i’m taking this week off… a couple of things before i head outside to make the most of this glorious sunshine… [still haven’t found my camera for photos from saturday night, although i confess to not really looking!]
i was absolutely delighted to open this morning’s paper to the page where they ‘wrap up’ Easter with a description of yesterday’s services, etc. The top of the page was headed ‘The meaning of Easter’ and the article immediately underneath it was about a former prisoner who is now trying to make his way in the world. The article asks when redemption will be possible for him. i was really moved that the journalist and papers’ editors had made this connection.
the writer from Friday’s article rang this morning to say that a lot of what he and i had talked about had been cut at the last minute from the article, and he wanted to apologise. unnecessary but lovely. the full version was in the Sydney Morning Herald here.
and finally… i had breakfast yesterday morning with some of my closest friends. they aren’t part of the church. we spent a couple of hours together doing easter egg hunts with the children… talking about the fear and delight of impending childbirth, the grief of infertility, the disappointment of family conflicts, the horror of mortgage payments… a couple of them had come into the space on Saturday night [they described it as very zen, which was a lovely compliment], and we talked about death and redemption in response to that… On the way home i passed a church which had a sign out the front advertising easter services with the headline ‘Come and hear the real Easter story’, and it struck me that when we say that, we say that the way people who aren’t Christians celebrate Easter – the meaning they find in celebrations with their friends and family – is false or fake. what an insult.
christians might tell another story of Easter to the rest of the world, but its point of connection with the world will be to honour the world’s story, and find the stuff that resonates between them, rather than setting the world’s story up to be false, and christians as holding the only truth.
Gary
Cheryl
Blair
Cheryl
Cheryl
Fionnaigh
Cheryl