memories and blurred days

how is it possible that it's already august? this year has both crawled and sped by, simultaneously. I think most days I don't even know what day of the week it is. without rhythms of work or school to help define the week from the weekend, it all just felt the same. and then summer came...but it just felt like the school year without chrome books in front of my kids. 

last week I was in Oklahoma helping my parents sift through their attic. they have decided to down-size which means all those remnants of my high school years that I somehow managed to leave behind needed to be weeded through. no more mooching off my parents "free" storage space--at 44 I finally have to admit that I'm an adult...and into the trash bin I threw ALL of my high school and college yearbooks. gasp! I know that for some of you those are precious memories. but for me, barbies and my little ponies won for that small space in my one checked on piece of luggage I aimed to fit my memories in. oh, and photographs spanning from high school prom (trash bin) to college (kept more of those) and into my years in Vietnam. mostly it was the memories from pre-marriage. I'm not sure why I have left these memories at my parents' home all of these years. but I think there's the Lori pre-2001 (when I got married) and the post 2001 Lori. it's a strange thing to get reacquainted with oneself. in fact, it was the first time for me to visit my parents post 2001 without my husband and boys. strange, but good. I actually found myself wanting to play with my barbies...perhaps because I am in a season of learning how to play again. I am realizing that as a serious adult, I need the gift of play...doing something for no other reason than the activity itself.

so barbies now sit in a box in my florida home. I don't even have daughters to play with them--and my two sons were only slightly amused (horrified?!) at watching their mom pull them out and talk about how fun I had with them...

I guess sometimes years blur together too...when did I put those barbies away for the last time? when did I decide it was time to grow up and stop playing pretend? 

soon my boys begin high school and middle school. i am watching my oldest leave behind boyhood. I have to admit that there's a mix of grief and awe. who is this person living in our home? he takes up a lot more space, and I have to admit I'm not sure how to parent a teenager...

but one day (and I'm sure it will blur in with all the days between now and then) he will come home to gather up his memories.

but thankfully...we still have a few more years to capture some of those memories in person.

Holy Saturday

It's Saturday. The day between Good Friday and Easter. But there was a time where it was simply Saturday. There was no Easter yet, and the grief was fresh--heavy and real. The disciples didn't know what would happen on Sunday, and they were certainly feeling disoriented, disillusioned, and a multitude of emotions that come with grief.

What is interesting to me is that as Christians we don't really know what to do with Saturday. And even on Good Friday we tell everyone "death isn't the end of the story!!" We want to rush to the end of the story...we want to lessen the blow and rush to Easter. Why are we so uncomfortable with grief? What if we made room for the tension and entered into the space between?

And especially now. We are in a long drawn out "Holy Saturday" so to speak. That space between...we have experienced loss on so many levels as we had to cancel pretty much our whole April calendars. Everywhere we look, we are reminded of loss. Messy homes remind us that our kids are home all the time and we can't keep the house clean for very long. Spring break passes with no where to go because we have had to cancel vacations, and we can't leave the house to go anywhere but to buy groceries.

Loss.

Good Friday.

Grief.

And we don't know when our Sunday will come. And somedays we might even find ourselves wondering will there be a Sunday to follow all of this? Thankfully, history proves that Sunday will come. But none of us know when, or how, or what Sunday will mean. It certainly won't be as we predict. 

The disciples, and Jesus' mother Mary...they didn't know what would come next. After three years of doing everything with Jesus, the disciples must have felt lost, confused, disoriented, angry (especially at Judas), and heavy. How much sadness can one bear?

What will life look like for them now?

Did they turn to each other for comfort? Or did they find themselves so heavy with the weight of what they had witnessed that it was too unspeakable to even know how to talk about it with one another? 

And so for a whole day...for more than 24 hours the disciples, Mary, and so many others felt a grief that was beyond what they had imagined. This was not how the story was supposed to go.

I imagine Holy Saturday did not feel holy. So why do we call it Holy? What makes it sacred? Is grief not a sacred space to live in? I recently read an article by Christine Valters Paintner (article here) about threshold space...that space that is betwixt and between.  Christine writes: 

"Much of our lives are spent in Holy Saturday places but we spend so much energy resisting, longing for resolution and closure. Our practice this day is to really enter into the liminal zone, to be present to it with every cell of our being."

Friday marks the loss, Sunday marks the joy. But Saturday marks the deep grief between the two. The space between where the story is still unclear. It's as if time stands still.

And perhaps it is made holy when we allow ourselves to sit there in tension. If we do not have the tension, then it is merely a regular old Saturday. A ho hum Saturday. Because like so many have said on Good Friday. Yes, he died, but don't worry. He will come back to life on Sunday. So then everyone goes about life as normal on Saturday. The disciples would look at each other and laugh. Because they know the end of the story. Tomorrow Jesus will do his magic. He'll come out of the cave and his burial cloths and it will have been no big deal. Because they would be freed from the tension that grief creates.

But that's not how it went.

The disciples had no idea.

And we lose the holy in Holy Saturday when we do not allow ourselves to sit in the tension.

In a "normal" year (aka a non-covid year) we would fail to see the sacred space of Saturday as something relevant to sit in. But is there not an invitation to us this year to have the gift of grief and lament when we still do not know what resurrection will look like for us? Are we not also longing for life to return to normal? Are we not also crying out "how long O Lord?" Are we not heavy and disillusioned and disoriented in our own places of Holy Saturday? I know that this year, more than ever, I find Holy Saturday has gifts to offer my actual real life I am presently living. More than ever I am able to contemplate the place the disciples, his mother, friends and followers of Jesus found themselves on their Saturday. This year I am one who is grieving losses. I am one who is unsure what comes next. I am one who needs to cry and grieve. Will you sit with me in this place of tension on Holy Saturday? There are gifts awaiting for us as we sit with others who have grieved. As Christine says, life is full of Holy Saturdays. The joy of Easter will be more full for those who have grieved.

ode to quarantine

when the world stopped

all came to a halt

I could hear the sound of breathing

sighs, gasps...

some held their breath

until they no longer could

the news headlines began to blur together

numbers climbing day by day

fear rising as the numbers increased

but while the world closed its doors

and became solitary and quiet

the earth did not obey

slowly at first

small green tendrils

reaching up through the soil

stretching their arms

after a long winter's quarantine

time to emerge and create life

barely noticeable

as humans sat inside

but looking through the windows

the trees began to show off

flowers opening up

smiling as if to say

"it's ok"

you too will find spring comes

after your long winter time

don't worry!

spring always comes

even after the harshest of winters