This morning I welcomed a local friend to St. John’s, who’s a retired librarian and Episcopalian with a great interest in working with church archives, to begin sorting through and categorizing some of our very old books and historical documents. In the process of showing her around, I found a small book that was mailed to me by Tom Mousin a few weeks ago, after he found it among his papers: a notebook kept by the Rev. Wolcott Cutler from April 1964 to May 1965, several years after his retirement from St. John’s and in the time immediately before his death. It is a treasure trove of wisdom and insight, and I thought I might share a few excerpts “From an Old Rector” with you over the next few months. (I will try to keep the private portions private, and will beg Mr. Cutler’s forgiveness in heaven as necessary for sharing what I have.)

This week’s selection contains a reflection on the unhappiness we can often feel in the midst of seeming success and fulfillment, especially in retirement—and maybe a hint of a solution!

Cutler writes, on June 30, 1964:

“I heard such a surprising fact today about one of the most highly honored and intellectually prominent bishops in the Episcopal Church that I feel moved to speculate about the reasons for it, not that my conclusions will have real validity. I was told that Bishop Y, who retired from one of the most important centers of national as well as church life a very few years ago, and who divides his year between two of the most desirable locations, is bored and unhappy in his retirement. I can understand that as a retired official he is not looked to for favors by distinguished or by ambitious persons any more; but if he still reads significant books, if he still cares for what happens to humanity, or if he likes to do for others, why is he not even better able to carry out his interests than when he was bound down by the mechanics of administrative responsibility?

I praise the Lord that I can now, as this very night, devote two hours and a half to a single troubled brother, and not begrudge the time.”

May God give us all the gift of a few hours’ free time, now and then, and of the wisdom to use it with joy and compassion, for our own spiritual growth and, above all else, for the love of our neighbors.

Happy Easter!

I say this not just because I’m basking in the memory of Easter morning, and not just because my house is still full of chocolate rabbits and carrot-shaped candy, but because Easter is not just a day: it’s a fifty-day season, stretching from Easter Day to Ascension Day, which falls on the Thursday after the Sixth Sunday of Easter—a season stretching from April 17 to May 26 this year, a season of celebration even longer than our forty-day season of Lenten fasting.

Easter isn’t a season of fasting or arduous spiritual disciplines, but it can be a wonderful time to continue a daily devotional pattern of prayer. If you’re looking for a way to way to mark this season, I’d encourage you to take a look at 50 Days: Celebrating Easter with Daily Reflections from Forward Movement. It’s a free, online devotional with a new daily post during each day of Easter. You can read it on their website or subscribe to receive it in your email every morning. You might also enjoy Easter Triumph, Easter Joy, a book of daily devotions for Easter written by Scott Gunn, Executive Director of Forward Movement.

I’ve taken a few days off this week, so I’ll continue with my usual newsletter reflections next week. For now, I just wanted to share these resources with you.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed—Alleluia!

I’ve experienced many strange things as a priest, but by far the strangest was being mocked by a man wearing tights and carrying a musket for shamelessly going around outside without wearing a hat.

It was, of course, a Monday morning in mid-April, and I was at the Old Burying Ground in Lincoln, where I had been invited to offer prayers for the fallen British regulars who’d been buried there after the Battle of Concord in 1775. (The Congregationalist minister was invited to pray for the fallen colonial militia. Go figure.) Except for the two clergymen and a rather-uncomfortable representative from the British Consulate, the event consisted entirely of historical reenactors: men dressed in the uniforms of the British Army or the humble clothing of the Minute Men, shooting off blanks from authentic flintlock muskets in memory of the events of the past.

Our Holy Week can sometimes like feel an historical reenactment of the same kind, as we remember the events of the last week of Jesus’ life and act them out: waving palms, washing feet, breaking bread, and even giving voice to the main characters of the story in a dramatic passion play.

Unlike a military reenactment, our emphasis is not on the accurate details of clothes or tools; we do not dress in ancient garb or use first-century soap to wash our feet. Ours is a symbolic reenactment, pulling out a few key practices and moments from the events of Holy Week and reshaping them into the form of our liturgies.

