On the Common 156
Forgotten Feelings and Maundy Money.
Hi there,
This is your official reminder that Mother’s Day is coming. Do you need help or suggestions? I am available.
The Part Where There’s an Essay: Packing My Bags
(originally published in 2019)
As David made his tea yesterday morning, he let out a little groan. I asked what was on his mind. He said, “I was just remembering our last day in London. I remember making my tea that morning and thinking about how our trip was over...how there would be no more tea in London for us. If we were ever to go again, there would be another last day, and that makes me sad.”
I laughed aloud, thinking about how he had not only jumped to making another trip, but also to that trip already being over. I would call it glass-half-empty thinking; he would call it realism.
There is definitely something about travel that helps me meditate on Heaven. Back in 2014, David and I made our first trip to England, just the two of us. I spent most of the months leading up to the trip in disbelief that it was actually going to happen. On hard days, with the usual demands of parenting and homeschooling and all of the rest of it, I would think about how at a definite, set date in the future, I would be landing on the ground in London. I would take a train to Oxford. I would be there! It seemed too good to be true. I could endure a lot of hard days if I kept the goal in mind.
I picked out things I would wear. I anticipated how I would pack. I made list after list of places I wanted to see, knowing full well that there would, in fact, be a “last day,” and I could never see everything. Why oh why can’t travel time and budgets be limitless?
But in eternity, the time and the budget is limitless. Why do we not live more often with this truth in mind? At some definite, set date in the future, we will be with the Lord. We will have all the time in the world to enjoy, to walk, to grow, to rest. We will walk in the Port Meadows of eternity and not grow tired. There won't be a sad "last day." We can put of with a lot in the here and now if we keep that in mind.
I don’t mean to say we should check out for now and be “so Heavenly minded that we’re no earthly good.” What comes our way in the here and now is a way of “packing our bags,” of preparing us for the feast and rest to come. We can welcome it with the knowledge that there is a sure and steady hand guiding it to us and for our good.
Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. John 14:1-3
For the Anglophiles
One interesting English tradition that springs up around Easter is that of the Maundy Money, which dates back to the reign of Charles II. The monarch distributes this money at a church service on Maundy Thursday (the Thursday of Holy Week). The number of recipients matches the age of the monarch. More from the Royal Mint here.
Reads & Listens of the Week
“Argue from feelings. Sometimes it’s necessary.” First Things says that The Right Has Forgotten Feeling. I’m not all in on this article, but it gave me plenty to think about (feel?).
China’s Churches Go Deep Rather than Wide at Christmas. This is an older article, but still worth a read! “Regardless of external circumstances, Christ’s life has brought salvation, and God’s kingdom will endure and ultimately triumph over all secular authorities.”
If you’re a person who loves live theater, you might enjoy Freakonomics’ most recent series, called “How is Live Theater Still Alive?”
In case you’ve never read it, I wanted to pass along the full text of something I read before our annual Easter lunch: The Greatest Drama Ever Staged, by Dorothy Sayers. “For what it means is this, among other things: that for whatever reason God chose to make man as he is—limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death—He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine.”
When Judas sinned, Jesus paid; He brought good out of evil, He led out triumph from the gates of hell and brought all mankind out with Him; but the suffering of Jesus and the sin of Judas remain a reality. God did not abolish the fact of evil: He transformed it. He did not stop the crucifixion: He rose from the dead. - Dorothy L. Sayers, "The Triumph of Easter"
Oooh! I read that Feelings article on the way to the Cannonballers last week (along with the Homeschooling article). Then I went down the Freya India rabbit trail of her substack ... she definitely brings in some interesting perspective as a British adult convert ... I want to chat about her more!!