He is Risen!

 He is Risen!!

I'll keep it simple today as I'm sure you're all getting your bonnets and gloves together for church! 

Those words are enough to bring up a whole pack of memories.

I’ll always remember the excitement of “dressing up” for Easter Sunday. It’s a tradition that sadly seems to be losing ground in the face of the Me Generation’s “Comfort is Everything” way of thinking these days, but I’ll leave that soap box alone for now. 

In my home, Easter was a day for lace and hats and shiny white shoes. Never mind that where we lived in the Rockies west of Denver, snow was a very real possibility, and spring snows (like around Easter time) could be particularly wet and sloppy. But nothing could stop us from trying our best to look our best, even when the weather outside was, well, less than best. 

We persevered because Easter spoke of New Life. And what better way to celebrate than by dressing up for the occasion? Why don’t you give it a try, Young Folks? You’ll love it!

But now I have to balance that thought with some words of wisdom from a wise Polish priest we met in Japan. We were in language school, both struggling to learn what an earlier Jesuit priest in the 17th century described as “the devil’s language”. 

On top of that, the Polish priest could speak about as much English as I spoke Polish (none). Most of our significant conversations for the first few months were things like (in Japanese), “This is a pen”, “What is your name?” and “Where is the toilet?” 

But one morning before class, we realised that Easter was coming soon. The priest worked hard to find the words, then came out with, “All God ever wants is for us to come back to Him.”

I couldn’t have said it better.

Share those words with someone this Easter Sunday, and have the best celebration ever!

Because of the Resurrection, 

Marsha


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Let It Go

 Hello Again,   I usually don’t like to quote from Facebook, much less recommend it, but today I’m going to do both.   I posted the following on my own FB site and was surprised at the comments that came back. It seems the message here really hits the nail on the head. What do you think? "A Harvard Study of 724 couples Who Made It Past 30 Years Revealed Something Surprising: “It wasn’t love, s*x, or kids that kept them together. It was the ability to tolerate the same things in each other – over and over again. The couples who divorced thought, “This habit drives me crazy, but I can fix it.’ The ones who stayed? ‘This is who they are. They’re not changing.’ Long marriages rarely resolve every conflict. That’s a myth.  Couples who lasted 30+ years didn’t dig into every hurt feeling. They learned to let go. Not suppress – release. ‘You forgot again,’ ‘You said the wrong thing again’ – short-term couples turn that into a fight. Long-term couples let it slide. ...
Read more

Good News and Salt Licks

 G’day Fellow Travellers, I think many of you might be on Facebook and so noticed the picture I took out the back of our house the other day… seven of the most majestic English-originated Red Deer you ever saw.   It’s a bit of a mystery how they got there, since they are not native to Australia and DEFINITELY not welcome among the country’s flora and fauna. It’s believed they were introduced some time back by a wealthy entrepreneur with plans to start up a new industry. Nobody is saying for sure, but the only thing that can be said is that the deer love it here! I know that the many of you living in Texas and those parts look at deer and think either “menace” or “venison” and perhaps both in the same sentence.  Fortunately for these folks here, although they’re listed as ‘feral’, as they are, everyone treats them like family pets.  Yes, they eat our flowers, but according to the layout of the floodplain we live on, they really can’t get into the traffic, so we a...
Read more

Those Pesky Chimeras

 So some people collect stamps; I like to collect words. No one’s ever accused me of being ‘smart’ but sometimes I like to be a “smart aleck” and throw out a word in casual conversation that not many of my cohorts will immediately understand. It’s fun to watch their reactions, like, “Oh! You mean THAT fogdog!” or else, “I think I knew that …” Today’s word is “Chimera”. If you already know what that means, there went my fun for today. You can skip ahead to the application. “Chimera” is a noun that describes something wished for but is either illusory or impossible to achieve. Lately I’ve been painfully aware of two chimeras in my life. One comes to mind when I’m looking back; the other when I’m looking ahead.   Not that I’m counting, but I believe I’ve spent about 80% of my adult life on a diet, on that never-ending search for the perfect body. Now time is teaming up with my best intentions, bringing me one more step toward accepting this as the chimera it is. I’m bracing ...
Read more