For Lent this year, I decided to give up clutter. Central to the clutter was a number of boxes of books that I had accumulated from years of impulse purchases and the libraries of retired pastors. Each one got evaluated on the basis of this question– “Am I likely to read this again?” And so each book was distributed with limited exceptions for “sentimental value” into either a pile destined for the office bookshelf, or a pile where the books would be sold to raise money for the parish school. It was a painful, almost purgatorial, experience for a historian pack-rat like myself.

Perhaps even more painful than the parting of these dear friends was the realization that despite all of the hours of investment put into reading each of those books, so many details had been forgotten. Often, the marginal notations would indicate that I had read the book, and even gotten something out of it – but I was helpless to remember what. Some observations which seemed so important at the time, seemed almost nonsensical in their relevance for where I was at today.

I guess it is a sign of theological progress - that I have learned, that I have grown as a theologian. Sometimes, however, I sit back and try and remember what it was like to be like my kindergarteners so wide-eyed and full of wonder and amazement when Jesus becomes real to them for the first time. I am still fortunate enough to get glimpses of that wide-eyed wonder with my parochial school students and adult converts to the faith, but more often than not the Jesus story is buried under so many sermons preached, so many Bible studies prepared, so many words.

It is good that the great Easter feast is early this year. Somehow the Vigil, even with all of its words, always manages to be eye-opening again. The warmth of the fire. The dazzle of the light. The smell of the lilies. The splash of the water. The taste of the meal. The silent joy of a nighttime anticipation of dawn.