I talked about something with her this morning, described the feeling, the moment, and the hope. Her response was textbook, it always is with these sort of things: Write! But you can't blog it this time, she said. I can, I replied. I can write about things--I just consider the ramifications more heavily than I ought to.

See once someone told me that a weblog is a pulpit. I may not being teaching or preaching or presenting hell-fire and damnation, but I'm telling you what my life looks like. And for those of you who know me before I've had my coffee or after I come home from work, my real life isn't pretty wonderings about spring and shaping sentences with ease and pretension--I'm not like that.

I'm moody and don't talk much. I'm fiercely competitive at card games and fiercely opinionated about colors. I'm reading the Bible through this year, but honestly, it's the first time all the way through. I drive five miles over the speed limit almost always and I got my first ticket a few weeks ago for talking on my cell phone. I get jealous of other people's homes and things and families and lives. I mutilated a cat in my car engine this past month and half cried, half laughed in the parking lot. I struggle with biting my tongue, especially with regard to things I'm passionate about and things I don't know anything about. I idolize peace; so much so that it eludes me most of the time.

That's what I'm like in real life.

This page isn't a very accurate representation of who I am. It is, however, a very accurate representation of who I think I would like to be and, therefore, am becoming.

Yesterday was Good Friday, and while other people were laying out Easter clothes, pulling tapers out of the freezer, or stuffing brightly colored baskets full of Cadbury and plastic grass, I was thinking about how exciting it is to celebrate a day that has no feeling of completion. In twenty-four hours we'll be shouting "He is Risen!" but yesterday and today we are left with a half-finished sort of feeling.

Uncomfortably aware that the story isn't over yet.

We call the gospel our peace, the resurrection our hope, and the cross our power, but to most of us the tomb is only the thing out of which He walked--not the place where he inhabited while taking all of our humanity and sinfulness to a more suitable place. But that's where the wonder is! He died on the cross, but He's God, He could handle that. He walked out of the tomb, but He's God, He does things like that. He gave gifts to men and ascended to heaven, but He's God, that's His prerogative.

On the day we call Good Friday, he took all of our Bad, wrapped it in grave clothes around his death, swaddled all of us in with all of Him, and disposed of death completely.

This is our pulpit--that we are becoming. That we, in so many ways, walk through life in the tomb. A half-life of sorts. The story isn't finished, Good Friday has just happened and we're waiting for the full Resurrection. We're waiting for full Life. We're waiting for the moment we shed all of the habits and things that hinder, for the day we walk out too.

That's what we're like in real life.