Loading...I finally put away my Easter decorations yesterday. And by “put away” I mean I opened the small storage closet outside my apartment balcony and carefully shove-balanced the basket of easter eggs on the bucket of plush rabbits on the decorative baby-chick tray on the 5 gallon bucket Aidan uses to clean the fish tank on the folding chairs on the empty boxes from Costco I don’t want to get rid of yet because I don’t need them today but I might need them another day. It’s a sight Dr Seuss’ Cat in the Hat would feel proud of.
When I shut the door I may have heard the sound of something crash but I pretended I didn’t. Because I know that if I open that door to check I will be be assigning myself a chore which will require an entire day to finish. There are three holidays’ worth of putting-away carelessness stacked up in there. I’ve got 60 cubic feet to work with and I have filled every inch top to bottom, side to side right up to where the door closes.
Today is the fifth Sunday of Easter. And it feels a whole lot like my unorganized crowded too-small storage closet. The once-precious lilies are forgotten. The struggle to believe the resurrection has been tucked onto a theological shelf to be wrestled with next year. In the meantime I hear the sound of the crashing from a question asked by my Bible Study this week, “If Jesus died to take away our sins why do people still sin?” I spent a few minutes poking through some greek text books to discuss this question with a language study at our next Bible Study. But that study has been shove-balanced into my day planner with all the other precious plans piled high like my closet.
You know what time it is. It’s time to turn our eyes to the next holy day observation: Derby. Is it any surprise that I won’t be putting up any Derby decorations since they are buried underneath 4 holidays worth of other decorations.
Today the assigned scripture readings make me feel the same way my unorganized crowded too-small storage closet feels. These scriptures are a hodge-podge of mission, affection and gardening advice. First the mission: you’ve got the powerful encounter between Philip and the eunuch. From these 14 verses a church is established and thrives in Ethiopia today.
Second affection: we read this lovely love poem letter in 1 John that feels like something a teenager would write to try and impress someone special.
Third is the Gardening Advice in the gospel of John where we read this beautiful image of abundance and growth which is often the basis of a sermon about damnation and separation from God. How can all that fit tidy into a tiny pulpit (would you say this one is about 30 cubic feet?). There’s just too much in too small a space to take out and appreciate. Can we ever do them justice?
If we take a lesson from our preschool we can. I was talking to a parent this week on the playground. The sun came out and we were watching the lunch bunch kids play. She said, “The reason we like this school is because it’s so small.” This is the mystery of how spacious a small space can feel. Her her child receives loads of attention. He’s not shove-balanced into a crowded classroom. St James preschool provides space in a tiny place.
I can’t explain how such a small space can feel so expansive. But that’s how I feel here. If you are like me, space feels like a rare commodity in your calendar, or mind, or heart. It’s easy to crowd those places with activity, big ideas, worry. When I have more activity, big ideas, or work or worries, even more scripture than I can say grace over sometimes all I can do is focus the way a child focuses - focus on one thing at a time - and focus on the one thing on the tip of the top of the heap.
For my storage closet the things at the tip of the top of the heap that’s the stuffed rabbit wearing overalls holding a sign painted “Happy Easter.” It’s been chewed on by dogs. It’s so weathered it’s begun to disintegrate. It’s a mess. And I still put it out next to my doormat. But it has come to represent for me what it means to live in a world where Easter is observed for 50 days and become the one holiday which has expanded to fill all holidays. It’s a little worn. There are other interests intersecting with it. And it’s still captivating.
Here’s why the bunny means all that. Next door to my apartment lives a little four year old girl who only this year has grown taller than the bunny. She loves the bunny. For the past three Easters she has befriended the bunny. That means every time she comes or goes from her door Aidan and I can, through our door, hear her stop at our door and talk to the bunny. We can’t understand exactly what she is saying but when we open the door it is clear that the bunny has been lovingly hugged so much that is wired ears are tilted and the little painted sign reading “Happy Easter” is has fallen out of its arm. It never gets old for her to love it. And it never gets old for me and Aidan to giggle at how much she loves it.
What do we do with Easter now that Derby has arrived? After Derby will be mother’s day and graduations and then the next thing and the next thing. If we unpack all the closet, all the folding chairs and the Halloween decorations and the boxes from Costco we don’t need today but we might need someday what is at the bottom. No, it’s not the “GO Baby GO” decoration, although I hope that is still in there somewhere. At the foundation, at the heart of it all, is: space.
I need it. Like the preschool child. Don’t you. Just a small space filled with nothing but space. Where all the work and worry and scriptures have room to be hugged or wrestled with or rested. I looked it up but I still need a calculator to know how to measure cubic feet. I don’t need a calculator to know how to measure cubic faith. I can measure faith with the simple shape of an empty shell. What I have not shove-balanced into my closet is this shell.
I brought it home from the Consortium of Endowed Parishes Conference I attended in February. It’s from the Anglican Pilgrimage Center which is trying to sell us a pilgrimage to Santiago. As we know from the Lenten offering from Joe John and Mike Owens, our own St James is associated with this pilgrimage. I keep it with a poem by TE Brown which is the closest answer I can find to how the hodgepodge of our mustard seed sized faith can move mountains or how a small preschool can mean the whole world to a parent. I hope it helps you measure your worth this week when life might feel a bit shove-balanced or crowded or crashing.
“If thou could'st empty all thyself of self, like to a shell dishabited, then might He find thee on the ocean shelf, and say ‘This is not dead,’ and fill thee with Himself instead.”
Amen.
