Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week in
the Christian Tradition. It is a day of celebration to reflect on the day Jesus
rode into Jerusalem, greeted by the crowds of people who had gathered, waving
palm branches to welcome him with joy. It is also known as Passion Sunday and
is a day where we begin to prepare ourselves for the loss that we will
experience on Good Friday when Jesus was crucified and died.
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| "The cross" where I spend time reflecting. |
Each year I try to “live” this Holy Week. I attend all
the church services and try to be reflective on Jesus’ life and what he brought
to us. I do this because I have been
told that you can’t experience the “Easter”, the resurrection of Christ, without
walking through Holy Week and experiencing the death and loss first. It is true. We have to die before we can
experience transformation of new life. Every year I expect and wait with hope
for some great change in myself to happen on Easter, to be transformed in some
way, but I can’t say I have experienced anything as grand as I have hoped for.
This year is different. A very mystical, spiritual
leader and friend is now preparing herself and her family for her death. She is
dying, way too soon, way too young, with so many gifts yet to share with us,
but life is like that. There is no understanding, there can only be some form
of acceptance.
I love the children’s book “Waterbugs and Dragonflies”
by Doris Stickney. It tells the story of the waterbugs that live on the bottom
of the pond and how every now and then one of them disappears never to return
and all the little waterbugs want to know what happens. They all promise to
come back and tell the others but of course when they climb to the top of the
reed they are transformed into beautiful dragonflies. When they try to return they
can no longer enter the pond. It is the story about life, death and life beyond
death. Although it gives us no answers to the mystery of what is yet to come it
gives us hope of new life.
This past fall with encouragement from my daughter, I
went and a got a tattoo...and what did I choose but a dragonfly. These past
couple of years I have been drawn to them more and more. They are beautiful
insects with amazing abilities. The dragonfly’s agile flight and its ability to move in all six
directions shows us a sense of power and poise, something that comes only with
age and maturity. The dragonfly can move at an amazing 45 miles an hour, hover like
a helicopter fly backwards like a hummingbird, fly straight up, down and on
either side and it can do this while flapping its wings a mere 30 times a
minute while houseflies need to flap their wings a 1000 times a minute. They
are incredible.
This week I sent
my “goodbye” to my friend, a woman who has taught me so much about my faith,
who brought the feminine side of God to me and shared with me so many
meaningful rituals. She has done amazing things with her life, continually
learning, growing and most importantly sharing all of her knowledge, faith and experiences
with everyone through her ministry, her writings and her living of life. She too
is incredible. I have continued to pray for a miracle, they do happen and I
need to have hope. This week, with such grace, she has begun this time of
letting go, of saying goodbye to her family and friends and I too am slowly
letting go. Yet because of her deep spiritual faith and life I can’t keep myself
from still hoping for a miracle.
So
my journey through Holy Week this year is going to be very different from every
other year. Not only will I be preparing myself for the Friday of Jesus’ death,
I will also be preparing myself for the grief that will come someday soon when
I lose someone I have admired for years but as I prepare, I can’t give up on
hope. The dragonfly’s life is very short
yet they are able to do such miraculous things in their brief life, just like
my friend has. It means living each moment of life fully, completely and
mindfully, making the most of every moment, of every day. It’s something we all
need to do, not to waste one precious moment. I try to live a life full of
experiences and adventures, to make each day count but I can’t do it without
hope for something more to come, for that one miracle...whatever it may be. So I
wrote to my friend the other day, telling her that maybe, just maybe that
miracle will come after she has journeyed from this life to the next. Maybe she
will be that one “dragonfly” that comes back in some spiritual way to let us in
on this great mystery of life, of life beyond death. It may sound silly and
childish, I should just let go, but I can’t, I have to continue to believe, to
dream and to have hope. |
| A dragonfly I purchased in honour of a woman who has so deeply touched my life. |
