An Extraordinary Easter

A Happy and Blessed Easter to all.

There's a lot I could write about as I sit back and review the last couple of weeks.

I could write about the rigors of being a liturgical musician in a prominent church where the standards for musical excellence are set pretty high, and MUCH higher than in your average parish.

I'd have to sit down and do the full count of new pieces learned over the course of the last few weeks, but I do know it was a lot of music. In spite of the time limits, the music came together quite nicely and there were moments of pure musical joy - those moments when the congregation is fully engaged in the music and the sound swells in the building and the words "Sing to the Lord" come alive.

I could write about the living theater aspect of liturgy. The Good Friday service was intense and emotional. The Easter Vigil, a marathon of reading, singing, torches, trumpets, bowing, and full-throated Alleluias, was exhilarating and exhausting.

But I think I want to write most about hearing God in everyday actions and events. Some may call certain events coincidence, or irony, or karma, or some don't see any connection at all. Life can be just a random series of events that have little or nothing to do with anything.

I've never believed that. For me, there is an order to all things. I may not always understand the reason behind some things, but I have always recognized that there is a reason. I also believe that it is through the course of seemingly ordinary events that God becomes most present to me.

One mistake in thinking that seems to be very common is thinking that the small events of one's life are not worthy of God's attention. This is often referred to as "God has more important things to worry about."

Indeed there are problems in the world of far greater magnitude and significance than the small irritations of an otherwise prosperous life, but it's important, I think, to keep a firm grasp on the concept of omnipotence. For an omnipotent God, who has created all things and knows all things in all times and places, what is there that God could not know?

If I believe that God is love expressed in its purest form, unhindered by any false expectations and unceasingly offered, then what is there that God would not care about? God cares about every event from the smallest to the largest not because the event itself matters, but because what we choose to do and how we choose to act matters greatly.

What is the greatest commandment? Love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart, your whole mind, and your whole soul. And the second is like it - love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Even in the most insignificant moments of our lives we can show love for God and love for neighbor, and it is when we choose to not show this love that the insignificant events become as important as catastrophes in the eyes of God.

Case in point:

Prior to Easter Vigil Mass, someone said something to me that I thought was unkind. It may have been unintentional. Maybe it was meant to be unkind, or maybe it wasn't. I don't know. I do know that I interpreted it as unkindness and as a result, my feelings were hurt. So I sulked all the way through Mass and was still sulking when it was over and I was on my way home.

It was one sentence out of a whole evening of sentences, out of months of sentences filled with kindness and friendship, but this one unkind sentence is the one that I could not, would not, let go.

On the ride home, in the course of conversation with the person who was driving, I made a similarly unkind comment about the person who I thought had been unkind to me. Almost immediately, I realized how poorly I was responding based on some minor insult that I let anger me. Unfortunately, the words were already out of my mouth and after having heard less than an hour earlier a homily on the consequences of responding to evil with evil, I found myself doing exactly that. I had the opportunity to respond to an insult with love, grace, and good humor. Instead I responded with an ill temper and sarcasm.

The next morning at Easter Sunday Mass, the very same issue that was at the root of all the crabbiness from the day before took center stage by way of a series of unforeseen circumstances. It didn't take me long to realize how the situation was snowballing. Neither did it take me long to realize that I would have been much better off had I held my sarcastic tongue rather than making a flip and unnecessary remark.

A small event to be sure. Compared to the war in Iraq and the atrocities in Darfur, it is microscopic in its significance to the world.

However, in God's eyes this little vignette of communication is important for the same reason as the other, more dramatic, events. The greatest commandments are being broken.