Good Friday Vigil at Saint Stephen’s in-the-Field. We dress down the church and set up a bare wood cross and labyrinth, and encourage people to sign up to stay and pray so we have coverage all night.
I am a night owl, so I signed up for 1 a.m. through 2 a.m. So why am I here with a cough at 2:45 a.m. when I have an early-for-me meeting tomorrow? Someone changed my slot without telling me, to 2 a.m. through 4 a.m.
So I had the double pleasure of waiting fifteen minutes in the cold for the shift change (while I confirmed, via Google Docs history, that I was not misremembering my time), finding out that the person inside was still only partially through their two hour shift, going home to crash, and coming back to wait in the colder cold again while the previous person ran over. (The irony of the sleeping apostles is not lost on me).
This has been my least effective Lent in recent memory. I went to Ash Wednesday service to get ashes, only to get quizzed about it by my favorite server at one of my favorite restaurants, who then to my dismay turned into an insulting, manipulative proselytizer. I have had a surprising share of similar bad reactions with people leaving me more rattled about how I treat and react to people (even though I was never the aggressor) than focused on God or reading the Bible. Visiting the sick has not worked as my friend who is hurt the most is too touch and go for visitors. And giving up alcohol for Lent proved more of an inconvenience than a prompt for reflection.
And yet, like going to church on Sunday, or volunteering for the church Vestry, or reading the Bible, the Vigil is serving its function: to draw my attention back to God.
May God’s peace, which passes all understanding, be with you always.
-the Centaur
