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'Dying to Life' (Lent, a journey to Easter & beyond)
Introductory Notes....
Greetings to all who use this material as a trigger for their own creativity.
The preparation of this material has been a discipline and a challenge, as I prefer to work from a picture/symbol base and often struggle with the words. Having said that, I offer some personal comments.
This is a time in the Christian Year when I find that gathering a small group of people together and planning the Lent, Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter Day services as a team, can be an inspiring, growing and amazingly creative experience. Such planning enables music, drama, dialogue, dance and the arts including the medium of power point to open people up to new ways of experiencing God and the power of the story and the journey - the 'countdown to Easter.'
My Lenten, Holy Week, Easter offerings will read a little like 'notes to myself' which is I guess what they are. They are my contribution to your planning, and I hope they encourage you to explore, read and question further.
The range of resources available is wide, and I have included at the conclusion of these notes some that I have found very helpful.
Some years ago a member of the Parish I was part of suggested the idea of Lent as being a time of 'Dying to Life'. This has played into my 'countdown' idea, and reflects the contextual nature of Lent which for us in Aotearoa takes place in the autumn. The floral team prepared one floral arrangement for each of the six Sunday's in Lent, using foliage which as the time went on picked up the seeds and leaves and colouring of autumn. Lent One had six flowers, Lent Two - five as we counted down, with Palm/Passion Sunday being one bloom only, a rich crimson/purple. Nothing then until the explosion of Easter Day. Gertrude Mueller Nelson puts it in her book 'To Dance with God' this way - 'We yield up, we fall apart, we die, so that we can bloom anew!'
Lent is an invitation to take time to attend to the parts of our lives we often neglect - a challenge to open ourselves to new ways of the Spirit's transforming power.
Ann Weems in her book 'Kneeling in Jerusalem' spells it out for me....
Lent is a time to take time
to let the power of our faith story take hold of us,
a time to let the events
get up and walk around in us,
a time to intensify
our living unto Christ,
a time to hover over
the thoughts of our hearts,
a time to place our feet in the streets of Jerusalem
or to walk along the sea and listen to his word,
a time to touch his robe
and feel the healing surge through us,
a time to ponder and a time to wonder....
Lent is a time to allow a fresh new taste of God!