One Early Easter Morning

We wouldn't let them change out of church clothes

until they posed for a picture

When I was maybe ten or twelve I was actively involved in an inner-city church on the south side of Chicago. Although I can’t carry a tune and never could, I sang in the choir. One Easter, we sang an anthem that began,

One early Easter morning/

I wakened with the birds/

And all around lay silence/

Too deep for earthly words

One of my best friends from those days has remained a constant in my life ever since, though we are separated by distance and have maybe seen each other ten times since we both left Chicago and New Mexico, where she moved and married, and I visited. But over the years we have agreed that on Easter morning, we awaken with that melody and those words on our brains.

This morning when I got up the first thing I did was to email Barbara and say I was thinking of her this early Easter morning with all its silence. Thought I was so smart, but when I read my email, she had already sent a similar message to me.

Among the many things I am thankful for this blessed day is a binding friendship that has celebrated many shared joys, including large families, and endured divorce and death. The tie that has bound us for nearly seventy years is strong—an unusual gift in this day and age.

We went to the nine o’clock service at Fort Worth’s University Christian Church. It was, as I expected, glorious and inspiring, with music that almost overwhelmed. This church has a tradition of following the Easter benediction with the Hallelujah Chorus, and it was as always spellbinding. Our church has gone through ministers at a fairly rapid rate in recent years, and now we have Dr Russ Peterman, who has been with us since December. He is a man of great enthusiasm and spirit, and when he says from the pulpit that he is so excited by the renewed energy he senses in the church, I want to stand up and shout, “It’s you! You brought your energy to us. You’ve recreated the church.” Someday I may get a chance to say it directly to him. Meantime, I’m silently grateful and filled with joy.

A brief lull and then we had brunch—twelve people, three of them pre-teens. Jordan needn’t have worried that we didn’t have enough food—a Spanish omelet (Christian made it but decided he just doesn’t like cooked spinach; the rest of us liked it a lot), my leek/ricotta/pesto pie (served cold though Christian tried hard to convince me to heat it), sausages, fruit, biscuits, and hot cross buns. The latter led to several renditions of the nursery rhyme which I remember vaguely but not well. Our company included three grandmothers (besides me—we were definitely in the preponderance), two middle-aged couples (shhh! They don’t recognize that term as applying to them), and one grandfather.

A lovely warm and wonderful day, though not so warm outside. The temperature has dropped slightly but steadily all day.

Easter has come, given us renewed hope, and now the long haul until summer. It’s too bad we live our lives in anticipation of the next “biggie.”