy it is to lose sight of breathing.

I decided to try to slow down the pace a bit but I wasn't sure how to do it. I leaned back in my chair and I tapped my nose and I crossed my arms and I thought. nuthin. I glanced down at the weekly listing of "What's going on at church" " Prayer Labyrinth in the Chapel, Stations of the Cross in the back grounds, Palm Sunday, Prayer and Healing workshop, Floral Cross....." gosh, I felt tired just looking at it all in print... then......AH! Finally an idea beamed into my entangled brain.I looked at gnomey and I looked at sparky the watchbear and I said, "Boys, it's Easter time." I printed a labyrinth off the internet and put it under the tall stool in my office that acts as a side table and I put gnomey and sparky on it and then I waited.

It wasn't long before someone blasted into my office in a rush and instead of jumping to the occasion and thinking ahead to figure out what the inquiry was going to be, I held up my hand in a "stop" position and said in a quiet voice, "Could you please enter in a meditative manner?"
and then I pointed to the stool.

The church organist was the first visitor. We enjoy learning how to read each other and do it pretty well now. We've experienced a few funny trial and errors, but we've gotten into a good grove and he didn't miss a beat. He stopped, followed my pointing finger and looked down. Then he observed the duo "walking" the labyrinth, and he gently respected the moment. You've gotta love that in a church organist.

That type of exchange continued all afternoon. People came and went. I made them aware of the goings on under the stool and they honored the moment. I was really enjoying the staff reactions, and thought it couldn't get any better-then the magic happened.

I came back from a late afternoon jaunt to the PO and discovered the pair had shifted positions on the labyrinth. In addition, Sparky was holding a miniature "Lenten devotional". The book was so small it only read "Lenten devo" and gnomey was holding a tiny kleenex. Sometimes the labyrinth experience brings tears to the surface. If you are made of plaster, it is wise to have an absorbant tissue at the ready.

By the next day, someone had added signs of the stations of the cross for them. Little 2"x 2" signs glued to the legs of the stool. They were written on aluminum foil bits.

The Monday after Palm Sunday, there was a palm branch added to the collection; and yesterday, a friend and I glued two popsicle sticks together in a cross,and filled the space with flower petals for the floral cross.

These measures were not taken lightly. They were not intended to be rude or make fun of any of these special rituals and it amazed me that they were accepted at face value and somehow, those two small not-alive (see? I KNOW they are not alive, I really do) creatures gleaned respect from real live people........ who had to slow down to notice and they had to slow down to create additions, and they had to breathe in all that. It was a wonderful sight to see and still is.

The wooden rhino, Hal, that my eldest brought back from Zimbabwe tried to join the group, but his horn kept getting in the way, so we just let him pray with my praying angel that usually sits on the bookshelf. The zebra that probably was a happymeal toy was sadly asked to leave the labyrinth because his stripes, mixed together with the lines of the labyrinth, made the walkers dizzy.

Yes, I've worked. Yes, I'm working. Consider this experience -staff support. It's in my job description.