I love envisioning the Easter season as a living tide that sweeps us up into the arms of the vast ocean of God's love and carries us to a new shore. To be able to allow ourselves to be so vulnerable and so free requires both nothing from us and everything.
I am enjoying being able to preach in a small chapel again. The San Lorenzo Church sold our large church property a couple of months ago and we are settling into a much smaller space in an historic chapel on the Eden UCC campus in Hayward. It is a building that is very much alive. Our tech requirements for our hybrid service take up a lot of room, but we and the building are adjusting. I know some of the people who had a long history with the San Lorenzo church building are still mourning the move, but I am grateful that when we welcome guests, we are not trying to make them feel comfortable in a cavernous building. God is calling and holding us close, and we must get used to that intimacy.
I often return to Sister Joan Chittister's book, The Liturgical Year, The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life. In her chapter entitled "Easter Vigil, Easter Sunday" she writes:
"We are not, we know now with stunning awareness, made for this world alone. There is more to us than this. Life is about more than simply surviving. It is about reaching across the black void to the very reason for which we have come. We are here to grow to full spiritual stature, 'a little less than the angels' the psalmist calls it (Psalm 8:6)."
Blessings on your Eastertide journey. May you know, with "stunning awareness" that you are held.
Rev. Sue Ann
image: San Leandro, January 2023
