Easter Love Quotes

Thanksgiving dinner's sad and thankless. Christmas dinner's dark and blue. When you stop and try to see it From the turkey's point of view. Sunday dinner isn't sunny. Easter feasts are just bad luck. When you see it from the viewpoint of a chicken or a duck. Oh how I once loved tuna salad Pork and lobsters, lamb chops too Till I stopped and looked at dinner From the dinner's point of view.

If man had his way, the plan of redemption would be an endless and bloody conflict. In reality, salvation was bought not by Jesus' fist, but by His nail-pierced hands; not by muscle but by love; not by vengeance but by forgiveness; not by force but by sacrifice. Jesus Christ our Lord surrendered in order that He might win; He destroyed His enemies by dying for them and conquered death by allowing death to conquer Him.

Someone should tell you you're beautiful every time the sun comes up. Someone should tell you you're beautiful on Wednesdays. And at teatime. Someone should tell you you're beautiful on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve and the evening before Christmas Eve, and on Easter. He should tell you on Guy Fawkes Night and on New Year's, and on the eigth of August, just because.

Here the whole world (stars, water, air, And field, and forest, as they were Reflected in a single mind) Like cast off clothes was left behind In ashes, yet with hopes that she, Re-born from holy poverty, In lenten lands, hereafter may Resume them on her Easter Day." (Epitaph for Joy Davidman)

It happens to all of us," I concluded that Easter Sunday morning. "God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our selfishness, our arrogance, and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life over and over.

Love paid a price so hope could become a reality.

The very first Easter taught us this: that life never ends and love never dies.

So you don't really believe in love?" I whispered. How could this be? I was crushed. It was like finding out the truth about Santa Claus and the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny in one sitting.

Two thousand years ago Jesus is crucified, three days later he walks out of a cave and they celebrate with chocolate bunnies and marshmallow Peeps and beautifully decorated eggs. I guess these were things Jesus loved as a child.

Everyone loves New York City for all these different reasons. The culture. The mix of people. The pace. The food. But for me, it's like one epic Easter egg hunt. You're always finding these little surprises around every corner.

This is an ode to all of those that have never asked for one. A thank you in words to all of those that do not do what they do so well for the thanking. This is to the mothers. This is to the ones who match our first scream with their loudest scream; who harmonize in our shared pain and joy and terrified wonder when life begins. This is to the mothers. To the ones who stay up late and wake up early and always know the distance between their soft humming song and our tired ears. To the lips that find their way to our foreheads and know, somehow always know, if too much heat is living in our skin. To the hands that spread the jam on the bread and the mesmerizing patient removal of the crust we just cannot stomach. This is to the mothers. To the ones who shout the loudest and fight the hardest and sacrifice the most to keep the smiles glued to our faces and the magic spinning through our days. To the pride they have for us that cannot fit inside after all they have endured. To the leaking of it out their eyes and onto the backs of their hands, to the trails of makeup left behind as they smile through those tears and somehow always manage a laugh. This is to the patience and perseverance and unyielding promise that at any moment they would give up their lives to protect ours. This is to the mothers. To the single mom’s working four jobs to put the cheese in the mac and the apple back into the juice so their children, like birds in a nest, can find food in their mouths and pillows under their heads. To the dreams put on hold and the complete and total rearrangement of all priority. This is to the stay-at-home moms and those that find the energy to go to work every day; to the widows and the happily married. To the young mothers and those that deal with the unexpected announcement of a new arrival far later than they ever anticipated. This is to the mothers. This is to the sack lunches and sleepover parties, to the soccer games and oranges slices at halftime. This is to the hot chocolate after snowy walks and the arguing with the umpire at the little league game. To the frosting ofbirthday cakes and the candles that are always lit on time; to the Easter egg hunts, the slip-n-slides and the iced tea on summer days. This is to the ones that show us the way to finding our own way. To the cutting of the cord, quite literally the first time and even more painfully and metaphorically the second time around. To the mothers who become grandmothers and great-grandmothers and if time is gentle enough, live to see the children of their children have children of their own. To the love. My goodness to the love that never stops and comes from somewhere only mothers have seen and know the secret location of. To the love that grows stronger as their hands grow weaker and the spread of jam becomes slower and the Easter eggs get easier to find and sack lunches no longer need making. This is to the way the tears look falling from the smile lines around their eyes and the mascara that just might always be smeared with the remains of their pride for all they have created. This is to the mothers.

