baffled

Baffled is such a terrific word.  It sounds like it feels.

When I'm baffled it feels like cotton candy in my head.

Not a pleasant sensation.

It's been one week since we celebrated Easter and Walter Brueggeman's prayer is a good fit
in light of today's infamous Doubting Thomas gospel reading...

We are baffled

”Christ is Risen
He is risen indeed!
We are baffled by the very Easter claim we voice.
Your new life fits none of our categories.
We wonder and stew and argue,
and add clarifying adjectives like “spiritual” and “physical.”
But we remain baffled, seeking clarity and explanation,
we who are prosperous, and full and safe and tenured.
We are baffled and want explanations.

But there are those not baffled, but stunned by the news,
stunned while at minimum wage jobs;
stunned while the body wastes in cancer;
stunned while the fabric of life rots away in fatigue and despair;
stunned while unprosperous and unfull
and unsafe and untenured . . .
Waiting only for you in your Easter outfit,
waiting for you to say, “Fear not, it is I.”
Deliver us from our bafflement and our many explanations.
Push us over into stunned need and show yourself to us lively.
Easter us in honesty,
Easter us in fear;
Easter us in joy,
and let us be Eastered. Amen.”

Easter Tuesday/April 17, 2000

taken from

Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth

Prayers of Walter Brueggemann

Fortress Press, 2003, p. 162

Love vs. Death

"The resurrection doesn't answer any

of our curious questions about life after death,

Such as how will it be? How will it look?

But it does reveal to us that, indeed,

LOVE is stronger than DEATH.

After that revelation, we must remain silent,

leave the whys, where, hows, and whens behind,

and simply trust."

-Henri Nouwen, Our Greatest Gift

window art from  here

Torchbearers

                                             

This is Lydia and David -

Easter Vigil Torchbearers for the first time.

They did a marvelous job!

I'm so blessed to be their grandmother!

Easter Vigil

The Easter Vigil begins in darkness

and then the light is struck - breaking the darkness.

"May the light of Christ, rising in glory,

dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds."

pure foolishness

Three fools died and are at the pearly gates of heaven. St. Peter tells them that they can enter the gates if they can answer one simple question.

St. Peter asks the first fool, "What is Easter?" He replies, "Oh, that's easy! It's the holiday in November when everyone gets together, eats turkey, and are thankful..."

"Wrong!," replies St. Peter, and proceeds to ask the second fool the same question, "What is Easter?" The second one replies, "Easter is the holiday in December when we put up a nice tree,exchange presents, and celebrate the birth of Jesus."

St. Peter looks at the second fool, shakes his head in disgust, tells her she's wrong, and then peers over his glasses at the third fool and asks, "What is Easter?" The third fool smiles confidently and looks St. Peter in the eyes, "I know what Easter is." "Oh?" says St. Peter, incredulously. "Easter is the Christian holiday that coincides with the Jewish celebration of Passover. Jesus and his disciples were eating at the last supper and Jesus was later deceived and turned over to the Romans by one of his disciples. "The Romans took him to be crucified and he was stabbed in the side, made to wear a crown of thorns, and was hung on a cross with nails through his hands. He was buried in a nearby cave which was sealed off by a large boulder."

St. Peter smiles broadly with delight. Then she continues, "Every year the boulder is moved aside so that Jesus can come out...and, if he sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter.

from the Episcopal Bookstore website.
One has to wonder though, if these would be considered plausible answers on The Tonight Show's Jaywalking segment?

Alleluia!

Now What?

"What if the resurrection is not about the appearances of Jesus alone but also about what those appearances pointed to, what they asked? And it is finally what we do with them that matters - make them into superstitions or use them as stepping stones to new life. We have to practice resurrection." Nora Gallagher

Good News

"In a world where carpenters are resurrected, everything is possible."
Eleanor in The Lion in Winter

He Is Risen Indeed!

A Living Sign of the Resurrection

To the ancients,
the honey or bumble bee
was a living sign of the resurrection:
hidden from sight during three wintry months,
she appeared each Spring
to herald the arriving warmth with her buzzing
and to create sweet tasting honey in the hive.
In the early Christian Easter Eve liturgy,
honey was mixed with milk
and then given as a drink to the newly-baptized
who had entered, through baptism,
into the promised land of God,
"flowing with milk and honey."

May the Easter feast, Spring's warmth,
and a hope nurtured in faith
conspire to bring you unexpected sweetness
in the Great Fifty Days of Easter.

Anonymous (thanks to Elisabeth Rotchford-Haight)