This time last year, I was part of a travelling Palm Sunday play with the Spark Festival of Worship and the Arts in Edinburgh. On a chilly Sunday afternoon, we walked through the city, actors, storytellers and a broad range of audience members together. The lines between these categories perhaps a little hard to distinguish. There were no costumes, per se, and the actors and storytellers mingled with the audience. From time to time, we stopped along the way and someone would step forward and share their part of the story. I played Mary, the mother of Jesus. It was challenging to look at the Easter story through her eyes, challenging to step into the story and relive the familiar events with a mother’s expectations in mind. You can find the text I prepared here. And here.
It was also a challenge to reimagine Edinburgh as Jerusalem. The Holy Land seems so far away, and the Biblical story even more so. Seeing places along my commute as possible locations for the Easter story was a stretch, but a creatively useful one. Where would Pilate speak? Where could you find Christ’s mother? Christ’s Gethsemane, too? Of course, the old stone buildings helped – just knowing how many generations have passed this way gives weight and resonance to all our stories. And the crowds of tourists helped, too. Jerusalem at Passover then as now would have been crowded with strangers looking for significance and souvenirs.
It was a powerful bit of theatre to be part of and a powerful way to reconsider both the city and the Easter story.
During the summer, I moved away,following the Spouse’s job trail south to Cardiff.This past week, we brought our little family back up north to Edinburgh for an Easter holiday. The kids have two weeks off school – which is a rather perfect way to mark Easter – and it’s giving us the chance to reconnect with some of our friends here.
It’s lovely to be back in the neighbourhood. So much of our family story has happened here. This is the city where our Plum was born, and where Blue started school. We all did a lot of growing
Being back, I’m trying to stay awake to all the details that I walked passed every day. It would be easy to be on autopilot, especially with the kids pulling me in all directions. But I want to notice. Maybe noticing now will help me notice what I may have missed before. Life here was so busy. I felt I had so much on my plate. And they say discernment can be clearest in retrospect, so maybe paying attention now, I will be able to see something of those days more
Or maybe something of these days.
