Happy Resurrection Sunday – the name I prefer to use for Easter Sunday.
When I was a child, Easter was one of the times the family got together. The WHOLE family. My great-grandmother had seven surviving daughters (one of them was my Grandma, of course), and they would all gather at her little house in the country along with their husbands, children, grand-children, and great-grandchildren. It was a BIG get-together, with cousins galore!
My mother always tried to make sure we had new clothes for Easter, and we’d get to hunt for colored Easter eggs around my Great-grandma’s homestead. There was always a huge spread laid out for dinner (I always especially looked forward to my Aunt Sharon’s coconut cake!). The grownups would sit around and talk and we kids would play in the yard – maybe sneaking off to try to catch feral kittens to pet (and get scratched up in the process!) or drop stones into the well and listen to them “plop” hollowly as they hit the water. It was one of my favorite holidays as a child.
Now as an adult, understanding the meaning of Resurrection Sunday, it remains my favorite. If ever there was a cause for joy, it is that our Savior is risen!
I hope your day was filled with wonder, joy, and blessings. I’m afraid mine didn’t start as I planned it. I was especially looking forward to going to church, since after a very long search I think I have finally found a church home, though I’ve only been there twice now. I had missed a couple of weeks though, which seemed like an eternity, so that made me look forward to going even more. All the animals were fed and taken care of, I was ready, and on my way to the car … when I saw them. Two of the goat kids had escaped the pasture and were running around the unfenced land on the other side. Vulnerable to passing dogs and anything else.
I let out a very deep sigh. The weeds back there are waist-high, and I had to change and put on my boots to go after them. Of course, they didn’t want to be caught. By the time they were safely back in the pasture, it was too late, and I had missed church. Again.
But you know what? Church isn’t necessarily just the building you go to on Sunday mornings. There is more to it than that. I got online and had some fellowship with Christian friends across the country (even if not face-to-face, I still enjoy talking to them and always come away refreshed and encouraged).
One of them shared this photo, which I’d seen before, but I was glad to be reminded of it. Isn’t this awesome work?
And for the first time ever, I remembered a song I’ve always wanted to listen to on Resurrection Sunday. The first time I heard it, I was so moved, and I thought it would make a perfect musical selection in church, yet I’ve never heard it played in church or even on the radio for the holiday. So finally, I remembered and played it myself.
May you be blessed on this wonderful Resurrection Sunday.
We tend to agree with you. Organized religion is a whole seperate thing, other than “natural” religion. Whatever god we believe in, especially out in the country, is all around us, every single day. That first spring morning after a looong winter, opening the front door and feeling warmth…that is god. Hearing the robins sing…that is god. Watching the landscape change from brown to green…that is god. The birds singing, the flowers blooming, nature replenishing and reproducing, the return of the hummingbirds, the baby animals coming on, the hard work and getting your hands in the warm soil once again…that is god. We consider ourselves “christians” to an extent, but are more inclined to lean toward Mother Nature as the true god, and respect it as such. Church on Sunday is a waste of time to us in our tiny rural village, it is more a place to catch up on the latest gossip. No one pays attention to the service itself. It is a gathering place, a place of “fellowship,” but we had found it to be more of a gossip central, and are more content to stay at the farm, soak in nature, get our hands dirty and look at the sky and say THANK YOU to whomever may be listening. By the way, glad you got your kids back. We are raising ducks right now for the first time after many years of chickens (we still have plenty of those girls) and enjoying them immensely. We always wanted goats and hope to maybe get into that as the next venture. We have a neighbor (4 miles away, you know what I mean) who has a mess of goats and assorted other farm creatures, and they are the cutest, friendliest critters. He spends a lot of time with them, they are quite tame, and appear in many local fairs and go to nursing homes to visit. Best of luck with god’s creatures, and keep up the good work!
Love this idea! I am a huge fan of your work and I’m always coming here to see what’s new.