Deconstructing Church

I sat up on Easter Monday and realised I hadn’t done my blog prayers on Easter Sunday! And I smiled. For there was no guilt, no shame. I wasn’t going to beat myself up for that. Alleluia! He is risen indeed.

For what an Easter journey it has been. I have felt so disconnected. Lost. Apart from it all. I have been working very closely with an online community, The Ordinary Office (find them on twitter @Ord_Off or online at https://www.anordinaryoffice.co.uk) and have been honoured to preach for their online services, in particular on Easter Sunday. God was at the heart of it, and They delivered. But at times it all felt so abstract. Unreal.

Yet, there is nothing more real than the pattern of Easter. Of complete searing loss, devastation, emptiness. Of finding a way to live again after that was seemingly impossible. We do it all the time. After a relationship breakdown. After a redundancy. After a death. Granted, not usually literally. But once Easter had passed, and the expectations were over, the traditions were fulfilled and the routines were complete, once I had the space to look at my own life, look where death was looming and declaring victory, and pray resurrection into it, then I could see Easter for what I needed it to be.

Not an observance of a story in the Bible, the Church’s response to that, and society’s commercialisation of a springtide tradition. But my heart’s reflection on the darkness in my life and the Spirit within me’s reassurance that life would win. If I let it.

This week, I have lived like I am letting it. It has only been three days. But I am happier, my home is breezier, and my soul is lighter. Easter has never lifted me before like it has this year. Not from traditional Church, but from Online Community. Not from following rites and communion but from following where the Spirit led and engaging actively in Twitter community/the community in my street, on my doorstep. Not just from the Bible, but from scholarly books actively engaging in discourse around the Easter narratives – more on that later!

Now I am no longer tied to a Church, a tradition, a denomination, I am free to live Easter in the Wilderness and just see how God wants to speak to me, 1:1, just us. As Jesus did, as John did, as Moses did. It’s amazing. The journey to the wilderness is tough. But once you get used to it out here, it’s a fine place to be. I’m gonna stay for a little while …

Peace be with you.