“Why can’t you just relax?”
“You’re just too uptight!”
Ever been told that – thought that?
Have you ever listened to one of “those” relaxation tapes (ok, I know I‘m showing my age, but you get it don’t you? – No? How about a relaxation podcast? Oh, no, I’m getting uptight just thinking about this, i better try to relax)
You how it goes on those relaxation tapes/podcasts – you hear in a soft, almost whisper voice (that is supposed by its very sound to make you feel more comfortable and relaxed) “Let’s start with our toes, wiggle them a bit, now let them just be still, take a deep breath, feel your breath filling you lungs, now feel the sensations in your toes, can you feel the muscle tension going out of them. Yes? You feel it now. Good, Now your right foot ….” (and it goes on for a while then) “Now the crown of your head. Do you still feel muscle tension there? Take a breath, as you breathe out let any tension in the crown of your head leave with your breathing out. Gooood.”
Been there – done that?
Let me ask you – How do you “relax” into this season of resurrection? The Great 50 Days of Easter? Eastertide?
Do you?
Are you uptight by the “let down” after all the build up to Easter egg hunts, Easter baskets, and if you are much involved in “church activities” the churchy busyness surrounding Easter. I have known some ministers in highly liturgical settings who try to take the week after Easter off, just to slow down and unwind a bit.
What about you? Are you still on an Easter high? Do you need to settle into the season of Eastertide?
I receive email from Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. six days a week. The emails are entitled “Inward/Outward.” The weekday mailings offer a quote for the day and the Saturday mailing addresses the lectionary gospel reading for that Sunday.
This came from in Monday’s email –
Guide me,
Holy One,
into an unclenched moment,
a deep breath,
a letting go of heavy expectancies,
of shriveling anxieties,
of dead certainties,
that, softened by the silence,
surrounded by the light,
and open to the mystery,
I may be found by wholeness,
upheld by the unfathomable,
entranced by the simple,
and filled with the joy
that is you.(from – Ted Loder, Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle, San Diego: Luramedia, 1984)
This so captured by attention that I wanted to hold onto it for a long time … and to share it.
“… unclenched moment … open to the mystery …. found by … upheld by … entranced by the simple …”
And, there it is!
I try to “hold onto it” and thereby miss the invitation to let go and rest in the mystery that is Easter.
I want to understand, to explain, when more often I need to let go of the expectations, the anxieties and even the lifeless certainties that blind me to the light of Easter and the silence that just might speak of life.
I’ll be quiet now and go back to Ted Loder’s words. Join me?
charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}
PS – To find out more about Church of the Saviour you can read this –
https://inwardoutward.org/origins/
And this –
https://inwardoutward.org/about-us/
And to subscribe to the mailings –
https://inwardoutward.org/guide-me-into-an-unclenched-moment-apr-12-2021/