The Second Easter Miracle

As far as I'm concerned, we can celebrate two miracles today. One, the victory of life over death. The second, you sat through one and a half hours of a high-church Episcopal service without so much as one outburst (except the charming kind--you yelled out "AMEN" just a few second after the rest of the congregation) or a kicking fit. There was one tense moment when it appeared that your stash of stickers had literally ascended into the heavens. We could not find them anywhere but the mystery was solved when the lady next to us stood up to sing the next hymn. They had been stuck under behind but I managed to gingerly slide them down the pew and into your waiting hands.

I don't know how or why church went so well for us today but maybe you, like your father, appreciate the smells and bells of the Episcopalian tradition. I kind of missed the off-key piano and the run-on sermon we've come to expect from Corntassle Presbyterian where our family usually doubles the size the congregation. Perhaps next year you'll have a chance to dazzle that gathering with your good manners and charming Easter dress.

And it appears you have the Easter egg thing figured out. Yesterday you went to your first hunt and your father reported back that while you were confused for the first minute or so, you soon caught the "fever" and were scooping up eggs as fast as you could put them in your basket. This morning you donned your egg-hunting tennis skirt and hit the backyard in search of our naturally-dyed free range eggs. It turn out natural dyes come out mostly in shades of brown. The camouflage did not deter you and you found all three eggs in under two minutes. The fact that there were not stickers hidden inside didn't disappoint you once you found they were perfectly edible.


It is a beautiful day. The sun is shining bright, the azaleas are gorgeous and you have made the day a true celebration of the infinite yes. Amen.

If we hadn't made it to church this morning, perhaps this is what we would have read in the backyard, surrounded by clucking chickens, barking dogs, pink azaleas and the little trillium your Poppa planted last weekend.

for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

~ e.e. cummings