Katie shared these reflections with the staff of the Church of the Brethren and Brethren Benefit Trust on April 4, 2014 at the weekly chapel.
In January, when I was looking ahead at my upcoming calendar, March was a month for which I was both anxious and excited. March has an odd way of filling itself up in the blink of an eye. Anyone serving the church can list off thing after overwhelming thing that made March, both stressful and sometimes enjoyable. For me, it was some travel, some hospitality, lots of meetings, and weekends away. Now with that month behind me, I hope to slip out of the madness that has gripped me for several weeks. This isn’t the only year that March has been maddening. Last year, I was in the office for five days in March– workcamp travel added up fast! Maybe you’ve experienced busy travel seasons, swallowed up weekends, or long days with meetings recently, too?
In the midst of my March Madness, I traveled to Roundtable at Bridgewater College. It’s the Regional Youth Conference for the Atlantic Southeast Region of the Church of the Brethren. I have been attending this event for a DECADE. WEIRD! That’s what happens when you attend the conference in high school, become a part of the planning team in college, and then provide leadership after your graduate! While on the coordinating team in college, the weeks leading up to the conference were nothing short of prolonged chaos. They were full of final details, meetings that started at midnight, and little sleep. Even in the midst of the enduring craziness, it was my favorite weekend every March. Fellowship, worship, games, variety shows, joy, people, #brethrenthings– I love all of it. Despite all the swirling madness before, after, and during Roundtable, there is a sacred stillness that comes every Sunday morning of Roundtable with the anointing service. It’s a sacred space and I’ve cried on more than one occasion receiving the blessing. (No surprise there!) Every spring for the past decade, I’ve come to anticipate and cherish this anointed blessing for my journey. My heart becomes warm as the slick oil touches my forehead– marking me, reminding me to whom I belong, that I am enough, that I am blessed. March is mad and this reminder is needed. March is a month that is sometimes spring, sometimes winter. Teasing our sandals out of the closet for a day, before switching back to snow boots with a surprise storm the next day. The inconsistency of the weather is maddening. Our bodies have been bundled up for months enduring the harshness of winter temperatures and dangerous snow or ice. Weather whiplash smacks me so strongly my body doesn’t know what to think. I’ve even walked out of the house in sandals as it starts to snow. March is mad. In the dubious climate of March, where my body doesn’t know what the weather is doing and my head is exhausted from the season of planning, travel, and little sleep – my heart starts feeling “some type of way.” O, March, you bittersweet month of change. This Roundtable the speaker, Eric Landram, talked about Seasonal Affective Disorder, which I would say after living in Chi-beria for a full, long, awful season, has definitely chipped away at my positive demeanor this winter. He talked about “winter blues”, “summertime sadness”, and he mentioned one less common seasonal ailment “spring sadness”. I thought “spring sadness” was a little ridiculous at first. The world is coming alive – baby animals, flower buds, and all that! What is there to fear about spring?! Yet, I thought about it. Spring is another season of change, like fall, but instead of the world falling asleep, it is waking back up again. There’s bound to be some discontent as the world transforms. Spring is a season of goodbyes – graduations, preparing for upcoming seasons– summer conferences or vacations, board meetings, travel for retreats or conferences, or the slow trudge of day-to-day, while the weather spins madly around you… doing whatever it chooses to do. For me, it’s been a season of unknowns from year to year…what will my life be like after I graduate, after I move away, after relationships end, after BVS and NYC. It is a time of discernment and questioning.
Lent’s another difficult thing in spring. It’s a hard season. The season of Lent retraces Jesus forty days in the wilderness, Jesus fasted for that time and some Christians choose to fast, as well. Some people scoff at this practice and laugh at people who give up soda, but the past several years I’ve found it an intentional space to grow in my walk with God. Granted I have done some weird things like give up abbreviated words in college (which was totes hard) and wore a prayer covering one Lent. But this year I’m journaling every day. I have found that the intentional things I add or take away to my daily routine during this Lenten wilderness walk, slowly and surely point me on a closer journey with God that I had been missing. This routine that forms over forty days helps me when the ground changes beneath my feet during the maddening spring. March is mad.
We’re about done with our wandering in the wilderness, according to the liturgical calendar, and I have to ask, “How’s everyone doing?”
It says in Matthew 27, when Jesus died, “at that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split.” I wonder about Jesus’ disciples, about Judas who betrayed him, about Peter who denied him, about Mary of Bethany who anointed his feet, about Mary who birthed him – what kind of wilderness were they walking in now? What were they thinking as the ground shook beneath their feet? Their leader, their Messiah, their friend, their child was taken from them and the whole world was in upheaval. They might have started to grapple with questions like – “What will life be like after this?” … “What will happen to me?” … “Will life ever be normal again?”
We know the story doesn’t end here, but their three days of complete chaos and fear and doubt probably felt like an eternity. “How will we ever recover from this?”
In the book of Luke, Jesus appears to two disciples walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, three days after his death. The disciples are wrestling and reeling with the horrible series of events that have happened over the last couple of days. They’ve lost their prophet, most everyone following the Jesus movement has deserted and fled. And some women just this morning said that his body was taken from the tomb. They don’t really know what to make of all of it. They’re so lost in their sadness, that they don’t even recognize that it is Jesus coming with them on the road. They’re wandering is some kind of wilderness.
They walk and talk all the way to Emmaus and yet, they still have no idea they’ve been journeying with Jesus this whole time. They invite this stranger to eat with them once they reach Emmaus. It’s not until Jesus sat with him – blessed and broke bread – that they see who they have been journeying with. The scripture says, “Their eyes were opened, and they recognized him” (Luke 24:30). What have your eyes been opened to this season?
This March season, this hard Lenten season, we’ve been journeying with Jesus this whole time, whether we’ve recognized him or not. Amidst the endless travel, the fickle weather, the exhaustion, the meetings that never end – Jesus shows up in the ordinary, even when we’re not looking, even when we’re not prepared for him to do so. In the midst of our own wilderness, we don’t necessarily feel it, or see it, or take notice. Sometimes it takes oil on our forehead…breaking bread with a friend… to remind us that God does show up, God has come down, and God is here.
While, Lent is hard and long, it doesn’t last forever. The rumbling of the Earth on a dark Friday, gives way to a torn curtain, an empty tomb, and God’s spirit among us forever. In the midst of chaos, anxiety, and disbelief, we meet God on a dusty road and we break bread together.
Katie Cummings is from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, which means she grew up with mountains on either side of her. She graduated from Bridgewater College in 2012 with a degree in Sociology and a minor in Peace Studies. After college she joined Brethren Volunteer Service, coordinating Brethren Workcamps for a year before coordinating National Youth Conference. She enjoys running for fun, cooking Indian curries, and making things out of thread. She’s not competitive, but would love to play Ultimate Frisbee, Bannagrams, or Scattegories – if you let her stretch the rules.