OK David, you light that fire

OK David, You Go Ahead and Light That

If I had to write a book about my experience at Christ Church Cathedral thus far it might be this: OK, David, You Go Ahead and Light That! The quote comes from a delightful afternoon I had in the yard of Joell Finney in which we were attempting to do something different for the new fire that is lit at the Easter Vigil. This afternoon was preceded by e-mails that were entitled: Holy Cow, Joell, you will blow up the church with that! I asked Joell to help me because she is creative and yet has experience in science and chemistry. Wanda and David Jacquith came over because, after all, she is the chair of the Altar Guild and David is Roman Catholic and has some experience with this tradition as well. I felt a little bit like teenagers trying to blow up coke cans with firecrackers! Just in case you’re wondering…..Thermite in Vodka doesn’t really make a nice enough fire. As we were experimenting in her front yard I thought about Steve Specht’s often quoted phrase: If this would appear as headlines in the New York Times would you be comfortable with having the whole world know about it. So, I thought the headlines could be: Priest and company (and it would be all about the priest of course----headlines don’t care about co-conspirators!) blow up historical house in preparation for Easter Vigil. Well, we didn’t blow anything up and we actually had a difficult time lighting an actual fire. But it will be interesting to see what, eventually, was the winner!

I thought the quote that came out of that afternoon would be a good quote to describe my time here but also the time we are in now, Holy Week. Most of us have not been in our comfort zone this year and Holy Week really puts us out of our comfort zone. Holy Week is a dark time, a time of deep reflection, grief and wonderment at the hatred and violence that people perpetrate on others. The drama on Palm Sunday was profound and meaningful, yet, deeply moving and full of experiences of grief, guilt and violence. So, why do we put ourselves through this year after year? Why try and build a new Easter Fire when the same one has worked year after year, for that matter, why build an Easter Fire at all when we now have flame at the click of a button? For sure, it is tradition, but the tradition is not in the act—the tradition is in the meaning of the act. A few weeks ago I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and sad. It was late evening, it was raining outside and there was nothing on television, my book didn’t seem interesting and the even the dog was disgusted with my self-induced funk! I had this new fire of the Easter Vigil on my mind and I began to think about all the ways I’ve seen the new fire lit -- charcoal with wood, sterno in a glass dish, flint on kindling which goes into a huge bonfire and, of course, the fire in the baptismal found that nearly caught the church on fire. I began to smile at the many different ways that we try to light the fire in hope in the midst of our darkest night. There is no “right” way to light it, of course, because it is the fire that is important not how we get to the flame. We have a lot of hope in our life but that hope isn’t always lit the same way. Sometimes it comes from the most unexpected places and sometimes it comes from the familiar and deep wells that we can count on in our journey.

Holy Week is a time in our life that we concentrate on the journey and the hope in the midst of the journey. As we walk the darkest week in our Christian experience we know the rest of the story. We walk this journey of Holy Week with absolute confidence because we know how the story ends. We know that we shall not be overcome and that Christ will meet us with pure and unadulterated HOPE AND RESSURECTION. But hope is only fully known when we have seen what hope is not, light is only known when we have fully experienced the darkness and resurrection is only know when we have given ourselves up for dead. The great meaning of Easter comes with the journey of Holy Week.

If you have never participated in the events of Holy Week I encourage you to put aside some of your schedule this week and attend some (if not all) of the Holy Week events. Easter seems much more powerful with this journey. If you have participated before I remind you of this powerful and meaningful journey.

Let us enter the gate of Holy Week and “OK, David, you light that fire!”