I loved Brian Baker’s little Lent/Easter meditation that accompanied Trinity Cathedral’s Easter Appeal:

I do not know if it is exactly accurate for me to say I “enjoy” Lent.  I appreciate and need Lent.  It is an important time for introspection.  Lent invites me to re-focus my time, my priorities – my life.  I feel like we, in the United States, have been experiencing a communal Lent.  Faced with the economic crisis and general anxiety about the state of our world, many of us are stepping away from unconscious shopping and are rethinking our priorities.  There are also many of us who are facing personal financial loss.

It is in scary times like these when it is helpful to remember that Lent is a season that leads somewhere.  Our religious canlendar never stays on Lent.  Nor do our lives.  We are moving quickly toward the frestival of Easter when we remember that all things, even death, lead to life.  For me the message of Easter is “Do Not Be Afraid.”  There is no tragedy or crisis that will ultimately have the last word.  God is in the business of bringing life out of what looks like death.

I am reminded each Easter of the words of Julian of Norwich, the 14th century mystic, who wrote after the time of the Black Death in England and in the midst of her own opersonal crisis, “All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

She received these words in a vision as she meditated on Christ’s crucifixion and she struggled to believe them.  How, given the pain and suffering she saw around her, could this be possible.  Here is how she wrote about the reply she received:

“And so our good Lord answered all the questions and doubts which I could raise, saying most comfortingly:  I make all things well, and I can make all things well, and I shall make all things well, and I will make all things well; and you will see for yourself that every kind of thing will be well.  … And in these words God wishes us to be enclosed in rest and peace. (Showings, p.229)”

Yes these are scary times.  But the causes of our fear and anxiety will not have the last word.  Resurrection will happen – to us as individuals and to us a a community.  All will be well.

Blessings,

The Very Rev. Brian Baker, Dean