Saturday, March 25, 2023
Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Hardly working
Here I am, Lord. I come to do your will.
Chris, Melissa, Jack and Aly headed back home this morning. But before they left Jack and Aly had a bit of training and then a bit of flying, birds in the wind, flat in the high powered fan-breezes in Austin’s IFLY silo, hovering several feet above the ground. What a birthday gift!
Andi has flown three times. She and Aki skydived, too. Andi also climbed some indoor rock walls. Daredevil. She watched Jack and Aly, remembering.
Not exactly a quiet day in Lake Wobegon. We found lunch at a circle of food trucks nearby. After flying, we spent awhile at Kora, the revolving sushi restaurant in Austin. The plates of sushi kept coming, and we kept pulling them off the conveyor belt. And then, as the sun set on the first big blue sky of the week, our time together was over. Pretty sweet to be with all these fine people. No hurry. Don’t worry, be happy.
So today perhaps I’ll be lazy. No driving 500 miles, no getting up earlier than early to talk to my friend in India, no place to be, or go, or avoid, or find. I’ll watch basketball, finish a book on Geronimo, sleep late, do a little writing. Margaret and I can have lunch, and then sleep a little more. Why not? Time for a hundred indecisions, and all with little consequence.
Lots of folks are working hard today at things that mostly matter. All the NCAA men’s #1 seeds are down the tubes. So much parity in college basketball, they say. Never before, and that’s a fact. A year unlike any other. Jack’s bracket has a big spot for Gonzaga. Will they survive tonight? He’ll be watching close.
But me? I notice how simple it is to rest easy today, after all the busyness of the last week. Deep breaths rise slowly from my lungs. I lean back and close my eyes. Listen to an audiobook for a half hour or so, without getting up, without moving. Can’t do this very often, I’d go a little crazy. But today? It’s just fine.
I think of Mary.
Mary said, “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”
I think of Mary, sitting alone in her bedroom after Gabriel has gone. His instructions were for the future. All of this will happen then. What about now? How could she stop thinking about what she just heard?
She was greatly troubled at what was said. Then the angel said to her, “Mary, do not be afraid.”
Mary couldn’t relax that day. Too much unfinished business. Life would be getting very difficult. When she visited Elizabeth, also pregnant, also locked into important business with Yahweh, whose husband was also visited by the Angel – in that community of three Mary could rest. But now? Not on your life. Even her mother didn’t know this story. Mary was breaking all the new ground.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High … the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
All of us have so much to do, so much to finish before we sleep, before we die. I do too. All the more important that I rest, that I make Shabat every week and close my eyes in sleep, pondering as Mary did, how God might show up tomorrow.
Then the angel departed from her.
(Isaiah 7, Psalm 40, Hebrews 10, John 1, Luke 1)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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