Holier than Thou...

Paul, my husband, reads all my blog entries. He has his own blog, Beneath This Dirty Hood, which I also read. We usually comment to each other on what we've read with little, "I liked your links," or "Nice lead," comments. He also points out my spelling errors. He's a better proofreader than I am.

So last week, he read my Palm Sunday reflection. I came home from a meeting or get-together I had been at, and his first comment when I walked into the living room was, "You're trying to take Fr. Charlie's job, aren't you? You want to be a priest now, or something?" This led to my denying that those were my goals, and asking Paul where his inferences were coming from. "Your last blog. You didn't used to be like this."

He's right. I didn't used to be "like" I am now. We talked about how I've changed. Ever since we've met, I've gone to Episcopal churches. He was there when I was received into the church in 1995, and he remembers my teaching Sunday School at St. Paul's in Duluth in the mid-1990s. I also served on a discernment committee for a friend who was seeking answers about becoming a deacon. Paul and I were married there in 1997. When we moved to Colorado, we worked on Sundays, and worked so many hours I couldn't get involved in a church. But when we moved to Texas, I got involved again at St. Martin's. And again, when we moved to Chicago-land, I tried a few churches before finding my home at Trinity, so I had about a year away from church.

So he's always known me to be a person who goes to church and volunteers her time. Now, I'm not doing any more than I have done before. I'm on the vestry, leading Bible Study, and lectoring. That's about it other than little things here and there. So what's different? Well, I can point to when things changed with my discernment for the deaconate, but this blog has been a big change.

I've never had a pubic place to share my spiritual beliefs, reactions, and stories. And I come from a Catholic background, as does Paul, where spiritual things are not spoken of, even at home. Neither of our families, or any of our friends, talked about our prayer lives, or what we thought about sermons or readings on Sundays. We didn't go around humming hymns until Wednesday. And we certainly didn't tell everyone our inner feelings about God, the Holy Spirit, or the Eucharist.

But here I am, telling everyone looking around cyberspace, about how I feel about Jesus and Easter and everything else that comes into my heart and head. It's not that I didn't have these feelings my whole life, or while Paul and I have been together, but I just didn't talk about them. So putting those ideas and feelings into printed words is new, the ideas and feelings aren't.

I told Fr. Charlie about Paul's reaction, that I might be taking over his job. He asked if that might be a sign for me to be thinking again about Holy Orders. I don't know. I'm feeling good where I'm at. I feel closer to the Bible since I've had regular Bible Study this year, but it's only been a few months. I feel like I'm finding my way into serving without burning out, which is also good. I don't know. I can say that it is something that I continue to pray about, that I continue to talk to my mentors about. We'll see where the spirit leads.

Would you take a bullet for me? Thanks!

I’ve heard that question before, and I’m sure you have, too. It’s a measuring stick of how much we love someone, or something. I wouldn’t take a bullet for, say, the student who bad-mouths me in front of a class, but I would for my husband or even my dog. I’d probably want to know how badly I’d be shot. If it’s in the foot I might answer differently than if it was a direct hit in my chest. Hopefully, I’ll never be faced with having to answer this question as anything more than a hypothetical, philosophical conundrum.


But, the question came into my head this past Sunday, Palm Sunday. I got to be Jesus during our church’s reading of the Passion. I’ve been the narrator before, and the girl who questions Peter, but not Jesus. All jokes aside about my being female, I took my role seriously and actually read over the script before Sunday’s service, even though I know the plot and dialog almost by heart from all the Palm Sundays I’ve attended. Participating keeps me from drifting off hearing it again, but it also makes it more present to me.

So, as Jesus, I stood in front of the congregation as we read the play. I was figuratively given the kiss of death, questioned, questioned again, and again. I stood through the ridicule, the mocking, the dressing up, the beatings, and then through my fellow parishioners calling out, “Crucify him!” Wait, it wasn’t the parishioners, it was the “crowd” that said that. But really, Jesus stood as people who knew him, who went to worship with him, who listened to him, cried out for his death. I imagined that as I stood there in my slacks and sweater, looking back at my friends standing in the pews. Imagine them yelling out for me to be put to death because it was easier than putting up with what I had to say, because I was a rebel, because I made them uncomfortable in calling them to change their lives.

Would I go to my death for people who I knew were wrong? Would I allow myself to be humiliated and tortured for a bunch of people who wouldn’t stand up for me? For friends who abandoned me? For people I didn’t know, and who wouldn’t listen to me? I don’t think I would. But Jesus did. He took on what to me is unimaginable pain and humiliation not just for those people calling for his death, but for every generation of people who would come after them.

For Jesus, the question, “Would you take a bullet for me,” probably wouldn’t even make him blink. A bullet is quick and deadly. Death comes fast. But all that is saved is a physical life in this case. He said yes to a death that was slow, drawn out, and embarrassing, and for strangers and people who don’t like him or think what he had to say makes any sense so that they can enter Heaven and spend eternity with him.

I pray that we all have a meaningful Holy Week, and that more people come to know the man who did more than take a bullet for us to keep us physically alive. He died a terrible death so that we can die, but keep living in Him.