about time for a walk

There were great celebrations here for Easter. Heather and I went to the vigil Saturday night at the Catholic church, then to the Mennonite church Sunday morning. I enjoyed them both.

But something in the resurrection play Sunday morning left me disturbed. There was a scene, after Jesus is buried, where Peter is telling the others that he wants to go back to Galilee. He is discouraged and confused. And very nervous. The Romans have just killed their leader (who they thought was the Messiah) and the local Jewish leaders and public opinion are against them. He thinks it's best if they get out of Jerusalem.

Then the next morning they hear that Jesus is alive.

I can sense how incredible that would feel. But then I look around at the context in which this story is told. A bunch of middle-class suburbanites having a yearly religious celebration and a big meal afterwards. Big difference. A scene like that makes Christianity seem boring.

Which it definitely should not be. The first Easter was certainly not boring (terrifying is more like it: "And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid" Mk 16.8). This is the kind of description of Christianity I like to hear:

"I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!

"...Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division; for henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three..." (Lk 12.49, 51-52)

Revolutionary Christianity, that's what I want to live.

It feels about time for a walk. I've mapped out a possible route, starting in Akron, OH, then going up to Cleveland (visiting Catholic Worker houses in both places). Then west to Ann Arbor to visit friends and family. And southwest all the way to where Heather plans to spend the summer, at Plow Creek farm in Tiskilwa, IL. We'll be leaving here at the beginning of June.