i missed church yesterday, palm sunday. it bothered me, more than it should have perhaps, but got me thinking about this season in general and why it feels so important to me. i think about growing up catholic, about somber, solemn churches, stations of the cross in the rain, with triumphal entries and whips and crowns of thorn and darkness. images flicker through my head - doing stations of the cross every friday through lent in grade school. a snapshot scene from a movie i must've seen as a child - it's the part where pilate is asking the crowds who he should release, and they're all shouting 'barrabas! barrabas!' and there's mary, screaming at the top of her lungs, crying, 'jesus! jesus!'. or the quietness of the church on good friday, silence so thick that it could swallow you whole. heavy like fog, like struggling to breathe, like weights on your shoulders. even as a kid, you knew it wasn't the time to eat your cheerios loudly, or play on the kneelers or color in your coloring book. you didn't know why, but it was serious, it was a funeral. year after year, the same heaviness grows in the air for forty days, culminating into this one week. this one week that changed everything.

i wasn't one of those kids who got it. it took me years to know god. growing up i merely went through the motions, not because i didn't have a longing for god, but because i simply didn't know that longing existed. but even so. even so, holy week is so prominent in my mind, for its heaviness, its uncomfortability - as it should be. can you imagine that last week? so intense, the climax of christ's life - riding in on a donkey, the crowds, the excitement of it all. the disciples must have felt so cool, so popular, walking in behind jesus. there must have been intimate moments, even though they didn't know they only had a few days left, jesus knew - there must have been a closeness during those last days. jesus washing their feet, celebrating passover with them. and finally the garden, the dark of that night, the chaos, confusion, terror. and so on the story goes. i didn't get it then, but i recognize it now - i was participating in something sacred all those years. something holy - a holy story, a holy mourning, truly grieving the death of christ. nevermind the resurrection - because in those moments, the catholics got it. it's almost like they choose to forget that christ rose - they forget what's coming on sunday. rather, we're the disciples, peter, john, matthew. we're the weeping women, we're mary and joseph, and our worlds have just crumbled around us. we're standing amidst the debris, mouths open, hands at our sides - dumbfounded, confused, broken, numb. our jesus has died - and we don't know about the resurrection yet. our minds have just been scourged with horrible scene after scene - arrested in the garden, beaten by the guards, questioned by pilate, more beating, more questions, the heavy cross, the dusty road, nails, tears, brokenness, death. i can't actually say i know what that would feel like - what it would feel like to stand by as your entire world crumbled around you. but i've had some awful times, mornings you wake up and for a few seconds, forget that everything is hell. and then you remember and it's a stomach dropping moment, having to remember it all over again, trick yourself into thinking maybe all the bad stuff isn't real. i bet it felt a lot like that. for two days, it felt like that.

and so although i now live most of my life in the middle, not quite catholic, not quite anything with labels - holy week. holy week, i want the dark church. i want the heaviness in the air, the frightening silence, the feeling of chaos. i long for those traditions. i can't quite explain why. it just feels right to me. i want to walk that story, to live it, know it. i want to grieve. because yes, christ rose, but for two days, he didn't. and for two days, those followers knew what it would feel like if he never had. and although it's good again, although it gets better than ever before, i doubt those followers ever forgot what those two days felt like. and that's a part of our story. it's a part of our story that i don't want to forget either. because what's resurrection without death?

the weather's nice, and out of hibernation brings back those high soaring birds, majestic and regal. they're flying to remind me: up and up and up. because i have a bad habit of turning my telescope into a microscope.

like a bowl of oranges.

it only feels like a game if you're letting yourself be moved, rather than doing your own moving
rather than going back and back to see a bigger picture
rather than having a consistency.
instead of letting the way you feel on any particular day dictate your relationship with the creator of everything
those little eyes can see.
and sometimes it's okay to fake it til you make it.

i just want to learn how to praise endlessly.

a bit torn about the way things are. it feels like instead of my perpetual one step forward, two steps back i've now graduated to two steps forward, one step back. which is progress, but disappointing progress at that. and i see that slow and steady path, i see my calm, calculated steps, like a chess piece gliding across its board. i hate when it goes from carefree and good to feeling like a game with rules that are hard and fast, no room for bending. i usually find solace somewhere between the grey and the black and white, if such a place exists. but lately i've just been feeling stretched out along the two, the difference between stones and branches. trying to break things that don't, and hold things that won't.

i just want to find a rhythm, something i can move to, something i can breathe in deeply and sing to. something that is measured and contained with notes and patterns, but free enough to create a little chaos.

watching the cards fall, let's measure up to more, shall we?

the sound of rain on the rooftop.

i think we got a chance to make it right
if we keep it loose, and keep it tight.


...but where are we running to?

brights and blues that my eyes haven't seen in a good while with birds chirping, bouncing about and dreary branches shaking off their blankets and stretching their arms up high to those blues, everything coming out of hibernation. including me - three good outdoor runs this week, those mean streets of painesville have been good to my feet. enjoying the luxury of sidewalks. a week full of sun, full of activity and full of more love than i thought could come from the two little (gigantic) pooches i stayed with, cuddly and following me around every place i go. a skiing adventure with two fun guys and feeling better than i have in a very long while, feeling best. coming home to mail (my favorite) from rachael (my favorite), bringing memory after memory of so many wonderful faces that i can hardly contain my love for. aching, but it's a good aching, that comes from such fondness, from such love for those faces that are scattered far away for now, but that warm me to the soul. yes, these things make me feel and know this is a heart that is beating alive, so alive and full of life. i love that feeling. being in love with the world. this week, it's been a break from routine, from normalcy, and is it just the sun and warmth? or a combination of all these wonderful things coming together, blessing after blessing.

i'm itching for spring, itching for march, april, may. such good!

whoa, dear savior
gonna take my cares away
gonna take my cares
gonna carry my cares
gonna take my cares away.


i had a perfect day.

i was alone in the wilderness
when you showed me faithfulness


i have so much love, so much love to give.
finding solace like never before in the way the lord works everything for good. the way he works plans, the kind that aren't for destruction. saying those words time upon time before, saying them so that i would believe them instead of because i believed them. but believing them now, because what's left to lose? i've tried every way else. i'm tired of that and alive in him. the one who calls us is faithful. gosh, isn't that just the best thing i've ever heard.

smiling, laughing. finding it. being close.