Easter

I am up early, but not so early that I am attending the sunrise service at church.  Instead I take my shower, get dressed, sit here at the computer.  After this I will ice my carrot cake for dinner at Marnie's and then drive to the church.

Thursday I decorated eggs with Maggie and today she will come to our Easter Egg hunt at the church.  That feels like Easter.

And hopefully, in worship today - it will "feel" like Easter.  There are three parts of Easter that I need.

1. It is good to gather with others and sing "Christ the Lord is Risen Today."  The story of Good Friday was a time of scattering as everyone abandoned Jesus.  We come together today and GATHER - which after a year of isolation - is even more meaningful to me.

2. It is an awareness of the eternity of the power of God.  We use language like victory and Jesus has defeated death.  What I cling to is the understanding that death is not the end and that we really do go to be "with" Jesus and somehow - in some mystical way - we will be reunited with those who have gone on before.  

3. Most of all, today is a day of hope.  I get daily readings from Joan Chittister and she writes about the hope that is the basis of this day. As I read it today I glanced at the coffee cup I had grabbed from the cabinet.  It speaks to me always. 

 I think of the angel coming to Mary in the beginning and saying "with God all things are possible." and that truly is the message that we live with in the midst of the daily life that is ours.  There is always hope.

I include today that reading by Sister Joan.

Happy Easter!

When we celebrate Easter as the feast of hope, this is what we proclaim:
            Hope is the foundation of happiness. It makes tomorrow a destination rather than simply                                grounds for the dread of disaster.
            Hope is the gift of God to us. The work it takes to make hope real is the gift we give back to God.
            Hope is the instinct in us that something greater than what now is, can become real. It is         
            as much a call to respond as it is a sign of what is lacking.
            Hope is the cutting edge of vision. It tells us that, indeed, another world is possible but    
            just over the horizon.
            Hope is not a free gift. It does not come without a cost. It requires us to earn it.
            Hope never solves anything. It simply opens a necessary door in the human enterprise and                          invites us, begs us, to walk through it–for our sake, of course, but for the sake of the world, as                      well.
            Hope is a quiet, whispered, wonderment saying over and over again in the heart of each of us,                      “Possibility, possibility, possibility.”
 
Most of all, hope requires that we spin a few dreams for ourselves that are possible, doable and desirable. Then, all that’s left is the doing of them.