Holy Week starts tomorrow. For those of you following along at home who do not hold leadership positions in a church, it's a pretty crazy week for us. It's so crazy, that the seminary gives students Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of it off, in part so that we can appropriately observe the solemnity of Christ's Passion, but also because they know that many of us will have to be working a number of services and getting things prepared for the celebration of Easter next Sunday. In addition, the services during Holy Week are often big productions. Tomorrow—Palm Sunday—alone at the church I work at, both services will feature the really young (5-7) children's choir, the older (7-10) children's choir (featuring a few members of the church's bell choir), the youth (middle/high school) choir, and the adult choir. Each of these groups are offering their own anthems, which means they have to be shoved into an already jam-packed order of worship. They also all have to rehearse in the sanctuary (to get accustomed to the space), which adds to the logistical complications of the service. In short, tomorrow morning is going to be stressful (and I'm wondering if it'll be better if my children's choir just doesn't perform on Palm Sunday next year).
But in spite of all that and all the stress that is about to fall on me in the next two weeks (Holy Week, two papers, a group debate, and concert week), today was rather calm. I woke up around 9 and stayed in bed. I did some reading (for one of my papers). I took a nap. I did some cleaning. My mom got in. I had an absolutely lovely dinner with her at P.F. Chang's. It was all very peaceful, and kind of put my mind at ease for what's about to come tomorrow. She'll be in town for the next couple of days, so that'll definitely help too. Wish me luck on what's coming this week, and say a prayer for the pastors and church employees who are working so hard to ensure that Holy Week and Easter are meaningful for their congregants.
Today, I saw God in the calm before the storm.
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