klsiegel320 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
klsiegel320) wrote2003-04-19 09:30 pm
klsiegel320) wrote2003-04-19 09:30 pm
Holy Saturday - Holy Cross Monastery
Very bright, clear, sunny day - gives me hope for tomorrow. I just love it when there's real sun on Easter.
Still feeling curiously light and detached - yet on the knife-edge of tears; I remember once saying that this is where I live now, on the knife's edge, balanced between laughter and tears. So it is.
Sleeping better; this is good. With some great good fortune I may not be too wiped out for the week.
Still trying not to lean too heavily on the things I thought I was deciding, this Lent. I think some of the grief is spent; I think some will have to be spent every year for a while, and the full store may never be exhausted.
Of course the looming shadow of the airplane keeps taking over my thoughts. The writer of The Purpose-Driven Life, in the last chapter, says if we're worrying about something, it indicates that we haven't put God at the center. Reasonable advice, but maybe a little too simplistic - and judgmental.
And yet, a part of me feels that if I can just keep knowing that sense of being held in that great loving heart, if I can just get inside again, I can be safely inside even if what's outside is all misery - like the cross. I sensed yesterday not the outward horror of it, but the inner love that held it all together, that kept the very universe from flying apart at the thought of God dying.
As always, on this day, there is the renewed shock of emptiness. We ceased bowing in the side aisle after Thursday - well, most of us did. I think there are those of us so on autopilot we simply forget why we bow - to reverence the Lord, present in the reserved sacrament in the tabernacle. And since the tabernacle is flung open to demonstrate its manifest emptiness...no bow.
The bow in the church is trickier. We bow in the aisle for the sacrament, bow again toward the high altar and take our seats. From the end of the Solemn Liturgy until the end of Compline, while the crucifix rests against the altar, we genuflect.
Today - we do nothing. We simply take our seats quietly. The statement is clear: there is no one here, nothing here alive to reverence. All signs of life, even life in the process of dying, are gone.
All signs of life are gone, but we can't seem to just go away. We keep coming back, singing psalms, reading lessons. We keep returning to poke at it, just to see - is it really dead? Is there maybe some little thing, some tiny spark we missed? We cannot let it rest.
Of course, we know the whole story. And it is interwoven throughout these liturgies, in a way that insists we cannot consider any one aspect in isolation. As it says in the haggadah, "Together they shall be: the maror of slavery, the matzah of freedom."
Later - that was the point at which I went to the library looking for a copy of the haggadah, except that it's not in the guest library. And in wandering around I got chatting with people, and then it was dusting and sweeping and mopping time, interspersed with Bede's talk on the Easter Vigil liturgy. And then Diurnum and dinner and more polishing, and rehearsal (which was hilarious) and Vespers and supper and more hauling of holy hardware. The chairs are set, the bells are set out - all is ready. Between the bell sets Elizabeth and I made, and the ones I made last year, there are more than enough for every chair.
Feeling sad, a little flat...William (who I for some reason called Bill earlier, God knows why) seems a bit touchy, and even Kevin was getting a bit threadbare by the end of the day. So now I'm afraid I was pushy and obnoxious rather than helpful...but that is because I'm wired to be afraid.
Still far too much stirring about to even consider setting out the baskets - I'm afraid I really will have to get up at 3:00 for that (four's too late - by then someone will be down making coffee...I'm thinking of going for a third and final labyrinth walk; maybe when I'm done writing I'll throw clothes back on to do that, and if the house is pretty quiet by then, I'll sneak the baskets down.
Funny - there seems to be a nursemaid side of me assigned to the caretaker now - every time it starts whining, a part of me just hushes it, says, "Be still, now. Learn, and grow."
Last year I baptized it - brought it into the family of God. It still isn't really integrated; it still acts without permission, and primarily exhibits behavior that is less than useful. Almost demonic in its ability to twist reality, to look at things through the funhouse mirror of fear and rage that are its window on the world. Ever and always ready to see or sense abandonment, to feel left out and afraid and sad.
But not as prominent this year. Not as dominant; so maybe that's why not so much weeping and deep grief as there has been some years: the person who meets these days, this year, is more at peace and more all of a piece.
Some deep part of me just keeping singing, "Home! Home! Home!" Feeling the lovely spirits gathered around me, and feeling "Home!"
There's too much temptation to think ahead, to start fretting over things. Not now. Now is the time for resting, for letting Jesus continue his quiet, behind-the-scenes harrowing of hell.
If I were asleep now, I'd get six hours - if I could believe deeply enough in myself to set the alarm right and to turn it on.
Bede was funny this morning - he pointed out that he will be Celebrant, and he intends to give the Easter acclamation enthusiastically, and he expects enthusiasm in return. I said to him on my way out of rehearsal that Douglas must realize that those of us who can a) read music and b) read chant notation and c) sing will in fact sing the antiphons, and he nodded, and said, "Don't take that stuff too seriously about only ringing the bells on the last verse of the last hymn, after the Gloria - start a subversive movement."
It's easy to get scattered and unfocused; all this energy comes out in its various ways, and it's too easy to let it get away, to become unsettled and forget about being.
So...I think I'll go do my labyrinth walk - I think if it's clear I should have moonlight by now - and see if the coast is clear for eggs.
Still feeling curiously light and detached - yet on the knife-edge of tears; I remember once saying that this is where I live now, on the knife's edge, balanced between laughter and tears. So it is.
