Freedom to Love and Freedom to Share

Ok, so back to the blog thing. The beauty of springtime has arrived...it tends to linger for awhile and then we get another short cold blast. As the weather has warmed, we are out and about a lot more. Nate is now a girls tennis coach (it has been a good thing but we are both ready for the season to end) and we survived our first season of Lent & Easter!
A Passover Seder

Before Easter, we joined in on the local cooperative christian campus ministry's passover seder. Recalling that Jesus' last night with his disciples was a passover meal, we joined together to connect to that tradition and to participate in the haggadah (the script for the celebration). Portions of the Haggadah were borrowed from a writer and rabbinal student Rachel Barenblat from her blog the Velveteen Rabbi. The first movement of the service really set the tone:

Long ago at this season, the Jewish people set out on a journey. On such a night as this, Israel went from degradation to joy. We give thanks for the liberation of days gone by. And we pray for all who are still bound. Eternal God, may all who hunger come to rejoice in a new Passover. Let all the human family sit at Your table, drink the wine of deliverance, eat the bread of freedom:
Freedom from bondage and freedom from oppression
Freedom from hunger and freedom from want
Freedom from hatred and freedom from fear
Freedom to think and freedom to speak
Freedom to teach and freedom to learn
Freedom to love and freedom to share
Freedom to hope and freedom to rejoice
Soon, in our days, Amen.

That prayer invited us all to recall the many bondgages that enclose our human community and creation. Are you free from want and free to rejoice? Those are hard freedoms to live into. I was thankful for such a gathering that reminded me of the promises of liberation and wholeness and gave me a measure of hope to live into those promises.