March & April 3 for 3: The getting caught up edition [2021]
Getting caught up on two months worth of what I've been up to lately plus work from other creators and cultivators who are helping us worship God, love people, and enjoy beauty.
In March I turned 50 the day before Kendra turned 25.
I love looking back at our shared birthday cake photos from the years. This year, she brought the cake that a friend had custom-made for her based on Kendra’s deep and abiding affection for Queen Amidala. (Thanks, Amy!)
It was kind of a weird year to turn 50 and I felt a fair amount of mid-life crisis leading up to March 9. Once March 9 arrived and I discovered that my body didn’t spontaneously combust and that I basically felt like myself still, I went ahead and celebrated with a lot of joy. Thankful for my family hanging out with me on Zoom and several lovely gifts, including a day walking through Central Park with my beloved husband. I’m glad to be 50. Now, let’s get on with living.
In April we received our second dose and celebrated full vaccination.
Among other ways of practicing resurrection for Eastertide, we give thanks to God and to all of the creative, persevering humans who make it possible for us to put down the threat of the Coronavirus. One year ago, who’d have thought? If we aren’t amazed by the unquantifiable hours of work by countless humans doing their best work in almost impossible conditions then our hearts are jaded almost beyond hope.
I believe in the actual physical resurrection of a man who is also the one true God. The wonder of that unbelievable belief empowers me to bask in the profound wonder at the work his creation accomplishes. I felt proud to be a human last week and that’s not something I can say every day. I give worship to the God of every good gift and my literal undying gratitude to every human who made my vaccination possible. I give my prayers that all every person will be able to receive the same gift soon.
Peace,
Tamara
Member Areas
As we turned the corner of Lent toward Resurrection, I invited us on March 18 to practice lament in real-time as we considered the violent killings of 8 people in Atlanta, including 6 women of Asian descent. I think it’s fair to say that together, “through our tears we began to see the tears of God.”
On March 25, we enjoyed our last gathering during Lent and decided that deserved at least a whispered, preemptive ‘hallelujah’! We considered how the spiritual practices of prayer, confession, repentance, lament, fasting, and almsgiving had done their work in us and making space for us to enter into Holy Week with Jesus. Our conversations in March were meaningful and deeply encouraging to me. Thank you!
For our first gathering in Eastertide, we showed up in as festive a way as Zoom allows and it felt good to laugh together in the light of resurrection reality.
With a hat tip to N.T. Wright, I brought along a (mildly) spiked 7-Up:
“... we should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children's games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts, anything that comes to mind. this is our greatest festival...This is our greatest day. We should put the flags out.
...if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter ought to be a time to take things up. Champagne for breakfast again -- well, of course...”
I shared a bit from the introduction portion of the Eastertide guidebook download, and then we listened to a psalm with the “Easter eyes” of our hearts. What a beautiful hymn of praise! As we shared our own prayers in response we toasted the risen King Jesus.
I’m especially thankful that two of our Retrieve Lament contributors were with us. Thank you, Aimee and Karen, for inviting us to weep with those who weep. I bless each one who lifts our sorrows into the nail-scarred hands of our resurrected friend, Jesus.
To conclude our time we shared observations and questions around the spiritual practice of celebration which includes feasting, play, giving thanks for the unnecessary, and even relishing the ridiculous!
During May, we’ll continue to celebrate Eastertide with spiritual reading and contemplative prayer as well as questions and encouragement to practice resurrection in our everyday lives. I’d love to have you subscribe to A Sacramental Life Community - In Person membership! See all the details below.
2. Daybook Meditations
We walked together through the final weeks of Lent meditating on curated collections of scripture readings, music, art, prayer, and simple spiritual practices to help us keep a faithful Lent. We paid special attention to the practices of prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and lament. Counterintuitively, these practices felt richer to me than ever in 2021. Thank you for your companionship.
Easter Sunday kicked off a week in the liturgical calendar known as the Easter Octave and a seven-week festival called Eastertide or The Great Fifty Days. I posted little bits of beauty each day of the Easter Octave and am posting once a week (each Sunday) following that. We’re also practicing resurrection together by capturing moments of our days through photos and captions and sharing them on the weekly post. (If you need inspiration, here’s a list of 50 ways to celebrate all 50 days! Choose 1 idea or 50, but whatever you do, do it with gusto!)
