Weekly Clergy Letter from Mother Anne Turner

Dear Friends in Christ,

 

Deathbeds and birthing rooms have something in common.  Time does not stop in them, but each moment becomes an eternity unto itself, painful and precious at the same time.  The world outside falls away.  There is nowhere more important to be.

 

Today we are in the midst of the Triduum, the three most holy days of the church year, Maundy Thursday until Easter.  Something is dying, and something is being born.  In this moment, our faith is both tomb and womb.

 

There is nowhere more important to be.

 

The complexity of our life pulls us in a thousand other directions.  There are groceries to be bought, e-mails to be answered, children to be driven to practice, beds to be made, lists to be checked off.  Pausing feels dangerous.  The house of cards we live in might topple.

 

And yet the universe pauses, and some deep level, this weekend.  The fabric of our life is being torn apart and made new, if we would only pay attention.

 

I hope you will treat today and tomorrow like the sacred moments they are.  Even if you cannot come to worship, let your life make room for what is holy.  Turn off your phone.  Listen to silence for a little while.  Allow yourself to notice the most painful places of your heart.  Take time to grieve what is dead.  Feel the empty space which grief leaves behind, and imagine what could take root in that space.

 

Pablo Neruda wrote in his poem “Keeping Quiet”:

 

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with
death.

 

I hope you will allow the huge silence to block out our noise.  I hope you will be still enough to watch what is dying and to look for what is being born.

 

Yours in Christ,

Anne+