“The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created spring.”— Bernard Williams
“The very first Easter taught us this: that life never ends and love never dies.” – Kate McGahan
Easter is the culmination and completion of the Lenten season and the beginning of Eastertide, the seven Sundays following referred to the “Season of the Spirit.” Beginnings and endings and all that resides in between, where we live daily, often looking backward and forward, missing the extraordinary in ordinary days.
The transition from winter to spring, with winter windchills returning yesterday to remind us that she’s not done yet. Transition and transformation are not done in one day but in a series of days held together, in seasons. The cusp of ending falling into beginning. Again and again.
Thresholds, waiting, hoping, dawn, resurrection. May you remain present and senses ablaze through each day of each season, passing through the doors to newness of life.
“Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul.”— Victor Hugo
“Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.” – Martin Luther
“Here is the amazing thing about Easter; the Resurrection Sunday for Christians is this, that Christ in the dying moments on the cross gives us the greatest illustration of forgiveness possible.” – T. D. Jakes
The Lenten journey is complete.
Culminating in Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday.
Completed on Easter Sunday.
The third day.
On the fourth day, Monday, we are called to be Easter people.
And to continue on Tuesday, Wednesday…and each day before us.
As Father Malone advised at Sunday Easter mass, “leave the bandages.”
Jesus resurrected, left the burial dressing, the bandages behind in the empty tomb.
Calling us each to leave our bandages behind to become Easter people.
Our bandages of hurt, pain, offenses-both given and received, anger, unforgiveness, wounds, remorse, resentment, the past.
Put it all down.
Carry Easter forward.
Resurrection requires us to leave the old to become fully new.
May you accept the daily invitation to a peace that passes understanding, a hope unending, and love without limits.
“We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace.” – Pope Francis
“A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”― Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyła)
Easter morning.
New life.
About love beyond comprehension.
No boundaries, walls, only windows open wide.
A love without condition, denial, unforgiveness, resentment, demands, boasting, anger, fear.
Redemption.
Forgiveness.
Spring.
Resurrection.
Unfamiliar, unbelievable, incomprehensible.
Yet offered to each and all, no exceptions, exclusions, no small print rules and regulations.
Say “Yes!” to this offer of love.
Be renewed and freed from chains of the past and fear of the future.
Today, the tomb is empty.
Love, pure love is risen.
Happy, happy Easter.
“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” – Saint Augustine
“How great is the love of God! He loved me long before I knew His name. He wooed me, chased me, enthralled me, and captured my heart. He didn’t prove His love at a candlelight dinner. There were no long-stemmed roses, but there were thorns. Yes, there were thorns.” – Katherine J. Walden
“Good Friday is not about us trying to “get right with God.” It is about us entering the difference between God and humanity and just touching it for a moment. Touching the shimmering sadness of humanity’s insistence that we can be our own gods, that we can be pure and all-powerful.” – Nadia Bolz-Weber
Enter fully into the heaviness of this day, Good Friday.
What is Good about this?
Carry a sliver of the Cross.
Jesus bearing all but your sliver.
On the edge, flounder, a thread of hope.
Held in grace and love.
Remember and remain.
For when Sunday comes.
The third day.
Redemption. Resurrection. Easter.
It means nothing without the angst of Good Friday, the weight.
The hollowness and exhaustion of Holy Saturday, the wait.
Sunday comes, but not without Friday and Saturday.
Sacred, holy ground.
Preparing us for transformation to Easter people.
The gift of spring.
Hope fulfilled.
It is and will be done.
“We focus on Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, but we forget to pause in the stillness of the days between. Find time today to be present in that place of waiting. There is treasure to be found in the sacred peace that comes as you breathe in that place of quiet surrender. Don’t rush through the space called “Between.” – Katherine J. Walden
“You are one body and one spirit, just as God also called you in one hope. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all.”-Ephesians 4:4-6
Each day a new reflection to consider, focus and ponder. Sundays are “Mini-Easters” where “we take a break from any sad, heavy feelings for a respite to do something that makes you feel buoyed by gladness.” So here goes…
Today is my great nephew’s Elijah’s baptism.
A celebration and welcoming.
An invitation to all to be baptized again.
Dipped in the waters.
Renewed and made new daily.
This is his day and ours by witnessing and accepting the invitation to a peace that passes understanding, a joy everlasting and hope that ties it all together.
So Happy Mini-Easter and Happy Baptism to Elijah and to all who are called to be instruments of peace.
Easter two weeks away.
14 days left of our 40 day journey.
Keep going.
Birth, life, resurrection.
Baptism again.
“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” Amen.
— St. Francis of Assisi
“Joy is a mystery because it can happen anywhere, anytime, even under the most unpromising circumstances, even in the midst of suffering, with tears in its eyes.”—Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark
“Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.”― Henri J.M. Nouwen
We reduce.
Summarize.
Bucket.
Simplify.
Order.
Judge.
Assume.
Other.
Distill.
Life is richer, more complicated, and complex than a bumper sticker, a platitude, a paragraph, a snapshot.
Allow, invite and embrace the mystery, unknowing, intricacies, story, nuance, shadows, shapes and always light, always hope, always resurrection.