We’ll continue through Eastertide, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time with a weekly devotional inviting us to look, listen, read, pray, and do simple creative, spiritual, and relational practices. I’d love to have you subscribe to a Daybook Meditations membership! See all the details below.
Subscribe to A Sacramental Life Daybook Meditations to receive curated collections of Scripture readings, music, art, prayer, and simple spiritual practices to help you look, listen, pray, and do daily practices of worship, love, and beauty. You'll receive a daily meditation during Advent, Christmastide, Lent, and the Easter Octave and each Sunday for the rest of the year to help you pay attention to God's presence in both the silence, celebration, fasting, and feasting of the liturgical year.
3. Stories
We spent one of the most sacred weeks of the year together in the Stories member area. Starting with a story I shared on Palm Sunday of being able to forgive one of my abusers this past year we began a week of guest posts. Jesus gave us a litany of last words, known as the Seven Last Words of Christ. The deathbed words of the Suffering Servant provide a framework for Holy Week.
Each day between now and Resurrection Sunday, six friends and family members will share their own stories to help us retrieve lament and to keep vigil with Jesus. Their stories have helped form my understanding of cruciform suffering and I believe they could also encourage you too.
Thank you, Stories members, for walking together this Holy Week with our annual Retrieve Lament series. It’s been a gift to introduce each guest to you and to hear how you’ve welcomed their stories.
I’d love to have you subscribe to a Stories membership! Subscribe today for a special series of personal resurrection stories in May PLUS you'll have access to every post in the archive! click through the link below to subscribe. See all the details below.
Favorite online finds from creators and cultivators who are helping us
worship God, love people, and enjoy beauty.
Worship God
Spiritual Direction & Practices | Liturgy & Church Calendar | Daily Work & Callings
MARCH
ME: WHEN I’M FREE with Kaley Ehret.
I’m so excited to share this new podcast with my sister and friend. “Who am I when I’m free and why does it even matter? This is the question that has spurred me on for years now. If you’ve ever wondered why there is a gap between who you are and who you were meant to be, join me on the journey.” Check out her new website for encouragement in so many areas of your daily life: KaleyEhret.com
PLACED podcast with Kelsa Graybill +Five Ways Biblical Geography Shapes Our View of God’s Mission, Tracing the terrain of Scripture’s stories shows us how God works in our physical world via CT.
I met Kelsa in a writer’s group and she kind of blew my mind with her passion for making sense of the landscape of Scripture as a way to be spiritually formed within the landscapes of our lives. “Geography isn’t just about rocks and soils. It’s the terrain where God meets us. In Placed, we’ll explore the wilderness and pastures of the biblical world, finding God’s work in every landscape. Along the way, we’ll consider the landscapes of our lives and the terrain where God is meeting us.”
Tish Harrison Warren - Prayer in the NIght interviewed by Nathan Foster on the Renovaré podcast:
“If we cannot trust God to keep bad things from happening to us or to those we love, how do we trust God at all? Author and Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren wrestles with this question in her new book, Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep.”
APRIL
Pastors, What Did You Do With My Wife? (Celebrity Preachers, Prosperity Gospel) with Dr. Maurice Watson.
WOAH. Thanks to Drake & Kirstin for sending this our way (and watching in amazement with us).
Keeping the World in Being: Meditations on Longing by Fred Bahnson via Emergence Magazine
Beautiful writing.
We have to be willing to begin again. This is true of failures in writing, in faith, in life itself. Kathleen Norris via The Christian Century
I found beautiful insight and encouragement in this reflection by Kathleen Norris about how she's changing her mind about her writing struggles and perceived failures as well as how she's recalibrating hope for what she'll be able to write next.
2. Love People
Family, Friends, & Neighbors | Justice, Peace, & Social Critique | Wholeness & Healing
MARCH
'Minari' Director Lee Isaac Chung on NPR’s Fresh Air
Watched this movie on my birthday and it was more beautiful than I’d even expected. Watch soon. “Based on Chung's own childhood, 'Minari' is about a Korean American family that moves to rural Arkansas to start a farm. The director spoke with contributor Arun Venugopal about the memories that inspired the film, why he initially kept the project a secret from his family and choosing the title of the movie. 'Minari' just won a Golden Globe for best foreign-language film.”
