This Holy Week I've been fully engaged in the activities of the local church and my small Christian Community. It's been one event after another and I'm grateful for the 4-day weekend, as Good Friday and Easter Monday are both national holidays in Kenya. This year is my fifth Easter in another language (German in 2002, French in Rwanda in 2008, and now three years in Swahili). It's sometimes still difficult catching the words so I have to let myself listen to the Spirit and move with the familiar liturgy.
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| I was asked to read during the Palm Sunday liturgy. People were surprised I could read so well ... in English! Thanks to Sr. Milda at Our Lady of Grace & even further back, my training at St. Thomas Aquinas in Ames. =) |
I've been reflecting on what it means to believe in resurrection - new life can come from death. Does it come from every death? Every letting go of what might have been or what we had dreamed possible? Challenges I have no answers for? I continue to want answers to difficult questions and struggle to surrender my "need" to know in the midst of uncertainty.
There have also been moments of grace this Holy Week that I hope to remember.
- A dreaded meeting where we came up with a solution that saved face for another without re-writing history.
- An unexpected gift.
- Finding a young person as excited about recycling as I am and meeting a group making "charcoal" from newspapers.
- Sharing Vitamin O ... the ocean with a friend
- Rain
- Peace within
- Being proud of our Archbishop speaking out about injustice in Kenya's leadership
All of these bring me back to my center. My belief in a God of Love. A God who's stories have been told in many ways, sometimes with violence - perhaps in our human way of expressing what is inexpressible. I continue to hope that Love will find a way.
