Dear friends and family,
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Happy Easter (and abiding Eastertide) to you all. I’m writing this update in the attempted tranquility of a Sunday afternoon. Eleanor is driving a lego truck through an imaginary sea (surprise surprise, the truck has now “broken down”), Ames is scanning a book on tapestry-weaving, saying the word “tapestry” over and over, and Virgil is more or less contentedly taking the whole scene in. Lest I suggest too tranquil a scene, Ames just now attempted to eat a bit of plastic, Eleanor promptly lost the piece in her effort to throw it away (meaning this whole scene will likely repeat itself in about 20 minutes), and let’s just say Virgil now needs a change of clothes. Life moves fast.
So it’s felt the past month-and-change. One reason I’m grateful for the church calendar is that it helps bring cohesion to what otherwise would dissolve into a blurred rush of weeks. And so, even though each week has felt like its own looming block of tasks and trials and things to tend to, the fasting and penitence of Lent did give way to the festal celebration of Easter. Many responsibilities repeat (and repeat and repeat) and carry from one day to the next, but our lives’ tenor did change tune, and we plod on whistling a new song, aware of another aspect of God’s character and work. Not only his suffering and forgiveness, but his deliverance and true life.
I hope that in the midst of your own weeks, you have sensed for yourself some of the savor of Jesus’ resurrection, of the new life he has snatched from the jaws of death and now would give to you. His is and was a truly cosmic victory, grander than any cinematic scale, but it is also a personal victory, a forgiveness of sin’s consequence and triumph over sin’s grip which he gives to you, and to me, who trust him and follow him.
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Peace of Christ,
Zack
Holy Week &c.
Holy Week in Birmingham was good & full. Palm Sunday into a service of healing prayer, a big midweek class presentation on Richard Hooker & ecclesiastical polity, then the full Triduum lineup of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil, and Resurrection Sunday. This year was our first (Anglican) Easter Vigil—a sprawling 3-hour service which starts in darkness, traces the entire biblical history of redemption, and culminates in baptisms, a blaze of light, loud ringing bells, and a joyous Eucharistic service. It was especially meaningful for us as Virgil Ezekiel was baptized—sharing in Christ’s death and so forgiven of sin, raised to new life as a member of Christ’s church. Even Eleanor and Ames, who had stayed up past 9pm for the services three nights in row, were able to enjoy the celebration.
Prior to Holy Week proper, we faced down our first batch of spring storms. Birmingham seems to lie right on the lower border of the Southern Tornado Alley™, so twice my classes were cancelled, and we prepared a bunker in the most secure corner of our basement. Eleanor and Ames thought it a grand adventure, and Virgil mostly slept while we were pounded with rains and at least one major tornado ripped through less than two miles from our home. Thanks be to God, we were spared, but two families from our church suffered home damage, one past the point of saving (every person was safe and uninjured, thankfully). I was able to help along with a big group from our church clear off and clear out a mass of debris and fallen trees.
Following Holy Week, I was preparing for a few days of rest (keeping commitments beyond essential schoolwork to a minimum), but it was not to be. I accepted a late invitation to preach for the first time at our parish here, Christ the King (seminary students should never turn down a chance to preach, I assume), and then learned my Papa (my dad’s dad), Thurston Clemmons, took a turn after a diagnostic surgery. He died on Easter Monday.
I’m grateful this season has us in the South, as I was able to make the weekend drive from Birmingham to Bolivia, NC and back such that I could be present for Papa’s funeral on Saturday and still make it back to preach on Sunday morning. It was good to be with my family, to remember and honor my Papa, to officiate the graveside service, to partake of NC barbecue, to see so much of South so quickly, to preach God’s word to his people.
If you’re interested, I’ve just posted a poem I wrote in remembrance of my Papa and the sermon I preached last Sunday at our family blog.
