IMPOSSIBLE SUNLIGHT

That was Easter then! Strange. Didn't really feel like it. Sigh. I know. What was it supposed to feel like? 1986, when we all got Easter eggs in KitKat mugs? Early 2000s, chasing nephews around the garden for a logistically pre-planned, completely fair-and-square egg-hunt? Or perhaps, the original Easter, when scared men and women blinked into the impossible sunlight and couldn't quite believe it?

To be fair, it's been unusual for us. We've not been as involved with everything as we'd like to have been, and that's made it feel a bit more disconnected. We did however, get time to spend with family, even if we could only make a fleeting appearance at our church Easter Festival. On Good Friday, we had hot cross buns with my parents, and listened to tales of their latest travels. Considering my Dad had a stroke a year ago, you might as well go ahead and count that as a bit of an Easter miracle.

I've said it before, but I really think I like the Saturday. I feel like it should have a better name than Holy Saturday, as it just seems so quiet and mysterious, so deeply profound - and, isn't every Saturday kind of 'holy'? But in these things you have to defer to the people who've been naming things the longest, and on this occasion, it happens to be the Catholics, so Holy Saturday I guess it is, and far be it from me to start calling it Mystery Saturday or Tenebrae-Shabbat or something. I mean Betwixtmas didn't really catch on.

Easter Sunday was relaxed. Don't get me wrong, I like that too! It's like a trumpet fanfare of freedom, a glorious dawn after a long night - there's much to celebrate. I wasn't playing at church, which meant that we could enjoy a classic roast with Sammy's family. That of course means food, and not each of us taking the mickey out of each other. Although, in a small way, it actually meant that too, but of course that kind of thing's far better done naturally. And, over an actual roast.

I suppose I miss the exact combination of things that were required to make it like the Easters I remember. Some things were close - the family texting 'He is Risen!' and then me repeatedly texting back 'He is Risen Indeed!' (which, if you're a follower of Jesus, is the done thing) plus lovely chocolate eggs and snacks and cards and songs. It's okay to miss the precision of the combination - seasons change, and Sammy and I are still working out what our own family traditions are, and will be, for things like this. In some ways, that new, fresh, unexpected world of working out what's next, is actually the spirit of Easter. After all, those disciples who celebrated it first must have been quickly working out that everything - everything, had to be different. There was no way it couldn't be. And, as a follower of Jesus, I don't think I'd have it any other way.