Let the Bowl Break Open

I. The Tired One at the Threshold

Dear ones,

Tonight— after the palms, after the cross, after the resurrection hymns have quieted, and the sanctuary has been locked— we offer this to our community:

Let yourself be carried now.
Let joy touch your feet.
The Lord of the Dance is here.

Let the bowl break open.
(Sarah Skinner, April 2025)

This is a prayer for you.

You, who have tended the world.
You, who placed your palm on the door of the sanctuary
and then pressed it, aching,
against the sanctuary of your own heart.

After the palms.
After the cross.
Even after the celebration.

Inhale.
You do not have to earn the air you breathe.

Let the flood come.
Let it carry you home.

Come, beloved.

Set down the guilt that gnaws the edges of your joy—
the whisper that says
“that one line” in the liturgy could have been different,
the voice that noticed your blouse wasn’t ironed.

You laid out Easter for all.
Now let this poem be dinner at your own table.
The candles are lit.
The food is warm.
Your place is set beside the Holy One.

And when you sit,
a hand gently rests over yours—
a reminder:

You do not have to shatter
into a thousand roles and “must do’s”
to be worthy.

You are enough
reaching for your children.
You are enough
forgetting the groceries.
You are enough
preaching from a pulpit.
You are enough
crying in the shower—
when all that’s left for prayer is “help” and breath.

You were enough
when you first wept as a child.

II. The Bowl and the Angel

And now—
I dreamed you came home after church,
carrying a bowl filled with everything you couldn’t say aloud—
blood, and tears, and holy ache.

The Angel of Mercy,
she who waits beside the door of your heart,
takes the bowl.
Not to keep it full,
but to empty it with you—
gently, joyfully—
until your hands are free
to rise again.

To let it water the seeds
of joy you never thought could grow.

Joy is Spring
pouring into the earth,
becoming a riot of jelly bean colored flowers.

Set down the bowl.
Not of blood,
but of all the times you bled
and were not seen.

Set down the lie
that said tenderness was a failing.

Set down the moments
when joy felt like a betrayal of duty.

Set down the nights
you thought you had to hold it all
just to keep the world from breaking.

But love—
the world is breaking.
And we are the ones
rising in its place.

Let us rise in joy.

Joy like jelly beans snuck between liturgy

Joy like a child twirling in an Easter dress

Joy like the Lord of the Dance humming in the sacristy

Let the bowl break open.

Let us rise.

III. The Dance and the Return

The Holy One follows you home after Easter—
because even as the world breaks,
you are holding the new world
in your palm,
in your voice,
in the way your step is lighter now.

This is an Exodus story.
You have already been in the wilderness.
Now, we return to love.

This is not forgetting—
this is choosing what you carry.

This is choosing to carry
what makes you lighter.

This is the night
the angel passes over your house
and sees the bowl not as warning,
but as blessing.

Because the Holy One—
flame in hand,
wing at your back,
kiss at your heart—
is already here, saying:

Welcome home.
Let the bowl go.
Let your trembling become dancing.
Let your ache become the moment before flight.
Come, be my altar of joy.

Let Love hold what is heavy—
the bowl filled with “not enough”—
so that you can open the door
to your Holy Heart.

Let the bowl go.

Let this prayer kiss your hands
as you pour it out.

Let no voice of judgment
speak louder than the truth in your chest.

And the truth is:

You burn with a holy care
the world never taught you to name.

You were marked in ash once.
But today—
choose joy
because you are love showing up.

Let the story be rewritten
by the prayer that is you.

Let beauty rise from the ash.

Come back to me
like you already know you are home.

Come into my arms
like you’ve finally let yourself fall
into arms that always waited for your yes.

Let there be light—
the kind that makes you weightless,
like the spring green flame of joy
flecked with resurrection.

Let the flame leap.
Let the song rise.
Let the bowl break open.

Let your laughter be
a rainbow-wreathed sign from the Holy One,
kissing your joy
until you know it is holy.

This is resurrection.
This is return.

This is Love
calling to tuck you in tonight,
with the blessing you wrote with tambourines
and children shaking plastic yellow eggs like maracas.

Holy, holy, holy were the giggles.
Holy, holy, holy is our joy.

Written with deep respect for the many traditions that carry this story of liberation, and the sacred rhythms of Passover and Easter alike. Written with the hope that this holds you.