The Time We Had a Confetti Explosion in the Sanctuary

So, this happened:

That's confetti.  In the chancel.  On Palm Sunday.  It started out the morning in two very large bowls on the communion table.  And then there was a children's time.  And a vow renewal celebrating the 25th anniversary of a couple in the congregation.  

Palms? They're great.  If you're an adult, you might choose to wave them listlessly during the opening hymn or worship litany.  If you were paying attention at the beginning of Lent, you might even remember they are saved and dried and burned for ashes for next year's Ash Wednesday.  The children and youth of the congregation know the great glory of the day, though: you can also poke your neighbor or whack your sibling over the head with your palms.

Really, though, nothing beats arming a gaggle of excited children with confetti and intentionally making them wait for five whole minutes while you're doing an actual vow renewal.  Bonus points if you rearrange the sanctuary for that morning so people are already nudged out of their comfort zones. Palm Sunday = great celebration.  Imminent disruption of the status quo.  

Liturgical use of party supplies FTW. 

I'm still finding confetti in my worship leader's notebook.  It took quite a bit of sweeping and vacuuming that afternoon to get this cleaned up.  It helps, when you're a little unorthodox in your worship planning, to have very tolerant building and grounds volunteers.  This image only used about one quarter of the confetti barrage.  I swept it together before someone came in with a shop vac:  

After the Great Confetti Incident, things did settle down.  We told the story of Holy Week, lessons-and-carols style, from the triumphant entry to an intimate dinner with dear ones.  We had communion around banquet tables.  At the end of the service, we brought in a rough cross to place in the chancel for the rest of Holy Week.  The remains of the celebration were still visible, just as they might have been as things started going very wrong once-upon-a-time-in-the-Gospels.  

edit, summer 2014:  People are STILL talking about it.  I had a meeting in early July with a community member and mentioned our website.  "Oh, yeah...the confetti cross!"

everyday bandits

we have been letting them kill jesus
different names to be sure different
baptismal names given names adopted
names of poor rich artbringing musicmaking
different skin different attitude different

when things are less than clear we call
for a scapegoat face mixed-up mixed-in
out of place lingering in the margins face
so an everyday bandit in a three piece suit
or casual friday khakis may just get away
but the one who declines to rule who just
wants to celebrate the sheer power of life -

that one, we crucify.

we have been killing jesus for a long time now
jesus with different names faces genders loves
family trees places of being passions and tastes
but this passion for life shown by a child of god
is the one that must be crushed obliterated
ignored marginalized not matter not ours no

an affront. dust and ashes whose insignificance
we must prove by forcefully casting aside a threat

to everyday bandits everywhere


Inspired by the passion story
in the Gospel according to John
Holy Week 2013

what is truth?

things are moving too fast
can we not stop this dissonant parade?

passover dinner to garden to prayer
and in a sleepy fog they came, we fought
over him and thought not much in a torchlit
terror-filled garden

to Annas to Caiaphas to Pilate we cannot
keep straight where they have taken him
but he is moving, always moving, they are
moving him and striking him and asking
ever more questions that have no fair answer

questions that lead to one conclusion
a painful one a shouting crowd
the kingdom of something certainly
not the one we were looking for

what is truth?



Inspired by the passion story 
according to the Gospel of John
Holy Week 2013

I did not know that man

Peter...

I thought I’d just sit in the courtyard, by the fire with the other bystanders, and wait to see if there was any news. It was a cold night, and the whole scene in the garden put a chill in me that I couldn’t shake. Not even the fire helped.

I kept flashing the pictures in my mind. Things had changed so fast, after we got into the city. That first day of crowds and celebration. It was all so bewildering! I’m still not used to big cities. We told him it was too risky, the priests would be all over him – and he wasn’t so good at biting his tongue and holding his temper, when it came down to it. But he insisted, and we became part of the spectacle. Some of us were trying to watch out for threats – I know there were spies in the crowd – and the rumor was that Pilate was arriving in the city on the same day. If the Romans were trying to keep things calm for Passover, we were doing exactly the wrong thing. But nobody leaped out to stop us, and we rode right through the city gates.

You know, every day I tried to get him to tell me what he had in mind, and he wouldn’t tell me. He would just shake his head and say, “Peter, Peter. My rock. Even now, you try to intervene. Do you not see?” I said I would never leave him, never desert him. But he seemed to be going to a place I could not follow. It hurt. I didn’t understand.

I was with him in the temple when he upset the tables and sacrificial animals were out of their cages, flying and running around us all. (Why is it the animals always seem to act up when he is angry!) I was with him at dinner and even though he shared the blessing with us, he seemed so far away. I was with him when we went out of the city, and before we reached the garden, he had promised me that I – I, Peter, the Rock – would deny him. Me!

I fell asleep in my cloak while he was praying – but I was there. I was with him. I was with him – too - until Judas came with his corrupt cronies. Then I watched from the shadows, hidden in the trees, shivering, as their torches bobbed down the hill toward the city.

What could I do now? I waited until they had gone a safe distance, then I followed. I went to the chief priest’s house. It was the only thing I could come up with. I may be thick sometimes, but I’m no coward. I thought maybe I would hear word about what was happening inside. Maybe I could save him – maybe I could bring word to the others – but I had to get close enough to find out.

So I had my hands out toward the fire – still couldn’t shake that chill – as a servant-girl made her way around the courtyard. It was packed with people, and she had to thread her way between the crowd. She looked bright. The servants know all the house gossip. Maybe she would know what was happening. I caught her eye –and it seemed to work – but before I said anything she looked me up and down and said “I know you. You were with him! You were with Jesus the Galilean!”

I moved away pretty quickly. Slid into the shadows on the porch. How did she know me? Nobody was supposed to know I had been there, at the parade, when the teacher rode a donkey into the city. I couldn’t have anyone betraying my secret.

It got closer and closer to morning and the courtyard grew lighter. I saw more of the elders coming in to the house and I desperately wanted to know what it meant. I wanted to be with him and it was tearing me apart. I wanted to know why this was all happening.

But the people waiting there wouldn’t leave me alone. That servant girl must have talked because another one started whispering in people’s ears. Soon, everyone was turning and looking at me in the early morning light and I had to swear it – SWEAR it – and I said “I do not know that man!”

My words were still ringing in the early morning air when the rooster crowed. I ran out of the courtyard. I ran to get away from the sound, and what I’d just said, and what I had just done. I ran down the streets and alleyways until I couldn’t go any longer. And I stopped and sank down as low as I could go and I cried as if my heart would break.

I did not know that man. But he knew me.

Seven achingly beautiful things, before the cross

Flagrantly broken jar
Smelly house
Scandal

Dirty water
Clean feet
Confused hearts

Blessing once
And once again
Singing prayer

Evening breeze
A whisper,
please

Fireflies in a line
Floating uphill

Double-edged greeting
Love walks with

Fear not,
I am.

Inspired by revgalblogpals Friday 5