Easter

This morning, Merry first showed us the Easter Egg the faceless bunny left by her pillow and then she said, "Can we go sledding today?"

Our dear Orthodox friend had given us a loaf of Easter bread kneaded and punched by the old ladies of the Church--pockmarked with holy fingers, baked with other loaves in a huge oven--the symbolism of this bread warms us--and this gave our breakfast a tone of the sacred. We sang "Christ the Lord" as I lit candles on the table, but really, compared to childhood Easter breakfasts with hot cross buns, a formal morning table laid with daffodils or roses, candles, flutes of orange juice--we were a motley crew.


Hungry for Easter liturgy (Quakers don't celebrate holy days, as every day is holy), we waded through the snow and into our car. The Episcopalian church was packed with its twice-annual crowd. Tulips and daffodils bloomed in green foil clad pots under a stained glass rendering of Jesus the Good Shepherd. The liturgy felt like a warm, familiar blanket on my shoulders. Like home.

If every Episcopal Church would only stick to the liturgy and not insist on a sermon! Some churches are fortunate enough to have pithy, wise homilies, but I've yet to be at one that would not have been bettered by the exclusion of the homily altogether. Today's Easter message started with an illustration about pendulums and then stumbled on on to describe the resurrection and why we pew-sitters should be convinced of it. It was like going to a birthday party and watching the candles burn into pools of wax on the cake as the host rambles on about why we should believe the person whose birthday we're celebrating was really born. Just let the birthday person blow out the candles and then pass out the cake! Is it a party, or what?

The sermon, the restless girls--(Merry was insistent on conducting Sunday School next to me in a low whisper for Elephant and Baby Dear plus a group of small rocks and dried wild onions she pulled out of her purse--I'm telling them the story of the lost coin! she whispered)-- and then the fact that I had awakened with fluid rolling around in my left ear made me feel neurotic. At times I felt like singing or yelling or just doing something (terrets? yes). It was Easter, for heaven's sake. Why were we a bunch of cottage cheese tubs?

During Eucharist one of my least favorite praise songs of all times was sung as a solo--"Like a Rose," which actualizes bad metaphor, unfortunate poetry, and sentimentality all in one fell swoop.

But the girls got a "cross" and we received materially, through the elements, the grace of our God, who is present everywhere, despite us.

Martin prepared a fantastic dinner: provencal chicken with olives, fresh rosemary, and vegetables; salad with homemade balsamic vinaigrette; fresh asparagus with lemon. We drank good wine, good coffee, and chatted with good people. Four girls ran about our house with plastic Easter eggs. We watched the snow blowing outside.

Happy Easter to you. I hope yours was full of grace, full of beauty, full of goodness.