Easter Contemplations It does not concern me If this life is all I have. I do not need a resurrection Or reincarnation Or to live with the gods. It is enough to live With you here In the days of your presence. When my breathes Are complete, Lay me by your side In the dust. As in life, so in death. Let us become one With each other again.

Easter says that love is more powerful than death, bigger than the dark, bigger than cancer, bigger even than airport security lines.

On Generosity On our own, we conclude: there is not enough to go around we are going to run short of money of love of grades of publications of sex of beer of members of years of life we should seize the day seize our goods seize our neighbours goods because there is not enough to go around and in the midst of our perceived deficit you come you come giving bread in the wilderness you come giving children at the 11th hour you come giving homes to exiles you come giving futures to the shut down you come giving easter joy to the dead you come – fleshed in Jesus. and we watch while the blind receive their sight the lame walk the lepers are cleansed the deaf hear the dead are raised the poor dance and sing we watch and we take food we did not grow and life we did not invent and future that is gift and gift and gift and families and neighbours who sustain us when we did not deserve it. It dawns on us – late rather than soon- that you “give food in due season you open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.” By your giving, break our cycles of imagined scarcity override our presumed deficits quiet our anxieties of lack transform our perceptual field to see the abundance………mercy upon mercy blessing upon blessing. Sink your generosity deep into our lives that your muchness may expose our false lack that endlessly receiving we may endlessly give so that the world may be made Easter new, without greedy lack, but only wonder, without coercive need but only love, without destructive greed but only praise without aggression and invasiveness…. all things Easter new….. all around us, toward us and by us all things Easter new. Finish your creation, in wonder, love and praise. Amen.

God is not, in the first place, ‘absolute power’, but ‘absolute love’,

Lust is a master showman who disguises himself as love, and love is a mythical creature who keeps habitat with the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and other lies we have been fed.

You can make a child believe a lot of things. Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny... just about anything really, except love. You cannot make a child believe you love him if you don't

In the cross of Christ God is taking man dead-seriously so that he may open up for him the happy freedom of Easter. God takes upon himself the pain of negation and the God forsakenness of judgement to reconcile himself with his enemies and to give the godless fellowship with himself. ~ Theology of Play, p.33

The Easter egg which was not found contained a letter from the hen who laid it, saying "Fuck your kids, What about mine?

I am Rabbit. I can be anywhere. I can be everywhere. I am outside time. I am outside dimension.

I am Rabbit. I can be anywhere. I can be everywhere. I am outside time. I am outside dimension. Do you want me? I am yours.

When I observe Gram, I see how fragile the notion of tradition can be. If I take my eyes off the way she kneads her Easter bread, or if I fail to study the way she sews a seam in suede, or if I lose the mental image I have of her when she negotiates a better deal with a button salesman, somehow, the very essence of her will be lost. When she goes, the responsibility for carrying on will fall to me. My mother says I’m the keeper of the flame, because I work here, and because I choose to live here. A flame is a very fragile thing, too, and there are times when I wonder if I’m the on who can keep it going.

Well, she'd been in shock. She could've believed just about anything. The Easter Bunny, tooth fairy, Santa... Yes, Virginia, men do let you down.

Easter is joy, hope, love, and renewal. Easter is proof that we can begin again.

fired up my e-reader to get lost in Easter Lust. It’s a story about a bunny rabbit shifter who meets a chicken shifter. They come together, fall in love, and then, tragically, discover they’re both submissive bottoms.

He needed so much to weep. All the distrust of life which misfortunes had brought to the little Värmland boy needed tears to wash it away. Distrust that love and joy, beauty and strength blossomed on the earth, distrust in himself, all must go, all did go, for it was Easter; the dead lived and the Spirit of Fasting would never again come into power.

What we preach in church. We believe in the resurrection on the Day of Judgement and in eternal life. The reunion of loved ones is the essence of the Easter message.

Our ability to choose is sacred. It’s what makes humans special.

Our love for people doesn't end when they pass away. More often our feelings deepen as we realize how much they mean to us and how dearly we miss them.

