I realize I haven’t blogged in a while and there are many good reasons for it, which I won’t get into right now. But I just thought you all needed to see this. It’s exactly what you need to hear and Sadie is wise beyond her years! Thanks, Sadie!
I find it ironic that as the church celebrates the Easter season, our country celebrates the death of an enemy. I’m not saying this was not a justified action. I’m not saying that this enemy would not have continued his war against us had we not stopped him. Nor am I saying that we could have resolved this relationship in another way. Too much had happened. Too many had died. Too much had been said for there to have been a different ending.
Lent is over and the season of Easter is upon us. What we gave up for Lent, we now embrace once more. We can say “Alleluia!” in church again. The stone no longer blocks our way and new life is bursting all around us!
So what did you learn from Lent? Did you learn that you hate giving up things? Or did you learn you didn’t need as much as you thought you did? When you reached for the ________ that you gave up, did you really thing of Jesus’ suffering, or did you just grumble a bit inside? I’m not judging. I think it’s somewhat unrealistic to expect that we won’t grumble a bit. My question is whether you learned from the grumble.
Hannah Lyon (PBB 2005) is studying for her Master’s of Divinity at Stellenbosch University in the Western Cape of South Africa. Why would a Davidson grad travel all the way to South Africa for a Masters degree? Well it turns out that with South Africa’s history of segregation, it is a fertile ground to learn about reconciliation – work near and dear to Hannah’s heart.
I give up.
I give up on humanity, on my career, and I give up on hoping things will be better.
I give up on tomatoes because the squirrels eat them anyway. I give up on cleaning my house because I have a son, a dog, and three cats. I give up on church because of all the politics. And I give up on God because when I see Japan, Libya, and Congress, I have to face the fact that God just doesn’t care.
So….a nun dies and as she expects, she is greeted at the pearly gates of heaven by none other than St. Peter himself. He sees her and says, “Sister Mary Francis, such a wonderful servant of God, we’ve been expecting you!”
He hops off of his podium and proceeds to take her through the gates. “Before we meet up with all the folks who are waiting to see you, let me give you a quick tour.”
So St. Peter walks the sister around heaven a bit, pointing out the major landmarks: streets of gold, crystal sea, tree of life, etc. And Sister Mary Francis is thrilled with it all.
But then she looks to her right and begins to frown.
