Limbo Saturday
Ahhh. An early morning.
Okay, so that's definitively NOT what I said when I woke up today. And it's not what I'll say when I get up well before the crack of dawn tomorrow. But about half an hour after I dragged myself out of bed this morning, that's what I was thinking.
I love mornings. I'm not a morning person, per se -- I just love the day beginners and enders. Possibly because they tend to be the most colorful parts of the day, or because at neither point am I usually doing anything particularly important ... Or it could just be that afternoons rarely reach my high expectations, making the other parts look even better.
In any case, I was up and going early this morning. Made it to church at 7:15 ... and was home again at 8:30. (Easter is that kind of weekend.) Had some good breakfast, watched the whole of the SciFi miniseries "Tin Man" (over the course of the day), helped crack over 200 eggs, baked roughly 100 muffins, and rolled out 50 cinnamon rolls.
And that's just the beginning. In roughly eight hours, the real work begins.
[The funny part is that it won't be my earliest day this week.]
That's a family Easter, at least for the last eleven years. Backbreaking, early work. Great work. Lots of fun and food and people and craziness.
But the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter is all about reflection and preparation.
It's quieter. More focused and less frenzied. More about thinking ahead than trying to come up with a spur-of-the-moment fix.
The first Holy Saturday was much the same ... The sun came up on a day unlike any other. It was a day of darkness, of fear, but most of all, of preparation. Maybe they didn't know for what they were preparing, but the scattered disciples started to regroup and plan. They knew that the previous day's events had completely altered the course of their lives. And they could only wait for a miracle that they couldn't yet see.
I wonder if they could even remember what they had been told. If any of them had a prickling of hope or a slight hint of the promise they had been given. Or if they were lost in despair and only able to scramble for protection, no doubt realizing that it was only a matter of time before someone remembered to whom they were associated.
Maybe this is why Saturday has come to mean more to me than Friday or Sunday on Easter weekend. I know the story -- I've heard it most of my life. But there's an entire day missing, the day that humanity held its breath and waited for the release that came with the third day. A day when nothing could be done, when people were left to reel from unimaginable events, cruelty beyond decent understanding, horror that most of us will never be able to match. A day when, with all of this fresh in their heads, the future could only be nonexistant.
The promise had been fulfilled, but it was a lost day.
Part of me feels as though I am stuck in Saturday, between pain and ultimate joy, preparing for a future I cannot see or imagine. It's an odd thought, realizing that what you're doing right now is not actually the outcome but preparation for something much bigger.
Saturday is something I can understand. My tiny brain can wrap itself around limbo even when it can't get the concreteness of the result.
But the sun eventually sets on Saturday ... and then the real fun begins.
Okay, so that's definitively NOT what I said when I woke up today. And it's not what I'll say when I get up well before the crack of dawn tomorrow. But about half an hour after I dragged myself out of bed this morning, that's what I was thinking.
I love mornings. I'm not a morning person, per se -- I just love the day beginners and enders. Possibly because they tend to be the most colorful parts of the day, or because at neither point am I usually doing anything particularly important ... Or it could just be that afternoons rarely reach my high expectations, making the other parts look even better.
In any case, I was up and going early this morning. Made it to church at 7:15 ... and was home again at 8:30. (Easter is that kind of weekend.) Had some good breakfast, watched the whole of the SciFi miniseries "Tin Man" (over the course of the day), helped crack over 200 eggs, baked roughly 100 muffins, and rolled out 50 cinnamon rolls.
And that's just the beginning. In roughly eight hours, the real work begins.
[The funny part is that it won't be my earliest day this week.]
That's a family Easter, at least for the last eleven years. Backbreaking, early work. Great work. Lots of fun and food and people and craziness.
But the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter is all about reflection and preparation.
It's quieter. More focused and less frenzied. More about thinking ahead than trying to come up with a spur-of-the-moment fix.
The first Holy Saturday was much the same ... The sun came up on a day unlike any other. It was a day of darkness, of fear, but most of all, of preparation. Maybe they didn't know for what they were preparing, but the scattered disciples started to regroup and plan. They knew that the previous day's events had completely altered the course of their lives. And they could only wait for a miracle that they couldn't yet see.
I wonder if they could even remember what they had been told. If any of them had a prickling of hope or a slight hint of the promise they had been given. Or if they were lost in despair and only able to scramble for protection, no doubt realizing that it was only a matter of time before someone remembered to whom they were associated.
Maybe this is why Saturday has come to mean more to me than Friday or Sunday on Easter weekend. I know the story -- I've heard it most of my life. But there's an entire day missing, the day that humanity held its breath and waited for the release that came with the third day. A day when nothing could be done, when people were left to reel from unimaginable events, cruelty beyond decent understanding, horror that most of us will never be able to match. A day when, with all of this fresh in their heads, the future could only be nonexistant.
The promise had been fulfilled, but it was a lost day.
Part of me feels as though I am stuck in Saturday, between pain and ultimate joy, preparing for a future I cannot see or imagine. It's an odd thought, realizing that what you're doing right now is not actually the outcome but preparation for something much bigger.
Saturday is something I can understand. My tiny brain can wrap itself around limbo even when it can't get the concreteness of the result.
But the sun eventually sets on Saturday ... and then the real fun begins.
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