The Cost WOC Pay for Collective Liberation on Chasing Justice podcast featuring Kathy Khang and Sandra Vanopstal:
Grateful for the perspective as a counter-balance to the church headlines that gets the most play in our news feeds. “Women of color are central to the flourishing of our communities and overall social well-being. When women of color leave institutions, and we speak out, nobody talks about it; no one notices it. Women are often the first to speak and the last to gain from reforms in society and the church. Black Women speak out and pay an embodied cost. Asian and Latinas overcome bamboo and corn husk ceilings, but at a cost. Native women work to be even noticed.”
A Country With No Name: Living in Liminal Spaces By Prasanta Verma via Asian American Christian Collaborative
I met Prasanta in the same writer’s group I met Kelsa (see above) and am so glad to know a bit more of her story and to champion her voice in the world. Here she writes about how living in liminal spaces, particularly as an Asian American, creates a peculiar kind of loneliness.
APRIL
World Relief Decries Biden Administration’s Failure to Follow Through on its Promise to Set Robust Presidential Determination for Refugee Resettlement in 2021 & a follow-up, World Relief Applauds Progress in President Biden’s First 100 Days and Calls For Continued Action to Strengthen U.S. Humanitarian Leadership and Broader Support for Those Fleeing Persecution via World Relief
I’m keeping my eye on this. (Just saw an encouraging new headline today.)
‘The Voice of Your Brother's Blood Is Crying to Me From the Ground’ by David French via French Press / The Dispatch
Can the George Floyd case represent the beginning of the end of favoritism in American law? David French helped me articulate what I haven’t been able to figure out how to say when I feel like I’m a bit crazy. The sound of our brothers’ and sisters’ blood crying from the ground is almost not figurative language for me.
Facing the Mental Health Challenges of Young People Today via C4SO podcast
The Covid-19 pandemic has created significant mental and emotional health challenges for young people. The Rev. Canon Dr. Jessica Jones and Rev. Aaron Buttery, who both work with the ACNA’s Next Generation Leadership Initiative, talk about how the church can respond.
So much wisdom here. It’s past time to open our ears, eyes, and church conversations to this reality.
3. Enjoy Beauty
Look, Listen, Read, Make, Do | Creators & Cultivators | All Things Made New
MARCH
Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies via The Trinity Forum
One of my favorite authors expanding on what I’ve come to describe as an essential book for my callings. “The Trinity Forum welcomed writer, speaker, and professor Marilyn McEntyre to discuss her provocative book… The book focuses on the morality, power, and importance of caring for language. She notes that caring for one another is not entirely separable from caring for words. Words are entrusted to us as equipment for our life together, to help us survive, guide, and nourish one another. If language is to retain its power to nourish and sustain our common life, we have to care for it the way good farmers care for the earth. The painting is 'Garden in May' by Maria Oakey Dewing, 1895. The song is 'The Girl with the Flaxen Hair' by Debussy, performed by Joshua Bell.”
Poetry Unbound podcast from OnBeing:
Every episode is a gift. “Your new ritual: Immerse yourself in a single poem, guided by Pádraig Ó Tuama. Short and unhurried; contemplative and energizing. Anchor your week by listening to the everyday poetry of your life, with new episodes on Monday and Friday during the season.
To listen to more poems, interviews with poets, and search our ever-expanding archive, visit our new home for poetry.”
Land of the Living - RLC Easter Concert by Sara, Kirby, and Ruby Groves
Just beautiful. Also proving the maxim about family voices making the best harmonies.
APRIL
Formational Books by Amy Willers
I’ve never had a blog post dedicated to me and this is one of the best kinds I could imagine. What nine titles would you choose from your own reading life? It’s harder than you’d expect!
Mary Berry reads "A Standing Ground" written by Wendell Berry in honor of Earth Day.
Speaking of Wendell Berry, I loved this interview his granddaughter conducted with Tanya Berry, his wife.
A Benediction for Makers from Makoto Fujimura’s book Art + Faith: A Theology of Making via Sacred Ordinary Days on IG
Amen.
What I’m Reading
From the Book Pile 2021 | See my giant reading list here.
Bonus Features
“He who sings prays twice.” St. Augustine
— Brant Law (@Mr_BLaw) April 29, 2021
Just a donkey singing for joy because of the donkey chapter in God Saw That It Was Good: A Safari Through Salvation History available at the Paraclete Press website, bookstores and this link: https://t.co/7VofCq62t1… pic.twitter.com/hsUjuJO9A1