Ditchwork
We've really enjoyed our first springtime in Alabama. We never quite got rid of the essential green surrounding us, but the bare branches of winter have, since early March, been sprouting a thousand fresh shades and ten thousand fresh blossoms. Erin has, not coincidentally, been landscaping and gardening with gusto. She’s cultivated wildflowers, planted and re-planted new flowers and shrubs, made viable beds where previously there was only chaos, pruned endless branches, and burned through a whole lot of brush. Truly she has made this mess of a house a home ten times over. Have I mentioned how well I married?
My contribution has mostly been one of uprooting privet, digging up ancient construction materials, and blazing paths through the overgrowth. The project I’m particularly proud of followed one of those massive storms mentioned supra. Water tends to accumulate in a few places on our lot, so puzzling out proper drainage has been a minor obsession of mine. There used to a drainage ditch, but it had since been filled with at least a decade’s worth of leaves and runoff dirt, and did nothing to direct water. So one afternoon, in a 5-hour fit of productivity, I re-dug a ~70-yard ditch. Happily, the ditch filled and directed water, such that we’ve had a continually flowing stream ever since. This is a game-changer for me, as it has long been a dream of mine to own property with a stream. Okay, maybe calling it a “stream” is overselling it (a realtor would probably get in trouble for calling it so), and it’ll likely dry up in the heat of summer, but that little trembling line of running water has been a daily source of delight for over a month now.
Scenes Cont.
More scenes from Cahaba, Lent-Eastertide 2021.
Status Board
Reading: Most of my reading has been for school of late, though I’m also somewhat ashamed I went through my annual week-long graphic novel phase (perhaps simply to get a break from all that school reading). As far as school reading goes, though, I’ve been blown away by Steve Ozment’s The Age of Reform: 1250-1550, which is among the most impressive and incisive works of intellectual history I’ve encountered.
Listening: At the end of Lent and into Easter I got hung up on these two Matt Papa & Matt Boswell hymns, which you’ve likely heard: “Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery” and “His Mercy is More”. I still listen to them about once a day, along with others, in my Easter 2021 playlist. Between that and this playlist where I’m trying to collect a bunch of songs that have a similar vibe to “Miss Blennerhassett” by Bibio and that’s basically all I listen to right now.
Watching: Erin’s blossoming interest gardening soon found out Monty Don’s longrunning BBC series Gardener’s World, which is now our favorite and only television program. Outside of that, after a Lenten media fast I was about ready to give up on film as a medium (I figured I’d seen everything worth watching and then some), but I was then surprised by how much I loved Alice Rohrwacher’s Italian Neo-neo-realist film Happy as Lazarro, with its earnest class consciousness and on-its-sleeve Christian ethos (at least by my reading). And we finally found a Criterion copy of Edward Yang’s Yi Yi at our library, and it was as beautiful as I had heard and hoped it would be.
Food & Drink: I added a touch too much spice (as is my wont), but this lentil soup was great Lenten fare. And we thoroughly enjoyed an Easterday feast with Virgil’s godparents after a busy morning of bell-ringing.
Prayer Requests
The best way to support us is to join with the Son in remembering us before the Father. If you’d like to pray with and for us, here are some things you can remember:
that I would finish my semester (especially these last two papers) with perseverance, diligence, and joy
that my part-time job—as janitor at our church—would finally start in May
that Erin would continue to find rejuvenation and joy in her work in the studio & garden
that Erin would find a small but encouraging community of friends here
that Eleanor, Ames, and Virgil would continue to learn to love and serve one another
We’d also like to pray with and for you! If you’re reading this, you’re probably already in our prayers, but we’d love to know more specifically what we can pray for. You can text us, of course, or you can email us prayer requests at clemmonsonmission@gmail.com
We’re the Clemmons family–-Zack, Erin, Eleanor, Ames & Virgil–-living & studying & working in Birmingham, Alabama for sake of God’s Kingdom.
If you’d like, you can support us financially as we navigate this season on mission, without incomes.
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