Holy Week 2014

Holy week, a most special time of the year. So it’s a half holiday from school all week. (A compromise between school expectations and homeschooling freedom: we are just about done with science and history anyway so only doing Bible, Math, and Greek)

Palm Sunday, standing outside church with palms, and waving them, coming in. Before that, decorating the chapel with palms, with a high heart. And then, after we come in and the service proceeds, we read the passion story from Matthew. I think every one of the 13 people there had a part to read in the passion story. I was Pilate, and part of the Rulers. Somehow, drama brings the story alive.

Monday Ravinia had a teeth cleaning appointment, and since we got there early we went for sorbet at the wonderful little shop, Scoop. It’s in the same block. We joked about freezing our teeth, but truth to tell, my molar slated for a root canal ached. Sitting waiting, I read recipes and Hope, looking up from her work on Ravinia’s teeth, offered to photocopy them for me. What I really wanted was the recipe for wilted spinach (fry garlic in olive oil, add balsamic vinegar and brown sugar, cook spinach 5 minutes). I used it that night!

In the evening we had a Passover Seder. Now, there are two times to have Seder, if you are a Christian. You can look up when the Jews are doing it, according to their calendar, on the 14th day of Nissan, or you can do it when the Christians are celebrating Maundy Thursday and remembering Jesus’ words of consecration of his last supper. Last year we had it on Thursday and then rushed out to our church service which included the foot washing. Ravinia said that made sense, eating the passover with some sense of rushing out. But I’d decided this year to join the Jews largely because it made for a very exhausting Thursday!! We had a Christian Seder with 12 people, and I’d edited the format from Celebrating Biblical Feasts (free haggadah here)

Tuesday we did our bit of school work, piano lesson, and prepared for college students to come to the house for class (they loved the matzah left out for them, because after Passover starts a week of eating unleavened bread) and went to meet other homeschoolers at the park. The house was amazingly clean early (it’s a wonder what time you find when you only do half the school work) and we had a good evening.

Wednesday was the day for the root canal, 2pm. I also had to shop at Costco, and pay for a group ticket at Amtrak. In the morning we went to campus to help move the gigantic cross from the chapel service to our chapel where we will use it this weekend. It had red slips of paper nailed to it (they wrote confessions?) and we are leaving them on. We plan to drape a black cloth over them all on Friday, then for Saturday night’s Easter Vigil to replace the red slips with white paper. On Sunday it will be covered with flowers, Lord willing!

So, root canal. I’m sitting there on the chair and the specialist very kindly asks me if my nerves are okay (not the one in the tooth, I think first and then, oh nervous about the job? Nah!) and I respond that I’ve got music on my phone. “Did you bring earphones?” he asks, “Because I will need to be listening to my instruments.”

He numbed me up (good job, too) and gave me 10 minutes to wait, so I went out to the car to grab the earbuds in the glove compartment. Yes! Turned on The Messiah.

Can I just recommend you listen to the Messiah this week?

If you don’t have time, listen to the second half (of course).

Imagine, drilling noises drowned out by He Shall Lead His Flock. I worshiped.

I remembered Ann Voskamp’s (and others) messages of gratitude, and gave thanks for the specialist. Overflowed with gratitude. When he asked, how am I doing, feeling pain? For the most part I did not. When I did, he put in more numbing (do they still use novocaine?).

My mouth seriously being worked on, I thought of Jesus, dying. (yeah, gratitude!)

My pain almost nothing but feeling the push, knowing the drilling out of three roots in the one tooth, anxiety kept at bay by the beautiful words and music, I worshiped. I loved the specialist. Is that odd? Not in any romantic way but in a deeper thankful and perhaps godly way. I trusted him, and I was so thankful by his manner both of work and of kindness to me that he was worthy of that trust. Perhaps my love for him flowed out of my love and worship for God?

Today is a lighter day. Again the 3 subjects of school work, and I have to go back to Amtrak to let them reprint the ticket because they called about a mistake they made. I’m still taking the ibuprofen the specialist gave me, but about every 8 hours instead of 4-6, and still thankful. Tonight we have a special service that I can prepare for, and need to clean out and prepare for the rest of the weekend as well.

But in it all I live to thank and praise the Lord. Join me?

Linking up with Bonnie Gray

and Jennifer Dukes Lee