It is at Easter that Jesus is most human, and like all humans, he fails and is failed. His is not an all-powerful God, it is an all-vulnerable God.

On Easter day let us promise to resurrect, transcend, and transform our conscience for the happiness of mankind.

No one has ever told me that I'm beautiful before," Hazel said. She hadn't realized it was true until she said it out loud. Jack stood with his hands on either side of her face and stared at her for a few heartbeats. Then he leaned in and softly kissed both her eyelids. "Someone should tell you that you're beautiful every time the sun comes up. Someone should tell you you're beautiful on Wednesdays. And at teatime. Someone should tell you you're beautiful on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve and the evening before Christmas Eve, and on Easter. He should tell you on Guy Fawkes Night and on New Year's, and on the eighth of August, just because." He kissed her lips once more, gently, and then pulled away and gazed into her eyes. "Hazel Sinnett, you are the most miraculous creature I have ever come across, and I am going to be thinking about how beautiful you are until the day I die.

The organist was almost at the end of the anthem’s long introduction, and as the crescendo increases the cathedral began to glitter before my eyes until I felt as if every stone in the building was vibrating in anticipation of the sweeping sword of sound from the Choir. The note exploded in our midst, and at that moment I knew our creator had touched not only me but all of us, just as Harriet had touched that sculpture with a loving hand long ago, and in that touch I sensed the indestructible fidelity, the indescribable devotion and the inexhaustible energy of the creator as he shaped his creation, bringing life out of dead matter, wresting form continually from chaos. Nothing was ever lost, Harriet had said, and nothing was ever wasted because always, when the work was finally completed, every article of the created process, seen or unseen, kept or discarded, broken or mended – EVERYTHING was justified, glorified and redeemed.

It isn’t Easter,” he said, “but this week has caused me to think a lot about the Easter story. Not the glorious resurrection that we celebrate on Easter Sunday but the darkness that came before. I know of no darker moment in the Bible than the moment Jesus in his agony on the cross cries out, ‘Father, why have you forsaken me?’ Darker even than his death not long after because in death Jesus at last gave himself over fully to the divine will of God. But in that moment of his bitter railing he must have felt betrayed and completely abandoned by his father, a father he’d always believed loved him deeply and absolutely. How terrible that must have been and how alone he must have felt. In dying all was revealed to him, but alive Jesus like us saw with mortal eyes, felt the pain of mortal flesh, and knew the confusion of imperfect mortal understanding. “I see with mortal eyes. My mortal heart this morning is breaking. And I do not understand. “I confess that I have cried out to God, ‘Why have you forsaken me?’ ” Here my father paused and I thought he could not continue. But after a long moment he seemed to gather himself and went on. “When we feel abandoned, alone, and lost, what’s left to us? What do I have, what do you have, what do any of us have left except the overpowering temptation to rail against God and to blame him for the dark night into which he’s led us, to blame him for our misery, to blame him and cry out against him for not caring? What’s left to us when that which we love most has been taken? “I will tell you what’s left, three profound blessings. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul tells us exactly what they are: faith, hope, and love. These gifts, which are the foundation of eternity, God has given to us and he’s given us complete control over them. Even in the darkest night it’s still within our power to hold to faith. We can still embrace hope. And although we may ourselves feel unloved we can still stand steadfast in our love for others and for God. All this is in our control. God gave us these gifts and he does not take them back. It is we who choose to discard them. “In your dark night, I urge you to hold to your faith, to embrace hope, and to bear your love before you like a burning candle, for I promise that it will light your way. “And whether you believe in miracles or not, I can guarantee that you will experience one. It may not be the miracle you’ve prayed for. God probably won’t undo what’s been done. The miracle is this: that you will rise in the morning and be able to see again the startling beauty of the day. “Jesus suffered the dark night and death and on the third day he rose again through the grace of his loving father. For each of us, the sun sets and the sun also rises and through the grace of our Lord we can endure our own dark night and rise to the dawning of a new day and rejoice. “I invite you, my brothers and sisters, to rejoice with me in the divine grace of the Lord and in the beauty of this morning, which he has given us.

