Out Like a Lamb (of God, sorry, it's all I had): Notes on the Ending of March

For Christians, it is Holy Week; the week when we walk through the last week of the life of Jesus. Yesterday we waved our palm branches around and shouted “Save Us” (which is what Hosanna means). Thursday we will remember that Jesus gave us a new commandment: servant love. Friday he will die.

For clergy, it is the marathon of work weeks. Multiple liturgies on top of the usual responsibilities. People still get sick, die. Where I serve, we try not to hold meetings and other gatherings in Holy Week. This year there are some matters that simply can’t wait. Normally, it’s too much for everyone involved, but more than that, the week deserves the undivided attention of our souls.

Here are some things helping me through both the spiritual and the vocational heaviness of this week.

Blooming Things: The magnolia trees in front of our home are joyously, wildly in bloom with deep pink blossoms.

Birthdays: The wee one whose birth I was present for turned 15 last weekend. I’m unclear how that’s even possible. Her name means Life.

Wise Elders: I’ve been visiting so many of our older folks for whom it is difficult to get to worship, plus a few who invited me to lunch and dinner. They carry such wisdom. They also carry the stories of the congregation. I’m so grateful for their support. I’m so grateful for them. I love to sit with a cup of tea or coffee (or wine!) and hear stories from their childhoods, or how they met each other. They show me pictures of their families and brag on the grands and great grands. At one visit, after sharing Eucharist, a parishioner asked his wife, who is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s if she wanted to sing Jesus Loves Me and so the three of us did and she sang every word with a strong voice. Yes, Jesus Loves Me. It’s all we really need to remember, anyway.

Meals Shared: See above. I’ve enjoyed delicious gatherings around many tables of late, but what makes it beautiful are the people.

Books: My books are my friends. I know that sounds weird, and I have actual human friends, too, but….my books. They have become companions in the mornings and in the evenings when I would have been sitting and chatting with Bruce in the before times. I’m reading a lot about grief, which helps in a multitude of ways. I’m re-reading some old favorites and I’ve read some amazing novels of late.

Podcasts: It took me awhile to get into podcasts. I’m much more a reader than a listener. But Anderson Cooper’s All There Is is just luminous. And there’s Am I Doing It Wrong? from Huffpost, in which I learned that I really only need to run my laundry on the shortest cycle. And From the Front Porch, which is a wonderful listen from The Bookshelf book shop in Thomasville, Georgia. My reading list is long(er) thanks to them.

March/es: I started marching with the march for marriage equality and then it was the Women’s March and then BLM and then No Kings. The last time I marched was the first No Kings last spring, shortly before Bruce got sick. I don’t have it in me just now to march, but WOW! The pictures were amazing. Well done. Now. We have another job to do. Vote. Every time. Vote.

Speaking of March. It will be over after tomorrow. And tomorrow will be the ten month mark. Ten months without my Beloved and I don’t know that I would say it’s any easier. Different. Some days are better than others. Many are terrible. On March 31, 2025, Bruce

Amidst the cherry trees the day before his knee surgery last year.

had his knee replaced. When they did the blood work up for that surgery, it was normal. That was in late February. Still, if the leukemia cells were in his bone marrow and they cut into that bone for the knee replacement, it seems at least in the realm of possibility that this might have been what accelerated his blast cell crisis. I’m not a doctor, though. But I do remember that both our daughter and I felt something was off on the day of his knee surgery. We chalked it up to being nervous for him. He wasn’t nervous at all. He was thrilled to finally get it taken care of and had plans that included snowboarding again! When the recovery room nurse called me, she told me I could come to his bedside in recovery early. Turns out, he was talking her ear off and she had other patients to tend to. But that was Bruce; he didn’t meet a stranger and he wanted to hear your story and tell you ours. By the time I reached his bedside in recovery, that nurse knew how we’d met and the names of our kids and grandkids.

By this time next week Jesus will have had the “last supper”, been hunted down in the garden, been betrayed, questioned, beaten, mocked, crucified, and he will have died and risen. If this is a story in your own story, may your Holy Week and Easter Day be full of graces large and small.