Contemplation and Chaos: A Holy Week Reflection

Last Wednesday night was a typical busy evening in our home. We had just returned from the Lent program at church and were doing our best to wind down. One child was finishing up homework, while the other was creating digital art on the iPad. Jay was away on a work trip.

In an effort to carve out a small sense of calm, I put in my earbuds and started folding laundry while listening to Lent by Liturgical Folk. This album is a beautiful expression of the emerging church rediscovering ancient traditions that the Episcopal Church has long practiced, reimagined with fresh, meaningful music. It’s a good album for folding laundry on a Wednesday night.

But just as I was settling into the contemplative melodies, my listening was unexpectedly interrupted—by a happy little ditty playing over top of the meditative lyrics. Somehow, my earbuds were picking up both the music from my phone and the whimsical sounds from my child’s art app at the same time.

I couldn’t help but laugh. It felt like the perfect musical illustration of real-life Lent. We do our best to observe a Holy Lent with intention and mindfulness—but life continues all around us, with its own soundtrack of chaos, joy, distraction, and unpredictability. A silly little ditty layered on top of a solemn hymn—life lived in Lent.

And now we arrive at Holy Week. This Palm Sunday marks the beginning of a sacred journey—a time when I want nothing more than to wipe my calendar clean and be fully present to Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem, his betrayal and trial, his crucifixion, his time in the tomb, and finally, his triumphant resurrection. I want to soak in the sheer drama and depth of this story that defines our faith.

But Holy Week, like Lent, doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s also a time of doing all the things—finalizing bulletins, printing materials, preparing worship spaces, rehearsing music, writing sermons, arranging flowers, welcoming people, praying prayers… all while still buying groceries, driving kids around, and yes, folding laundry.

So here is my prayer for you this week:

That you would set yourself and your time apart as much as possible. That you would be intentional about attending each of our Holy Week services, especially the Triduum—Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter—which is most transformative when experienced as one liturgy in three movements.

And yet, when life inevitably collides with your contemplation, I pray you would meet God there, too. Because the events of Holy Week—Jesus’s final days—were themselves filled with chaos, unease, and sorrow. And in the middle of it all, God was there.

In the contemplation and in the chaos, you are never alone. God is with you always.

Come and see where God shows up this week at St. Martin’s.

Would you like to join us on our Eastertide pilgrimage from Maryland to Alabama? Thanks to technology, you can virtually walk with me and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission pilgrims to the places where God’s people lived into resurrection hope, through public witness, where iconic events in the civil rights movement happened. As we experience this transformative journey you can also become witnesses.

Join us in prayer as we make our way through Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma April 21-25. The pilgrims in Alabama will share daily reflections and experiences with you in a variety of ways – prayers, photos, images, and videos will be available on our Facebook page, through emails, and on the Maryland Episcopalian storytelling website. Please consider becoming a prayer partner.

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May God grant us strength and courage to identify racial injustice and oppression that is happening now, and in our history, with honesty and integrity.