Sleeping better; this is good. With some great good fortune I may not be too wiped out for the week.
Still trying not to lean too heavily on the things I thought I was deciding, this Lent. I think some of the grief is spent; I think some will have to be spent every year for a while, and the full store may never be exhausted.
Of course the looming shadow of the airplane keeps taking over my thoughts. The writer of The Purpose-Driven Life, in the last chapter, says if we're worrying about something, it indicates that we haven't put God at the center. Reasonable advice, but maybe a little too simplistic - and judgmental.
And yet, a part of me feels that if I can just keep knowing that sense of being held in that great loving heart, if I can just get inside again, I can be safely inside even if what's outside is all misery - like the cross. I sensed yesterday not the outward horror of it, but the inner love that held it all together, that kept the very universe from flying apart at the thought of God dying.
As always, on this day, there is the renewed shock of emptiness. We ceased bowing in the side aisle after Thursday - well, most of us did. I think there are those of us so on autopilot we simply forget why we bow - to reverence the Lord, present in the reserved sacrament in the tabernacle. And since the tabernacle is flung open to demonstrate its manifest emptiness...no bow.
The bow in the church is trickier. We bow in the aisle for the sacrament, bow again toward the high altar and take our seats. From the end of the Solemn Liturgy until the end of Compline, while the crucifix rests against the altar, we genuflect.
Today - we do nothing. We simply take our seats quietly. The statement is clear: there is no one here, nothing here alive to reverence. All signs of life, even life in the process of dying, are gone.
All signs of life are gone, but we can't seem to just go away. We keep coming back, singing psalms, reading lessons. We keep returning to poke at it, just to see - is it really dead? Is there maybe some little thing, some tiny spark we missed? We cannot let it rest.
Of course, we know the whole story. And it is interwoven throughout these liturgies, in a way that insists we cannot consider any one aspect in isolation. As it says in the haggadah, "Together they shall be: the maror of slavery, the matzah of freedom."
Later - that was the point at which I went to the library looking for a copy of the haggadah, except that it's not in the guest library. And in wandering around I got chatting with people, and then it was dusting and sweeping and mopping time, interspersed with Bede's talk on the Easter Vigil liturgy. And then Diurnum and dinner and more polishing, and rehearsal (which was hilarious) and Vespers and supper and more hauling of holy hardware. The chairs are set, the bells are set out - all is ready. Between the bell sets Elizabeth and I made, and the ones I made last year, there are more than enough for every chair.
Feeling sad, a little flat...William (who I for some reason called Bill earlier, God knows why) seems a bit touchy, and even Kevin was getting a bit threadbare by the end of the day. So now I'm afraid I was pushy and obnoxious rather than helpful...but that is because I'm wired to be afraid.
Still far too much stirring about to even consider setting out the baskets - I'm afraid I really will have to get up at 3:00 for that (four's too late - by then someone will be down making coffee...I'm thinking of going for a third and final labyrinth walk; maybe when I'm done writing I'll throw clothes back on to do that, and if the house is pretty quiet by then, I'll sneak the baskets down.
Funny - there seems to be a nursemaid side of me assigned to the caretaker now - every time it starts whining, a part of me just hushes it, says, "Be still, now. Learn, and grow."
Last year I baptized it - brought it into the family of God. It still isn't really integrated; it still acts without permission, and primarily exhibits behavior that is less than useful. Almost demonic in its ability to twist reality, to look at things through the funhouse mirror of fear and rage that are its window on the world. Ever and always ready to see or sense abandonment, to feel left out and afraid and sad.
But not as prominent this year. Not as dominant; so maybe that's why not so much weeping and deep grief as there has been some years: the person who meets these days, this year, is more at peace and more all of a piece.
Some deep part of me just keeping singing, "Home! Home! Home!" Feeling the lovely spirits gathered around me, and feeling "Home!"
There's too much temptation to think ahead, to start fretting over things. Not now. Now is the time for resting, for letting Jesus continue his quiet, behind-the-scenes harrowing of hell.
If I were asleep now, I'd get six hours - if I could believe deeply enough in myself to set the alarm right and to turn it on.
Bede was funny this morning - he pointed out that he will be Celebrant, and he intends to give the Easter acclamation enthusiastically, and he expects enthusiasm in return. I said to him on my way out of rehearsal that Douglas must realize that those of us who can a) read music and b) read chant notation and c) sing will in fact sing the antiphons, and he nodded, and said, "Don't take that stuff too seriously about only ringing the bells on the last verse of the last hymn, after the Gloria - start a subversive movement."
It's easy to get scattered and unfocused; all this energy comes out in its various ways, and it's too easy to let it get away, to become unsettled and forget about being.
So...I think I'll go do my labyrinth walk - I think if it's clear I should have moonlight by now - and see if the coast is clear for eggs.
Better late than never?
Once again, and as always, I try to keep too many online projects going at once and refuse to admit I don't have the time to commit to them all. Last week I was so busy getting ready for the job interview (I'll probably write about that some in my own journal later) that I didn't even post to my baseball blog; I caught that up yesterday. I continue taking lots of digital pictures, but since switching to our new home computer (probably didn't mention that to you?) I haven't been able to squeeze out the time to post to that regularly. And my Live Journal languishes. Perhaps with summer and the end of new TV shows I will find more time for reading and writing.