He is Risen indeed!

Here I am this Easter, huddling with tea and toast and a massive head cold. Didn't make it to church this morning and won't be making it over to a friend's for Sunday dinner. I'm a little sad about all that. Today is a holiday, and I will be coughing and hacking at home.

But the birds are still chirping outside my window, and the day is starting with bright morning light instead of the snow of yesterday. Even though I am not celebrating the empty tomb with fellow parishioners or partaking of some ham with my friends, I know that Jesus is here. I know that He is risen, indeed.

Despite all the junk that has been stirred up within me the last couple months, I believe that there do come those waves of hope. Maybe they don't last very long, but my hope is like a surfer, paddling out to the next wave so that I might be carried through the hardships with as much hope as I can catch (Kara will like that metaphor ;-)

I am a cynical person when it comes to the stuff we cannot see. I believe that if I have low expectations, I will not be disappointed, but the problem is that I'm disappointed anyway. Hoping is hard work sometimes. Some people have that hope easily, then you snarl "stupid Pollyanna" behind their back. For me, I know that I can have it if I want it. Here in my pj's on Easter morning, thwarted by this stupid cold, I can have that hope.

To me, Easter has always been more about resolutions than New Year's Eve. So here today, I resolve to paddle like mad for the next wave, and not let the swells defeat my faith. It will be hard work, and my arms will burn, but that hope might see me through to the shore.

April Rain Song (2/2)

So in this post I will try to be less cranky. I am trying to shift out of the rut that I get stuck in, and I've found that comes with discipline and practice, not just wishing it away.

This is the calendar post for April. It's a pretty nice message to have when I am feeling really crappy. I've been thinking about what I will say at graduation and this seems like it would be a good part of the message.

Also, I made this with my Aunt's old political buttons and other buttons I had... I felt like sharing my craftiness.


And April is National Poetry Month, so here is another April poem for you.

April Rain Song

Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.

Langston Hughes

No matter how crappy I feel and how down I get, I know that the shift does come. Sometimes it comes when I least expect it, but I try to surf the wave for as long as I can.

April comes like an idiot... (1/2)

Well I wish I could tell you that I am like super awesome and jazzed about everything and happy happy happy. The best I can say of today is that the sky chair is up and the weather is warmer and my windows are open and the birds are chirping. But that's outside. Inside there is the rutted track of crappy, harsh self-messages that my brain runs over again and again and again. At least I can say that it is my brain and I'm not really crazy (I hope). But it frightens me how easily I get stuck in the rut. I am the skeptic and the general cranky pants who sits in the corner wondering where it all went wrong.

SPRING

by: Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

O what purpose, April, do you return again?

Beauty is not enough.

You can no longer quiet me with the redness

Of little leaves opening stickily.

I know what I know.

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe

The spikes of the crocus.

The smell of the earth is good.

It is apparent that there is no death.

But what does that signify?

Not only under ground are the brains of men

Eaten by maggots.

Life in itself

Is nothing,

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,

April

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Snow in April. Which you can barely see, but it's there... lurking.