But we share the same simple idea: that human beings are more than disembodied minds. By reenacting what has been, we can learn from and experience the events of the past and allow them to shape us in the present and the future. By reenacting the struggle for freedom, we strive to remain a free people. By reenacting Jesus’ acts of love, we allows ourselves to be formed into more loving people.

So join us, this Holy Week, if you can, as we remember those last few days of Jesus’ life and walk the way that Jesus walked, together.

Palm Sunday — April 10 — 10am

We celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem with a parade of palms, and remember the crushing disappointment of his betrayal, arrest, and death with a reading of the Passion According to Luke.

Maundy Thursday — April 14 — 7pm

As Jesus gathered with his disciples for a Last Supper together, we share a simple meal. As he taught them his “new commandment” to love one another as he loved them, and then humbly knelt to wash the dirt from their feet, we wash one another’s feet. As darkness fell and he went out to the Garden to pray, we strip the decorations and ornaments from our sanctuary and pray before the Blessed Sacrament in a Garden of Repose.

Good Friday — April 15 — 7pm

We remember again the events of Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, trial, and death with a solemn service of readings and prayers, and venerate the cross on which he died and through which he destroyed the power of death.

Holy Saturday — April 16 — 12pm

One of the simplest, most austere, but most beautiful services of the year, the Liturgy of the Word for Holy Saturday reflects on the day in which Jesus rested in the tomb, and offers prayers drawn from our funeral services.

The Great Vigil of Easter — April 16 — 7pm

Our celebration of Easter begins with the kindling of a new fire and the retelling of the whole story of salvation, stretching from the moment of creation through Easter morning, followed by a festive celebration of the first Eucharist of Easter.

Easter Sunday — April 17 — 10am

We journey with the women who followed Jesus to the door of his empty tomb, and see their astonishment to find him risen, crying aloud our words of praise: “Alleluia! Christ is risen!”

From time to time this year, a parishioner has asked me how the construction is going on the park next to our apartment. Most of the time, the answer has been, “Well, it’s really… not!” Not much gets done in the world of landscape construction when the ground is frozen. But now that it’s spring and work has started again, I’m reminded how much the work of a construction site can resemble the unfolding of our spiritual and emotional lives.

Sometimes the work is slow and unpredictable, as months pass by without any noticeable change. Sometimes it’s grating, even painful, as you’re awoken by the noise of a front-end loader dumping chunks of concrete into a dump truck at 6:45am. Sometimes it feels like a loss, as you watch a clawed behemoth rip shrubs from the dirt root and branch and listen to the sparrows who made their homes in them chirp forlornly from the wreckage. Sometimes it’s rather grim, as you look at your window for six months on what was once a beautiful green park and is now a heaping pile of dirt, wondering what they’re trying to do beneath the surface, what new plumbing is being installed in the trenches they must dig so early in the morning, before knocking off for the day at ten.

It’s a bit cheesy to write something for a church newsletter with the segue, “And isn’t it like this with God?” But—bear with me for a moment—isn’t it like this with God?

My spiritual life has never (never!) progressed in a straight line for more than a week or two. Sure, there are sometimes bursts of rich prayer in which I feel like I’m drawing closer to God, or times when I feel like I’m really on the right track, I’m really growing into a kinder or more loving or more compassionate person. But these moments are like the uneven activity in the park next door: brief flares of energy punctuating long periods of waiting.

And sometimes, in the more difficult and ultimately most fruitful parts of our lives, things can really be difficult. We can feel as though we’ve lost something we once had. We can feel as though the rich, green park that was once our prayer (or personality, or friendship) is now a vast expanse of dirt; as though something is being ripped up or stripped away, as if trenches are being dug in our souls and we don’t know when it will end, or how.

And yet in and through all this discomfort, real work is being done. It’s as true of spiritual growth as it is of construction that only superficial change can happen through small improvements to the surface. If you’re to really grow, God sometimes needs to rip up all the grass, dig some trenches through the dirt, and lay a few pipes to improve your drainage.

Faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) And while I hesitate to express faith in the ultimate competence of any municipal government, it’s fair to say that—in construction as in prayer—this is the only thing that will see you through: the assurance that what is being built will be worth it, that it will be even better than what was lost, that in God’s own time, you are being renewed and transformed into a more loving, more compassionate, more humble version of yourself—however many supply-chain issues and delays there may be along the way.