The cross unerringly exposes this stunningly marvelous and abruptly exquisite declaration that God will not let this single life of mine, with all of its grotesque maladies and pathetic filth pass into oblivion without unflinchingly declaring that my life carries a value worth the expenditure of His. And if I dare look upon the cross, I am utterly perplexed but wholly enraptured by the immensity of such a love as this.

There is never a right time to break someone's heart. And anyone with even a microgram of sensitivity in his or her body will agonise for an age over that timing. Only problem is there is always some reason not to make someone unhappy. The day a relationship end, if that relationship was at all important to the suckers involved, becomes as important an anniversary as a wedding day or birthday. Obviously, the average person doesn't want to kick someone they once loved while that person is down.   It's not just hard times when someone is down that become obstacles to making your getaway. After times of bereavement, unemployment and general unhappiness, those events that should be happy ones also make some times off limits for the eager would- be dumper. Christmas, birthdays, Easter  all impossible. A clever person with a sensitive lover that they sense is not quite as into them as he or she used to be, could starve off the inevitable for years by carefully spacing out this crucial dates.

There,' said Wednesday, 'is one who "does not have the faith and will not have the fun". Chesterton. Pagan indeed. So. Shall we go out onto the street, Easter my dear, and repeat the exercise? Find out how many passers-by know that their Easter festival takes its name from Eostre of the Dawn? Let's see - I have it. We shall ask a hundred people. For every one that knows the truth, you may cut off one of my fingers, and when I run out of them, toes; for every twenty who don't know you spend a night making love to me. And the odds are certainly in your favour here - this is San Francisco, after all. There are heathens and pagans and Wiccans aplenty on these precipitous streets.

The beauty of the cross and our crucified Lord cannot be easily fathomed by human mind or by barely reading scriptures in bits, but by careful reading of entire scripture in the spirit which will in turn engulf one with wisdom n love.

Got a kick for a dog Beggin' for Love I gotta have my suffering So that I can have my cross I know a cat named Easter He says will you ever learn You're just an empty cage girl If you kill the bird I've been looking for a savior in these dirty streets looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets I've been raising up my hands Drive another nail in Got enough guilt to start my own religion

Mary Magdalene With wandering eyes and aimless zeal, She hither, thither, goes; Her speech, her motions, all reveal A mind without repose. She climbs the hills, she haunts the sea, By madness tortured, driven; One hour's forgetfulness would be A gift from very heaven! She slumbers into new distress; The night is worse than day: Exulting in her helplessness; Hell's dogs yet louder bay. The demons blast her to and fro; She has not quiet place, Enough a woman still, to know A haunting dim disgrace. A human touch! a pang of death! And in a low delight Thou liest, waiting for new breath, For morning out of night. Thou risest up: the earth is fair, The wind is cool; thou art free! Is it a dream of hell's despair Dissolves in ecstasy? That man did touch thee! Eyes divine Make sunrise in thy soul; Thou seest love in order shine:- His health hath made thee whole! Thou, sharing in the awful doom, Didst help thy Lord to die; Then, weeping o'er his empty tomb, Didst hear him Mary cry. He stands in haste; he cannot stop; Home to his God he fares: 'Go tell my brothers I go up To my Father, mine and theirs.' Run, Mary! lift thy heavenly voice; Cry, cry, and heed not how; Make all the new-risen world rejoice- Its first apostle thou! What if old tales of thee have lied, Or truth have told, thou art All-safe with Him, whate'er betide Dwell'st with Him in God's heart!

Spirit of love and communion, give me grace to understand the mind of Christ. Let me do his will by obedience to the revelation of the Father’s will that all of us be “one body.” I cannot understand the depths of this mystery. Give me the grace to love it.

I don’t have it within me to do what God does for me. That’s why he’s God and I’m not.

Arise! Arise! Arise and shine! May Christ message of eternal life fill your heart with everlasting love, hope, happiness and new dreams.

The snow fell deeper that Easter than it had in forty years, but June walked over it like water and came home.

We love Christmas presents but not Christ; Easter baskets but not crosses. We want to tell our friends with cancer that we will pray for them (we don’t) and our puddle-eyed children that their goldfish have gone to heaven (doubtful). When we lose our jobs we want to take comfort in the idea that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, but really, how can we? We have absolutely no idea what God has given us or what it might be for. We haven’t talked to Him in ages.

