Holy Week and.....

my Birthday Week

Somehow these weeks seem connected to me.  Friday - Good Friday - I turn 70 years old which is stunning to me.  I celebrate birthdays and like everyone else you say - consider the alternative.  Yes.
However - or AND - consider that you are marching into old age.  Somehow in your sixties I could still see myself as middle aged (which is, of course, delusional!)  But 70 is truly the threshold into old age, elderly status, on your way OUT.

Does that sound negative?  Probably, but I am just saying out loud what is going on in my head this week. For some reason Audrey and I asked Alexa what was the life expectancy of a woman in America these days - and the answer was 81.  So, my mantra has been that I have 11 more good years for sure.  And what to do?  Who am I now?

At the same time, it is Holy Week and even though it looks like I may not be attending either Maundy Thursday or Good Friday services - I am very aware of what this week means in the life of Jesus.  My daily routine this week is doing lectio divina with the texts of the day and allowing them to speak to me.  Yesterday the gospel passage was John 12: 20-39 in which Jesus says about a seed:
"If it dies, it bears much fruit"
"While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light."

The gospel of John is full of imagery of light and dark and life and death.  This passage was coupled with i Corinthians 1: 18-31:  "For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength."

The cross of Jesus is always more than whatever we say it is - it is the ultimate mystery and the center of our faith.  I read some commentaries about the text yesterday and several pointed to the fact that Jesus facing death said: Now my soul is troubled.  And what should I say - Father save me from this hour?  No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.  Father glorify your name." 

"What one of the commentaries wrote was: " God reconciled God self to humanity not by denying the suffering of the world, but by entering into it."  And so, Jesus soul is troubled and he goes forward trusting God.

Holy Week is when we look squarely at the suffering of Jesus who enters into the suffering ot the  world.  And a big birthday week for me is looking at the reality of  diminishing years.  I may be more aware of it as I walk in the grief of the loss of Chuck (who lived 4 years past the average lifespan of a man in America) but it is here as a background  to the celebration that will occur on Saturday with the family.

Yesterday I got a new book of blessings The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief..  She writes in the introduction:  "A blessing helps us to keep breathing - to abide this moment, and the next moment, and the one after that."  Here is a blessing from the book that speaks to me today:

Blessing of Breathing

That the first breath
will come without fear.

That the second breath
will come without pain.

The third breath:
that it will come without despair.

And the fourth,
without anxiety.

That the fifth breath
will come with no bitterness.

That the sixth breath
Will come for joy.

Breath seven:
that it will come for love.

May the eighth breath
come for freedom.

And the ninth,
for delight.

When the tenth breath comes,
may it be for us
to breathe together,

and the nixt 
and the next,

until our breathing
is as one,
until our breathin
is no more.