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Easter details
Sunday, April 8, 2012 I like holidays to be full of big, fabulous, fireworks moments bursting out of a box of quiet and grateful and calm. Not to much to expect of myself or ask of my family, right?
Easter is the exception. I like my Easter low-key. Or lower-key.
There's a somberness and stillness to Good Friday that overwhelms me every time I sit in the pews at church as the lights dim and the congregation is nested in vast and dark sanctuary. I've been up-close with death, but this moment, sitting with scripture and songs about death, I always feel the peace and presence settle in and ground me.
Then comes the day of dyeing the eggs. I don't usually worry too much about boiling and coloring and decorating and hiding until last minute . It's the gift of this holiday not coming with the chaos and planning of Christmas.
And finally the jubilation. I know, it sounds far more religious than I am comfortable with, or even comfortable saying aloud. I struggle with the "He is risen!" plastered on billboards and church programs. But when trumpets play and the choir processes and the lilies and hydrangeas flood the altar and we all sing, "Christ the Lord is risen today! Alleluuuuuuia!", that peace and present-feeling swells up again, but this time with light and air.
I love the mad dash to find Easter eggs hidden in tea cups and planters and too near the potty. I love the flowers, pinned to lapels and tucked at the wrist and given in memory of people we miss. I love the dinner right in the middle of the afternoon, and later a meal of candy and leftover sandwiches on little dinner rolls. I love the end of day, with the last glory of a corsage floating delicately in a crystal bowl of water and transparent Easter grass stuck to everything. I love the ride of darkness into light and all that means to me, even while I am scribbling faces on hard-boiled eggs with a Sharpie.
It is all these little moments, details of the day that make for a holiday, a shift in the calendar, a transition out of fear and cold into possibility and spring. It also means it's only days until my birthday and more turns to be present and grateful and still and celebrating.
For our family, this is a quieter holiday. Not as casual as Valentine's, nowhere near Christmas. But it doesn't mean it isn't important. It doesn't mean little ones aren't delighting in dollar bills -- oh, yes, there is cash -- folded into plastic eggs and in why they are required to dress up and be at church that day.
So Buddha, the Easter Bunny and an African storytelling elephant walk into a bar...
$13.72. And yes, I made him add it up doing it's-not-a-holiday-from-using-your-noodle math.
It doesn't mean the rest of us aren't stealing candy and having a hard time not snitching where those last three eggs are hidden. Smaller, a little more still, and still important.
So here we are on Easter. Dressed up, corsaged, candy-happy. Hydrangeas in hand, Easter egg hunt coins rattling in our pockets, that one hymn in our heart. Alleluuuuuia.