A few years ago, long after it had been closed, Eli said he saw a girl swimming in it, coming out of the water in a bikini, laughing at her frigthtened boyfriend, seaweed snaking around her. He said she looked like a mermaid. Deenie always pictured it like in one of those books of mythology she used to love, a girl rising from the foam gritted with pearls, mussels, the glitter of the sea. "It looks beautiful", her mother had said once when they were driving by at night, its waters opaline. “It is beautiful. But it makes people sick.” To Deenie, it was one of many interesting things that adults said would kill you: Easter lilles, jellyfish, copperhead snakes with their diamond heads, tails bright as sulfur. Don't touch, don't taste, don't get too close. And then, last week.

If I take Easter as the starting point, the one incontrovertible fact about how God treats those whom he loves, then human history becomes the contradiction and Easter a preview of ultimate reality.

No, this was Philly. Drunks here boo Santa and get in more trouble than a dog with an Easter basket, and like the dog, they usually end up either sick or dead. Ah yes, another lovely eve in the big city.

But as soon as we touched, I felt magic crackle over and through me, so strong that I tried to jerk my hand back. But he held tight until, finally, the crackling sensation stopped. My hand slid out of his, and I leaped up from the fountain."What the hell was-" Then I looked down and realized I was completely dry. Not only that, but my demure black dress had been replaced with...well, another black dress, but this one was a lot shorter, sparklier, and also rocking a very low neckline. Even my hair was different, transformed from a soggy braid to silky brown waves. Nick winked at me. "That's better. Now you look more like the Demon Who Would be Queen." He heaved himself out of the water and grabbed Jenna's hand. Within seconds, she went from drowned rat to hottie, her soaked clothes replaced with-what else?-a pink sundress. Of course it showed a lot more skin than anything Jenna would have picked out for herself. "Oh,lovely,Nick," Daisy said, rolling her eyes as he wrapped an arm around her waist. "What?" he asked once he laid a smacking kiss on her cheek. "They look better like that." Without thinking,I reached out and grabbed Nick's free arm. His wet white T-shirt and jeans rippled, and suddenly he was wearing a Day-Glo yellow tank top and acid-washed jeans. "And you look better like this." I wasn't sure if it was the ridiculous sight of Nick in those clothes, or the fact that I'd done a spell so easily-with absolutely no explosions-but I could feel my lips curving upward in a smile. As Daisy hooted with laughter, Nick narrowed his eyes at me. "Okay, now you're in for it." He waved his hand, and suddenly I was sweltering. When I glanced down, I saw that it was because I was now dressed like the Easter Bunny.But with the flick of one fuzzy paw,I'd transformed Nick's jeans and tank top into a snowsuit. Then I was in a bikini. So Nick was wearing a particularly poofy purple prom dress. By the time he'd turned my clothes into a showgirl's costume, complete with a feathery headdress, and I'd put him in a scuba suit, we were both completely magic drunk and giggling.

Love is the deepest mode of knowing, because it is love that, while completely engaging with reality other than itself, affirms and celebrates that other-than-self reality. This is the mode of knowing that is necessary if we are to live in the new public world, the world launched at Easter, the world in which Jesus is Lord and Caesar isn’t.

And thus it passed on from Candlemass until after Easter, that the month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit; for like as herbs and trees bring forth fruit and flourish in May, in like wise every lusty heart that is in any manner a lover, springeth and flourisheth in lusty deeds. For it giveth unto all lovers courage, that lusty month of May, in something to constrain him to some manner of thing more in that month than in any other month, for divers causes. For then all herbs and trees renew a man and woman, and likewise lovers call again to their mind old gentleness and old service, and many kind deeds that were forgotten by negligence. For like as winter rasure doth alway arase and deface green summer, so fareth it by unstable love in man and woman. For in many persons there is no stability; for we may see all day, for a little blast of winter's rasure, anon we shall deface and lay apart true love for little or nought, that cost much thing; this is no wisdom nor stability, but it is feebleness of nature and great disworship, whosomever useth this. Therefore, like as May month flowereth and flourisheth in many gardens, so in like wise let every man of worship flourish his heart in this world, first unto God, and next unto the joy of them that he promised his faith unto; for there was never worshipful man or worshipful woman, but they loved one better than another; and worship in arms may never be foiled, but first reserve the honour to God, and secondly the quarrel must come of thy lady: and such love I call virtuous love. But nowadays men can not love seven night but they must have all their desires: that love may not endure by reason; for where they be soon accorded and hasty heat, soon it cooleth. Right so fareth love nowadays, soon hot soon cold: this is no stability. But the old love was not so; men and women could love together seven years, and no licours lusts were between them, and then was love, truth, and faithfulness: and lo, in like wise was used love in King Arthur's days. Wherefore I liken love nowadays unto summer and winter; for like as the one is hot and the other cold, so fareth love nowadays; therefore all ye that be lovers call unto your remembrance the month of May, like as did Queen Guenever, for whom I make here a little mention, that while she lived she was a true lover, and therefore she had a good end.

