Easter Monday or The Morning After

We're all lying back in a relieved stupor. The whole week came off remarkably well. I started, on Friday, to post the Stations of the Cross but ran out of time as the service encroached upon me. And I wasn't able to do it Saturday due to trying to write a sermon. And then, of course, Sunday we just went to church and then cooked all afternoon. Three things, however, stand out about the whole week.

First, All the services were well attended and ran smoothly and beautifully, even like a well oiled machine, The Vigil especially. We practiced both Thursday afternoon and Saturday evening and practiced until we seriously got it right. So much is about timing and movement. And taking the time to have ushers, sub deacon, acolytes, fire pot remover, celebrant, deacon, everybody in concert and knowledgeable makes an incredible difference.

Second, G took this week to start working on her teeth in a painful and unhappy way, and she was at many moments inconsolable. I held her, carried her on my back, took her back from nice people who were trying to get her to stop crying, rubbed her gums, did everything, in short, that I could think of, but her march towards the suffering of the cross was unstoppable. I left off being on the altar to be with her several times and had to fight to concentrate over all. Poor Baby. It was an enormous relief when she slept soundly Saturday Night and was bright and cheery on Sunday.

Third, to the joyous degree that the Vigil and Easter were a fantastic success, Good Friday was a serious spiritual low. I started a cold in the head to match the teething of G thus loosing momentum, falling off schedule and frustrating myself. As I was getting bogged down and unhappy, I lost track of the sermon I was writing in my head. I lost the piece of paper with all the vigil music on it. And finally, because the kids needed to go home for supper, I ran home and found an ugly letter from our former bishop waiting for us, to lift our spirits, as it were, on the day our Lord suffered and died. I read the letter and went straight back to church to find that the Passion movie had run into a glitch and wouldn't play on any farther than the Scourging Scene, so all the people who had come to watch it got to see Jesus suffer but not die, and certainly not rise. Instead the group sat around and discussed the letter. To top off the suffering of the world I made up four packets of microwavable hamburger helper to feed various hungry people, and then got into a tangle about how many readers we needed for the service. The service went off beautifully, though. Each writer/artist read their own station when we got to it (except E and A who were home partying with their beloved baby sitter) and the whole mood was beautifully prayerful. I went home, though, in sorrow, frustration and a stuffy head and reworked my schedule.

So now we are going to go do something fun with all our kiddos. On the way home from church yesterday A announced (mind you, Before the visiting of the Easter Bunny with laden Easter Baskets and the Hunting of Easter Eggs), 'This was a really fun Easter.'
'Yeah' said E (who had shadowed me all day, to the point of being put in a red acolyte robe and coming onto the altar to sit with me and see what was going on), 'its so nice that Jesus rose again'.
'What do you think?' said Matt, 'Did he rise again in his body, or as a ghost.'
'In his Body,' said E.
'Yeah,' said A, 'and the Easter Bunny is going to come and hide eggs.'
Alleluia. He is Risen.