“Jesus help us to wash their feet”
That was our litany for our Easter vigil this weekend. What a beautiful service!
As someone who has been placed by God in the position of being asked to be still and receive a lot of footwashing lately, I sit before you filled with gratitude for our Servants’ Entrance community.
A quick recap for those who don’t know: I’ve had a rare condition of a pouch that formed in my esophagus. I put off any surgery to address it for the past 15 years. I was able to manage it, and I was afraid to put my singing voice at risk through surgery/intubation. It became clear this year that I had to do something – the pouch had become ginormous and I was at more risk for choking. We found a woman who is a surgeon and researcher at the University of Cincinnati and on March 12-15 headed down there for tests, consultations and finally the corrective surgery. All seemed well, and we came back to Detroit but by March 19 an infection began. Three days later, I was in our local Beaumont ER, who put my butt in a 5 hour ambulance ride back to Cincinnati. After a lot of IV antibiotics, a swallow test that discovered a perforation in my esophagus, and a couple of surgeries to clean out the infection, repair the hole, and perform additional improvements on the pouch area, I am left with a couple temporary “friends” (drain port in my neck and a feeding tube through my nose) and a new purpose in life: sit still and heal.
I’m happy to say that while I am quite the sight with my new friends, I am in fantastic spirits and Kirsti has been taking good care of me. Your prayers (foot washing) that I’ve been receiving must be having an impact on my body and soul.
There was only a moment where we worried, that in my fear in putting off the surgery, I had created the exact situation I was worried about and that this infection might eat a hole in my esophagus and throat.
I got a lot of practice putting myself in God‘s hands and receiving your prayers. Except for that brief window, I’ve experienced this more as an adventure, and I am embracing it. Seriously, there’s been no suffering – just a lot of gratitude. I’m keenly aware of my privilege of being a person of means with good health care and a supportive network. And I was especially blessed in this strange Holy Week to pray with our SEC Good Friday service, and Easter Vigil. I felt very connected to you.
So…as we move into our Easter season, where our theme continues to be “Walking in Wisdom, Listening in the Spirit, I’m aware I’ve been given a lot of opportunities to practice doing that lately. I am pondering the underlying pervasiveness of ignorance and fear that betrayed, denied, judged, and crucified Jesus. Fear that the resurrected Jesus has come to conquer within us, starting with his opening words “Peace be with you”. I’ve been pondering how still today, our actions driven by paradigms of ignorance and fear keep creating chaos and suffering in the world. And I’m asking myself “what does walking in wisdom and listening in the spirit look like in this moment?” As I look at my health, as I look at the election, as I look at the challenges in the world, am I putting on a fear lens or an Easter lens? A fear paradigm creates the question, “what if the ‘wrong person/people’ get elected this year?” A question that freaks me out and will keep me in suffering and stress…and ultimately make me an enemy to the Kindom.
What questions might an Easter lens provoke? Maybe “What beauty can I see in the world to give me hope?”, “Where is God in all this?”, “What service can I bring into the world regardless of who is elected?”, or “How can I walk with Wisdom and listen in the Spirit to help me know whose feet I should be washing and how to be Christ’s Presence in this world – in this particular time?”.
What Easter question(s) is the Holy Spirit whispering in you at this moment as you read this?
This year, I believe I was prompted by the Spirit to stop asking myself “what could go wrong if I have a surgery?“ and start asking “how could my singing actually benefit from this surgery and what should I do to help improve my odds?”
Yes, ironically, even after acting from that space, I was one of those rare people with a postoperative infection. But so far, the story is a resurrection story.
I should add, we know fear is essential to living. It’s an important signal emotion to “pay attention to something”. Going forward, can you and I put on the lens of Easter and focus intentionally on a wisdom-based approach to fear – instead of our conditioned response of fight or flight? Can we support one another in pausing, inviting in the Holy Spirit and bringing our fears into that space and sit in the mess with a simple Easter question: “how can I be Christ in this moment?”
For now, Kirsti is channeling the Holy Spirit and whispering to me that I am “Jesus in the tomb… Resting”!
Fair enough.
Thank you again for all your love. Here’s to a great Easter season for the Servants’ Entrance community.
-terry
servantsentrance.com 