(on healing, grief, and time)
Since returning from walking the Camino, I have had another long walk I have been travelling. What seemed a minor foot injury on the Camino infected, and began a lengthy journey of healing for me. And those who know me well, know that I have near-endless patience with others, and almost none for myself. Why am I not past this yet? Why do I need to sit down and put my foot up? Why am I not managing to do as much now as I should? I learned much from walking the camino. And it seems that the camino has yet one more lesson to teach me.
It has often been said that the Christian faith is built on one grand moment — the Resurrection. The stone rolled away, the angelic announcement, the impossible made gloriously possible. But if we’re honest — and clergy occasionally are — most of our resurrections don’t look like that at all.
Our resurrections are quieter. Slower. Less cinematic. No brass fanfare, no lighting effects, and certainly no choir emerging from behind the tomb. Instead, there’s usually coffee. And awkward silence. And the slow dawning realization that maybe, just maybe, things will not always hurt quite as much as they do right now.
That’s resurrection in slow motion.
I’ve been thinking about that lately — how the Bible tells us of one morning when everything changed, but life insists on taking the scenic route. Healing, like holiness, rarely works on our timetable. We want Easter morning; God offers us the long, meandering walk to Emmaus. We want our hearts to leap; God gives us the gentle burn of recognition that comes after a long conversation and a loaf of bread.
Grief, I’ve discovered, doesn’t vanish with the sunrise. It lingers, unpacking itself in odd corners of our lives: in the grocery aisle when the right brand of jam appears, or in a pew that now sits emptier than it used to. Healing, for its part, is equally patient — like a cat that sits on your chest until you finally acknowledge that it’s there to comfort you.
And yet, in those slow, awkward, quiet moments, something holy happens. The pulse of new life beats again — faint at first, but real. A phone call from a friend. A Sunday hymn that lands differently. A shared laugh over something that once would have brought tears.
In parish life, we tend to measure resurrection by attendance, budgets, or whether the photocopier worked on the first try (spoiler: it didn’t). But the real measure, I think, is subtler. It’s found in the people who keep showing up, even when the pew feels empty. It’s in the faithful who still plant gardens in cemeteries of the soul — and in the God who turns those gardens into green shoots of grace.
Resurrection in slow motion is still resurrection. It just comes with more coffee breaks and fewer trumpets.
So if you’re in a season where hope feels like it’s taking the local train instead of the express, take heart. God’s timetable may be slower than ours, but it’s infinitely more faithful.
The stone does roll away — just not always before lunch.
A Prayer for Resurrection in Slow Motion
Gracious and patient God,
You move through our days not with haste,
but with the quiet persistence of dawn light
creeping gently through the curtains.
When our hearts ache,
and the tombs of our lives feel sealed tight,
remind us that You are already at work —
rolling stones we cannot lift,
stirring hope we cannot yet name.
Teach us to trust the slow work of grace.
Help us to notice the small resurrections —
a shared smile, a steady breath,
the courage to try again.
May we walk faithfully in the in-between times,
when Good Friday still echoes
and Easter morning feels far away.
And when at last new life unfolds,
even quietly,
even late,
may we rejoice in the God
who never stops bringing light out of darkness,
and life out of loss.
Amen.