Thursday, March 26
Read: Psalm 31:9-16; 1 Samuel 16:11-13; Philippians 1:1-11
Years ago, while I was preparing to leave the coziest dorm room that anyone had ever known, I read this scripture for the first time—and it stuck to my ribs like a good plate of southern supper. I remember almost everything about my senior year of college: dining hall renovations, the smell of the stacks in the library that made me feel like a real academic, the taste of Fried Chicken Thursdays, and the lure of a trip to Nancy’s Italian Ice. I remember all of the sweetness of senior year – and also, the bitterness and preemptive grief of it all ending soon.
You see, college hadn’t been a typical experience for our crew. There were about seven of us – misfits who found one another early on and stuck together through thick and thin. Sometimes “thick” meant exams. For me, it meant the sudden death of my father the summer between my junior and senior year. For others, it meant career discernment or changing majors. This group of friends sang at my father’s funeral, prayed over procedures, danced through hallways, laughed through movies, stressed through exams, and made every possible memory that we could of the four short years we spent together. And then it was time to begin saying goodbye.
It was a season of transition. College classes, clubs, senior recitals, capstone projects, internships, even childhood itself – all of it was ending. Everything in front of us was unknown. Sure, acceptance letters littered our desks and common room floors, job applications and half-packed plastic bins in obnoxious hues of purple, orange, pink, and green lined the hallways. We knew what was next. But did we really? Everything was so very in-between.
So, what did we do? We took more pictures and stayed up later. We went to more dinners together. We included everyone in everything, every time. We skipped a class or two in favor of an adventure – or four. We packed our hearts and minds and memories full of the community that upheld us as we crossed the threshold from childhood into young adulthood. And what a wild, holy ride that was.
Now, rereading this particular text as we prepare for Lent – twelve years after graduation – the words of Paul swirling around in my head and heart alongside political unrest, to-do lists for first grade homework assignments, and the lyrics to too many children’s songs – I find myself wondering what it is WE are packing for the journey ahead. What are we carrying with us forward as we face the bitter sweetness of Holy Week?
Before the parade of Palm Sunday,
before the uncertainty of the cross
and before the miracle of the Resurrection, what do we need to carry with us? Who and what will see us through as we find ourselves in this season of in-between, what is worth bringing along?
What memories from this season are we thanking God for? What people or places are tucked just as deeply into our hearts? Who might we say to, as Paul said to the church in Philippi, “I thank my God every time I remember you”? What place prepared you for where you are today – or for where you are headed next?
If you were to write your own letter, as Paul did, who would you thank, and for what?
And how might it all feed you and sustain you for the journey ahead?
The journey all the way to the Cross.
The Reverend Heather Jones Butler ’14 is an ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
