Everyday Life

This year I celebrate Holy Week in a Muslim country for the first time.

Growing up, Holy Week was special for extended family reunions and long beach holidays in Bicol, my dad’s home province in the Philippines. I’ve always been a spritually curious child, and what I most remember were the candlelit processions at night, with devotees walking barefoot next to their clan’s dressed up santo, adorned with flowers, lights and recorded music of the pasyon. I loved naming all the saints passing through our house, and always wondered about life back in biblical times.

Now that I’m in Turkey, everyday I see sheep with their shepherd grazing on the hills and my lingering thoughts always bring me back to imagining those biblical times. Being in similar terrain, the resonance with the Christ experience is immense, almost like a deep remembering, and it helps that we’re within driving distance to Ephesus and the house of Mary.

Palm Sunday is the start of Holy Week, when Christ, the Sun-being, entered Jerusalem on a donkey and its foal.

There is a fairytale about a prince who was born as a donkey. The king and queen, his parents, accept and love him. But they are skeptical about the donkey’s ability to fulfil his desire to play the lyre. Yet, despite his obvious handicap, he does.

Our physical nature is like that donkey. It is the part of us that belongs to a particular family, a particular tribe, nationality, or language group. It represents the earth, out of which our physical nature is born. For most of us, it takes tremendous spiritual effort to “learn to play the lyre”, that is, to rise above the limitations of our physicality, our family origins, our national inclinations, and our language’s thought patterns.

by Rev. Cynthia Hindes via Craig Wiggins

This meditation hits home most especially because Leadia, our life and passion project, is about building that safe, empowering and supportive environment where we can be who we truly are, and build whatever we’re crazy enough to imagine.

Here’s to diving deep into who we are this solemn week, through the darkness & all the way to a lovely rebirthing on Easter Sunday!🌈

#holyweek #iam #rebirth

Read the full meditation here.