A Season for Noticing
Welcome to the Season of Resurrection
I’m back at the monastery1 listening as the bells slowly chime eight times. It’s a different 8 pm here than if I were at home. At home, I’d be helping get kids through showers, checking for clean uniforms, reading books and giving goodnight kisses. But tonight (Monday), I’m here in the quiet, with tea and a pile of books.
For a few years now, I’ve planned a short retreat for myself in the days following Easter — as a chance to rest and consider the way I want to move into the coming season. As a pastor, there is so much preparation and planning during Lent that I’m never ready to move on after Easter Sunday. As I’ve leaned into the rhythms of the church calendar, I’ve been delighted to learn that Easter is an entire season lasting the 50 days following Easter Sunday.
This year, I’m back to the same quote from Traci Smith2 during this Season of Resurrection3. She writes: To notice resurrection in the every day is to be in tune with the greatest truth of the Christian Faith: death is not ultimately victorious. There is always hope. There is new life all around.
I opened up our Easter service this past weekend with an invitation to bring your whole self to the service. Often churches can make us feel like we have to be pulled together or our very best self in order to attend. We feel pressure to hold hope and joy and peace, when we can barely drag ourselves into a pew (or folding chair).
I write about it often, but I think it’s worth saying often — we can hold two things at once. We can hold the suffering, the loss, the devastation of Good Friday4 in one hand and in the other the hope of new life — the hope of Easter. And I don’t only mean the hope of new life after our physical deaths. (I say this a lot too). I mean new life right now. Like every leaf in springtime.5
So maybe, during the coming season, we notice resurrection in the everyday as we hope — as we hold our own suffering and the collective sufferings of the world. We can allow our noticing to strengthen the belief that death is not victorious, that there is new life all around us.
I’ll be with you in the noticing this spring,
Holly
Links & Spiritual Direction News
One last thank you to all of my guest writers during Lent— if you haven’t had a chance to check out the Baptismal Stories shared over the last 6 weeks here are the links: Iesha, Jenny, Jamie, Catherine and Ashley. Thank you friends!
I am excited be joining Charlotte Donlon with her work at Spiritual Direction for Writers. I’ll be leading a few co-writing sessions in April! If you’d like to join in, you can find more information here. (I’ll be leading several in April including on the 9th, 16th, 24th and 29th!)
In May, I’ll be attending the Pastors, Priests and Guides retreat in Chicago — enjoying the retreat and sitting with a few attendees in spiritual direction. I will also be offering spiritual direction groups following the retreat. (If you’re planning to attend and have interest in joining one of these groups please reach out!)
I currently have space available for new directees. If spiritual direction is something that you or someone you know might be interested in, please reach out — hollyporterphillips@gmail.com. I’ve written here a little about what spiritual direction is to me, if you’d like to know more!
St. Scholastica Monastery with the Benedictine Sisters of Boerne, TX. I’ve been a few times, but wrote a bit more extensively about the monastery here.
You can check out Traci Smith on her website here. She’s also written some of my favorite books about Kids, Families and Faith. You can find out more about those here.
I wrote about this last year in my post: The Season of Resurrection
Last week I wrote about holding Solidarity with Those Who Suffer.
Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime — Martin Luther