Vigil
Tonight, I made masks.
Six of them.
After messing around with a prototype and an original idea, I reverted to the pattern.
Press. Cut. Sew. Press. Pleat. Press. Sew.
It is tedious work for this non-sewer. For someone who likes to create rather than conform.
It's the end of Holy Week. Saturday night. Late. I am trudging through the last few hours of the Easter Vigil. All week, I have been pondering Luke 23: 50 - 56 - a minor little detail in the Passion narrative about the women whose preparations for Jesus' burial are interrupted by the Sabbath.
They want to tend his body. They want to do all the important traditional things to prepare the body for its permanent resting place. But while they could start, they couldn't finish the task. Sunset. Sabbath. Rest. No work.
Tonight, I am stitching masks.
And it feels just a bit like gathering exotic herbs and spices and ointments for sacred work - for the sacred work of helping hospital workers stay safe so that they can tend to the sick and the dying.
In truth, these will be worn as my husband walks from the parking garage to the hospital. Or when one of us runs out to pump gas or go to the grocery. Because we have a steady rhythm of cross contamination in our lives - essential workers who come and go through our door every day. Vulnerable friends and neighbors. Hands washed. Door knobs disinfected. Hands washed. And again.
Here I am stitching masks. And it feels like sacred work. We know what is coming at us here in Maryland. The sick and the dying.
So too is Easter. The empty tomb. Because God is at work. And as Frederick Buechner said, resurrection is proof that the worst thing that happens is not the last.
This is not the last.
Thanks be to God.
May it be so.
Amen.
Six of them.
After messing around with a prototype and an original idea, I reverted to the pattern.
Press. Cut. Sew. Press. Pleat. Press. Sew.
It is tedious work for this non-sewer. For someone who likes to create rather than conform.
It's the end of Holy Week. Saturday night. Late. I am trudging through the last few hours of the Easter Vigil. All week, I have been pondering Luke 23: 50 - 56 - a minor little detail in the Passion narrative about the women whose preparations for Jesus' burial are interrupted by the Sabbath.
They want to tend his body. They want to do all the important traditional things to prepare the body for its permanent resting place. But while they could start, they couldn't finish the task. Sunset. Sabbath. Rest. No work.
Tonight, I am stitching masks.
And it feels just a bit like gathering exotic herbs and spices and ointments for sacred work - for the sacred work of helping hospital workers stay safe so that they can tend to the sick and the dying.
In truth, these will be worn as my husband walks from the parking garage to the hospital. Or when one of us runs out to pump gas or go to the grocery. Because we have a steady rhythm of cross contamination in our lives - essential workers who come and go through our door every day. Vulnerable friends and neighbors. Hands washed. Door knobs disinfected. Hands washed. And again.
Here I am stitching masks. And it feels like sacred work. We know what is coming at us here in Maryland. The sick and the dying.
So too is Easter. The empty tomb. Because God is at work. And as Frederick Buechner said, resurrection is proof that the worst thing that happens is not the last.
This is not the last.
Thanks be to God.
May it be so.
Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment