This is “Holy Week” in the Christian Church, the week when we recall and re-tell the story of the last week in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. As you might imagine it is both a wonderful and a busy week in the life of a church pastor.

So this week, I am simply going to share two pieces of writing that illumine the Easter story (the culminating event of the week) for me.

Quoyle experienced moments in all colors, uttered brilliancies, paid attention to the rich sound of waves counting stones, he laughed and wept, noticed sunsets, heard music in the rain, said I do…. For if Jack Buggit could escape from the pickle jar, if a bird with a broken neck could fly away, what else might be possible?... it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.
Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

To believe in Christ’s rising and death’s dying is also to live with the power and the challenge to rise up now from all our dark graves of suffering love. If sympathy for the world’s wounds is not enlarged by our anguish, if love for those around us is not expanded, if gratitude for what is good does not flame up, if insight is not deepened, if commitment to what is important is not strengthened, if aching for a new day is not intensified, if hope is weakened and faith diminished, if from the experience of death comes nothing good, then death has won. Then death, be proud.

So I shall struggle to live the reality of Christ’s rising and death’s dying. In my living, my son’s dying will not be the last word. But as I rise up, I bear the wounds of his death. My rising does not remove them. They mark me. If you want to know who I am, put your hand in.
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son

Grace, Peace and Easter Joy.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David