A beautiful mess, joy woven through all of it.
Always resurrection.
Easter and spring at the end of the story, with glimpses on each page.
“Oh, there are so many lives. How we wish we could live them concurrently instead of one by one by one. We could select the best pieces of each, stringing them together like a strand of pearls. But that’s not how it works. A human life is a beautiful mess.”― Gabrielle Zevin, Elsewhere
“The resurrection tells us it is never too late. Every so often we will be surprised. We must believe that the stone will be rolled back, and we must be ready to poke out our timid heads, take off the linen bindings of death, and walk free for a time, breathing resurrection air.”― Ronald Rolheiser, Prayer: Our Deepest Longing
“Just when we were beginning to enjoy the play, the stagehands came out and dismantled the manger. From its wood, they built a cross. What kind of a drama is this anyway?”— Ann Weems, Kneeling in Jerusalem
40 days.
Desert time.
It feels like the past three years have been a chronic desert.
This one is different.
This one completes, finishes, transforms.
From temporal to eternal.
Journey to reflection, forgiveness, wholeness.
Grace, clarity, light.
Take up rather than give up.
Keep going through.
No short cuts or bypasses.
Winter to spring.
Breathing resurrection air.
In due time.
Take this journey.
From Bethlehem to Jerusalem.
“Ash Wednesday and we are on our way to Your Way. O Lamb of God, have mercy upon us and keep us from all the smallness of our lives that would take precedence over kneeling in Jerusalem.”— Ann Weems, Kneeling in Jerusalem
“That is one good thing about this world, there are always sure to be more springs.”- L.M Montgomery
“The Easter egg symbolizes our ability to break out of the hardened, protective shell we’ve surrounded ourselves with.”- Siobhan Shaw
40 days of Lent;
3 days of Cross to Resurrection;
50 days of Eastertide;
1 day at a time to remain present, aware and awake in;
In all seasons, on each journey, growth, change and bloom if we allow, if we do not resist;
Enter this season of renewal, of spring, of newness and let it do its work in you.
“The story of Easter is the story of God’s wonderful window of divine surprise.” — Carl Knudsen
“It is the hour to rend thy chains, the blossom time of souls.” – Katharine Lee Bates
“A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.” – Mahatma Gandhi
The other side of the threshold;
In between over;
Beyond the finish line;
A new start line;
Forever changed;
Restoration, reconciliation, resurrection;
Past, present and future tense;
Hope realized, faith completed, trust assured;
As alive today as when Mary saw Jesus Christ for the first time as the gardener;
Imagine the relief, the awe, the reverence, the moment of no return;
May the seeds of hope, faith, trust be planted in your heart and bloom in your life each day;
For all people, not just some, not by denomination, no membership card required;
The only rule is love;
Easter Sunday Joy available to you;
Accept the invitation.
“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” – Saint Augustine
“Sink your generosity deep into our lives that your muchness may expose our false lack that endlessly receiving we may endlessly give so that the world may be made Easter new,
without greedy lack, but only wonder,
without coercive need but only love,
without destructive greed but only praise,
without aggression and invasiveness. all things Easter new all around us,
toward us
and by us
all things Easter new.” – Walter Brueggemann
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” – Elizabeth Appell
“And why, you may ask, spend precious time searching for something as elusive as a soul? Why not leave it where it hides—near to us, yet so difficult to find and sometimes dangerous to follow? There are two reasons: First, you search for the soul for the sake of your own life—for purpose, for meaning, for strength, for freedom and peace and love. Second, you search for your soul for the sake of everyone else. You do it for your family, your children, your coworkers, the whole world. The world needs your originality, your ideas, your humor, your creations. All of this is alive and well within you, hiding somewhere near you, beneath the layers, down, down, down, into the soul.” — Marrow: A Love Story by Elizabeth Lesser
We forego the everlasting gift of Easter Sunday, if we neglect to carry it forward into Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…and each day going forward. Not just a drive-by holiday, the story of the Cross to resurrection is life-changing, world-changing.
That relief and lightness that people are feeling about getting the vaccine after going through year of a pandemic is but a glimpse of what Easter living offers, present in each day beyond frustrations, fleeting feelings and what the world says is true. That lightness will pass as we resume “normal” whatever that may be. We’ll replace it with the next worry, the next dilemma. It’s exhausting. The eternal light of God was, is and always will remain true and available to all freely, no matter what humans say, do, deny or pursue, thinking it can be found somewhere else. Somewhere else is here on Easter Monday.
To get to here, there is a lot of letting go of resentment, anger, unforgiveness, opinion, judgment, assumptions that shape our life and steal our joy, wonder and awe.
No one makes the decision but you so if you are all good, riding high and where you want to be, carry on, you’ve figured it out. If you’re struggling, searching and unsatisfied, Easter Monday is here and will remain no matter your choice. Consider your options. It is up to you.
“People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?” – Thich Nhat Hanh
“Everything can be taken from a man or woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor E. Frankl
“Cast Light” is an invitation to release your inner light, your authentic self every day. Choose light and cast it to the world.
Featured Quotes
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”― Mary Oliver
“I do not understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.” — Anne Lamott
