My husband ironing his suit for his cousin's funeral, as I loaded the dishwasher, at 1 am. That was what our Good Friday looked like.
The movable dates of the Easter season cause it to coincide with different events each year. This year Resurrection Sunday falls on one person's birthday, next year-on someone else's. An early Easter date means we might still be in the dead of winter. This year's late date (by the Orthodox calendar) means we're actually seeing signs of spring. And as always, it is pussy willows which are decorating kitchen tables and which accompanied believers to their Palm Sunday services last week.
There is always a lot going on in "real" life when a Christian holiday comes along. For example, who has time for Advent in the middle of final exams?
This year's Holy Week concludes with Labor Day weekend. People have been out grilling their first shish kabobs of the season, during the last few days of the Great Fast. Interesting how that happens. Today, on Holy Saturday, a local Christian school was having a sale that people were getting up early to go shop at. Meanwhile, Andrei has lost his cousin; his mom-her nephew; his aunt-her son.
Today I sang "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?" as I rocked David to sleep in his stroller in the front hallway.
The joy of hope (and hope of joy) of Salvation is hard to separate out from the pain and suffering of everyday life. Though Jesus is alive, we can't see him now, and we have to live the rest of our lives on Earth without some of our loved ones, who have already departed. But then there is the thought that we will see them again. So it all kind of forms a circle: the beauty of the universe, yet marred by sin, which is overcome by Christ, who will come, but for now we're still here, waiting for the beauty of a new universe.
11:24 pm. Too early to proclaim, "He is Risen"?
The movable dates of the Easter season cause it to coincide with different events each year. This year Resurrection Sunday falls on one person's birthday, next year-on someone else's. An early Easter date means we might still be in the dead of winter. This year's late date (by the Orthodox calendar) means we're actually seeing signs of spring. And as always, it is pussy willows which are decorating kitchen tables and which accompanied believers to their Palm Sunday services last week.
There is always a lot going on in "real" life when a Christian holiday comes along. For example, who has time for Advent in the middle of final exams?
This year's Holy Week concludes with Labor Day weekend. People have been out grilling their first shish kabobs of the season, during the last few days of the Great Fast. Interesting how that happens. Today, on Holy Saturday, a local Christian school was having a sale that people were getting up early to go shop at. Meanwhile, Andrei has lost his cousin; his mom-her nephew; his aunt-her son.
Today I sang "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?" as I rocked David to sleep in his stroller in the front hallway.
The joy of hope (and hope of joy) of Salvation is hard to separate out from the pain and suffering of everyday life. Though Jesus is alive, we can't see him now, and we have to live the rest of our lives on Earth without some of our loved ones, who have already departed. But then there is the thought that we will see them again. So it all kind of forms a circle: the beauty of the universe, yet marred by sin, which is overcome by Christ, who will come, but for now we're still here, waiting for the beauty of a new universe.
11:24 pm. Too early to proclaim, "He is Risen"?
This is beautiful, Elizabeth. He is Risen indeed!
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