Resurrection Saturday: Let new work take root and thrive and grow!
Happy Resurrection, friends! Easter Sunday kicks off a week in the liturgical calendar known as the Easter Octave and a seven-week festival called Eastertide or The Great Fifty Days.
Incarnational activity
“To paint a picture or to write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity. The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birthgiver. In a very real sense the artist (male or female) should be like Mary who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command. Obedience is an unpopular word nowadays, but the artist must be obedient to the work, whether it be a symphony, a painting, or a story for a small child. I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very small, comes to the artist and says, "Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me." And the artist either says, "My soul doth magnify the Lord," and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses; but the obedient response is not necessarily a conscious one, and not everyone has the humble, courageous obedience of Mary.”
- Madeleine L'Engle
Watch: The Lost Words Blessing, filmed by Elly Lucas Photography, and edited by Ben Davis. The Lost Words Blessing was written in Scottish Gaelic folkloric form by a group of European musicians – Julie Fowlis, Karine Polwart, Seckou Keita, Kris Drever, Rachel Newton, Beth Porter, Jim Molyneux, Kerry Andrew. The form is inspired by blessings in Scottish Gaelic.
“In 2018, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris produced a book called The Lost Words Spells. The prompt of the book was the editing of the ‘Oxford Junior Dictionary’ in recent years. The junior edition of the Oxford Dictionary is aimed at readers ages seven and up and since 2007 the editors have removed from the book many words used to denote/describe things of nature– some of them relatively common words, such as: acorn, bluebell, ivy, fern, moss, blackberry, dandelion, lark, raven, heron, starling, hazel, heather, goldfinch, grey seal, otter and kingfisher.
The editing body of the OED had determined that the words were of little and lessening use to the modern child. Youngsters weren’t hob-nobbing with hedgehogs and wrens (also excised) and frogs and buttercups (another casualty!), and so needn’t be introduced to words that served well only with regards to the out-of-doors. They excused their actions on the grounds that they needed room for other, newer words with greater relevance to the modern child. Like: attachment, blog, broadband, chatroom, database, committee, and voice-mail.
In 2015, authors Margaret Atwood, Helen Macdonald, and Macfarlane, among other novelists and nature writers, expressed their dismay in an open letter to Oxford University Press. “Childhood is undergoing profound change; some of this is negative; and the rapid decline in children’s connections to nature is a major problem,” they wrote.”
LYRICS
Enter the wild with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you travel far from heather, crag and river
May you like the little fisher, set the stream alight with glitter
May you enter now as otter without falter into water
Look to the sky with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you journey on past dying stars exploding
Like the gilded one in flight, leave your little gifts of light
And in the dead of night my darling,
find the gleaming eye of starling
Like the little aviator, sing your heart to all dark matter
Walk through the world with care, my love
And sing the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you stumble through machair sands eroding
Let the fern unfurl your grieving, let the heron still your breathing
Let the selkie swim you deeper, oh my little silver-seeker
Even as the hour grows bleaker, be the singer and the speaker
And in city and in forest, let the larks become your chorus
And when every hope is gone, let the raven call you home
Read: Psalm 145; Psalm 104; Isaiah 25:1-9; Acts 4:13-21; John 16:16-33
Listen: I made us a new playlist for Eastertide - Resurrection 2021: Who Will Roll Away the Stone?
Pray: Book of Common Prayer, Collect for Easter Saturday
Heavenly Father, you have delivered us from the dominion of sin and death, and brought us into the kingdom of your beloved Son: Grant that, as by his death he has called us to life, so by his love he may raise us to eternal joys; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Do: In previous years, we've celebrated the Great 50 Days between Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday (aka, Eastertide) with a series I've dubbed Practice Resurrection (after the Wendell Berry poem). It's one of my favorite series all year, and I'm excited to start again. To get the photo-sharing party started, I’ve created an 8-day Instagram challenge for the first week of Eastertide. Use the prompts as simply or creatively as you’d like, add the hashtag #practiceresurrection2021 and tag me @a_sacramental_life!
Can’t wait to celebrate NEW LIFE together this week, friends! May you know new life, peace, and hope today, tomorrow, and forever.
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!
Tamara
You can read here for a brief description of the liturgical season of Eastertide, and see previous Eastertide posts here.
You might enjoy the list of ideas I brainstormed for simple ways to practice resurrection. Choose 1 idea or 50, but whatever you do, do it with gusto!