Mighty to Save

Something clicked for me at mass this past Sunday -- Easter Sunday. After a long Lent -- per usual, seeming so long by the end that I simultaneously forget that it WAS lent and also began to believe that it would never end -- Easter has arrived. Now, I (and my Church) can cry and shout and sing ALLELUIA, the time of mourning, of desert, of preparation is past and we joyfully celebrate our time with the Bridegroom.

I'd been feeling desert-y lately. Desert-y in that my lenten promise became hard to keep (and towards the end I'd only sporadically done so). Desert-y in that life, while very very good, was seeming so much in my own hands and so desert-y in that I felt myself more and more turning to myself or the people around me than to God. When life was so good, when I felt love-ing and so loved, what did God, what did Christ have to say to me. And so as a result of so much goodness and blessing I got lost in the desert.

Easter mass, the music, the people -- church overflowing -- the homily, the dresses and shoes and ties and smiles worn by this over flowing church. The cross above the alter. Eucharist. Jelly Beans passed out by the priest after mass to all the children. This Pure Life all around: Life that was pure and real because it was born of death, that it allowed for death and pain and suffering (didn't ignore it, rose color it, look away), and triumphed. And I remembered or rather was pulled out from the death, the deep, and gifted with a deep breath of air above the drowning deep water (hmm... my images are getting confused: in the drowning deep AND the desert all at one, hmm? well, yes)

Death was acknowledged, once again, as part of the world and as part of life. The pain I felt and the pain I thought I should've have felt, were transformed (and this is important: transformed, not removed). The guilt and the feeling of holding my happiness in my own hands was taken as well and I was given back a sense of overflowing. A re-realization of my beautiful small-ness. I was re-claimed from the GOODNESS of my life. How funny is it that it is from the very goodness of the life I lived that I needed to be rescued from? Reminded of the God who IS, who saves, who loves. Reminded of Christ: my savior (reminded I need saved: from my sins and brokeness but --and let's beat this into the ground -- from the good things in my life), my friend, my brother, my love and lover.

In short: I too often mistake the gifts and blessings from God as God. But God is God and while good things come from Him, they are to lead me not to worship of those good things, but to Thanksgiving and a deeper desire for Christ.

To wrap it up: these are the links to the two songs that really spoke (sang) to me at mass.

Mighty to Save

Christ is Risen