There’s a theology I heard for the first time in 2010 when I attended Presbyterian Youth Triennium which went a little something like: {Good} Friday is here. Jesus Christ has been crucified and is dead. The world feels darker. But we are not a people living Friday for the first time, we know the story does not end with death. We know that {Easter} Sunday is coming. We know what Sunday is bringing. We know that death will not be the last word, that death will not defeat God or prove to be too powerful. We know that resurrected life will begin. We know Sunday is coming.
“It’s Friday but Sunday, Sunday is coming,” that’s what Tony Campolo repeated over and over during the closing sermon of Triennium 2010.
It’s a simple theology, it seems basic to the crux of this whole Christianity thing, and maybe I heard it at an age most impressionable but to me that seems like faith I can get behind. It seems like the human experience: Shit will happen. Shit happens. Man, oh man does it happen. {Good} Fridays are going to happen far more times than the once a year we observe it as Christians. But so, does {Easter} Sunday. During death, destruction, the times where we wander in the darkness unsure of where the light is we can know Sunday is COMING. New life is on its way, resurrection will happen, God’s kingdom will come.
A favorite poem of mine, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry, adds to this theology with the line, “practice resurrection.” Resurrection is not limited to what God is doing. Resurrection is a personal choice on our parts, it is something we can choose to be active participants in bringing. The month of October has been a 31-day practice in practicing resurrection.
Joey said, “make a list of all the good things” and so I started one for our flat. It hangs as a reminder of the ways we have brought Sundays and can bring them again.
Amid the messiness, we choose to practice resurrection and so it appeared in bits and pieces all around us. We saw the sunset, made one another a cup of tea, went on another walk together, we blogged about things that make complaining not that important and we danced because Sunday is always coming and that is reason enough to dance.
We rallied. We led programming for 20ish kids between the ages of 5-11 during a holiday for families (90 or so people) from priority areas in the countryside. From our chaos and stress and feelings of inadequate preparation came a week for others to “relax, refresh, and renew” and they did just that. And in the midst, we made new friends, we played on fantastic playgrounds, we worshiped together and learned how holidays came from Holy Days and God created those, after all God took a holiday on day 7.
My YAV sisters have each blogged about this and wrote wonderful pieces true to each of them. I will link to them and let you read more from the wonderful people I’m living with: Rachel: https://rsmithyav.wordpress.com/2016/10/23/holidays/
Olivia: https://livfully.wordpress.com/2016/10/24/gartmore-family-holiday/
Ekama: https://whattheek.wordpress.com/2016/10/23/we-not-related-but-thats-my-cousin/
It’s easy to forget that there is a day in between Friday and Sunday. We accept that we must wait for Sunday to come, and that the Saturday in between may take its time. It means we keep on living on Saturday despite being uncertain of when Sunday will come. We choose to keep on living on Saturday even though it is a day when time drags on, a day when the light switch feels impossible to find. There’s no skip button to Saturdays. There is only trusting in the slow work of God. Even on the Saturdays when you think you’re healing and another Friday happens and the only way to keep going is to trust that Sunday is coming.
So, practicing resurrection can mean choosing self-care on Saturday rather than pulling the blankets back overhead and waiting for the day to pass. It can be buying cacti on a spontaneous trip to IKEA where you are overjoyed to remember Swedish words while you wander the store with your favorite pastry in hand while lamenting it has been two years since you arrived in Sweden. Buying make up just because. It can be cleaning your room and adding the fairy lights and seeing the cozy space created. It can be getting up and getting my feet on the ice and embracing my skater girl identity that will never fade. Going to the café next door where the décor, lattes, food and everyone’s eyeliner is on point. Checking out books, one of new words to challenge and inspire and one of comfort, words overdue for a visit and fall foliage.
It can mean seeing all these Fridays as God acting as the vine grower cutting you back for new life to grow in a multitude of ways. It can be admitting that while leading worship for the first time in a church other than the church where you’ve gone since you were eight. It can be admitting the hard truth that long distance is hard and letting you and your partner sit in the sucky bits while loving each other and soaking in that three years together have gone by and there are many more to go and that is so gosh darn good at the end of the day. It can be acknowledging the homesickness that can come from moving far away. It can be tossing out seminary applications to schools I realize do not care one way or another if I apply or attend and acknowledging feeling that way in my gut might be God talking.
None of this is the easy bit. It’s so freaking hard. Ekama wrote a few weeks ago that, “life is happening, unapologetically so.” Life is going to continue that way. There are going to be moments of such joy and moments of sorrow and weeping but, fortunately, Jesus did that all first. Life is going to knock the wind out of your lungs and amid being unable to breathe and fumbling for the light switch, a flashlight will switch on, someone will offer a cuppa tea and a blether, and Sunday, Sunday will grow closer. Thanks, be to God.
Oh, God, you are here in the messiest bit of life. You are right beside us on the days, weeks, months, and years of life in which life knocks the wind out of us. And I will to cling to what that means on the darkest of days and remember you are the light of this world, in the madness of these times, your slow work is being done. Your Kingdom is already happening. May I continue to practice resurrection and see your kingdom all around. Amen.
Friends, family, folk who stumbled upon this blog thank you for reading all the way to the bottom. If you like what you’re reading and want to know more about my year as a Young Adult Volunteer in Glasgow click here. If you’d like to support my year please follow my blog and send prayers and good thoughts. If you are willing and able to give a financial contribution to my YAV year it can be done via check sent to:
Presbyterian Church (USA)
Remittance Processing
P.O. Box 643700
Pittsburg, PA 15264-370
with my name, and Extra Commitment Opportunity (ECO #) number E210108 in the memo line.
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Each YAV year costs between $22,000 -$29,000 USD with YAV’s only responsible for raising $4,000. I am so close to this goal and cannot thank those of you who have already contributed and ask those who have not and are able to please consider it. Thank you all for the love and support, it makes Fridays so much easier.
Sending light and love,
Isabella
Isabella Fagiani 