Despite our earnest efforts, we couldn't climb all the way up to God. So what did God do? In an amazing act of condescension, on Good Friday, God climbed down to us, became one with us. The story of divine condescension begins on Christmas and ends on Good Friday. We thought, if there is to be business between us and God, we must somehow get up to God. Then God came down, down to the level of the cross, all the way down to the depths of hell. He who knew not sin took on our sin so that we might be free of it. God still stoops, in your life and mine, condescends. “Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” he asked his disciples, before his way up Golgotha. Our answer is an obvious, “No!” His cup is not only the cup of crucifixion and death, it is the bloody, bloody cup that one must drink if one is going to get mixed up in us. Any God who would wander into the human condition, any God who has this thirst to pursue us, had better not be too put off by pain, for that's the way we tend to treat our saviors. Any God who tries to love us had better be ready to die for it. As Chesterton writes, “Any man who preaches real love is bound to beget hate … Real love has always ended in bloodshed.

How many beginnings can a story have, Daddy?" "As many as you can eat, my lamb. But only one ending. Or maybe it's the other way around: one beginning and a whole Easter basket of endings." "Papa, don't be silly... A story has to start somewhere. And then it has to end somewhere. That's the whole point. That's how it is in real life." "But that's not how it is in real life, Rinny. Real life is all beginnings. Days, weeks, children, journeys, marriages, inventions. Even a murder is the beginning of a criminal. Perhaps even a spree. Everything is prologue. Every story has a stutter. It just keeps starting and starting until you decide to shut the camera off. Half the time you don't even realize that what you're choosing for breakfast is the beginning of a story that won't pan out till you're sixty and staring at the pastry that made you a widower. No, love, in real life you can get all the way to death and never have finished one single story. Or never even get one so much as half-begun.

Easter blessings All life’s sacrifices like autumn leaves awaken our senses and power to love and be whole Our Mother Earth, Our Father Sky embraces our happiness and laughter Praise be to freedom and life’s seasons Praise be to Christ’s freedom song

Our task, as image-bearing, God-loving, Christ-shaped, Spirit-filled Christians, following Christ and shaping our world, is to announce redemption to the world that has discovered its fallenness, to announce healing to the world that has discovered its fallenness, to announce healing to the world that has discovered its brokenness, to proclaim love and trust to the world that knows only exploitation, fear and suspicion.

...the liturgical traditions of the Church, all its cycles and services, exist, first of all, in order to help us recover the vision and the taste of that new life which we so easily lose and betray, so that we may repent and return to it. ... It is through her liturgical life that the Church reveals to us something of that which "the ear has not heard, the eye has not seen, and what has not yet entered the heart of man, but which God has prepared for those who love Him." And in the center of that liturgical life, as its heart and climax, as the sun whose rays penetrate everywhere, stands Pascha.

Crucified Love lives with us today and till the end of times as He promised.Amen.The beauty of the cross and our crucified Lord cannot be fathomed by human mind or by barely reading scriptures in bits, but by careful reading of entire scripture in the spirit which will in turn engulf one with wisdom and love.

Jesus no longer belongs to the past but lives in the present and is projected toward the future; Jesus is the everlasting "today" of God. This is how the newness of God appears to the women, the disciples, and all of us: as victory over sin, evil, and death - over everything that crushes life and makes it seem less human. And this is a message meant for me and for you, dear sister, you, dear brother. How often does Love have to tell us, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" Our daily problems and worries can wrap us up in ourselves, in sadness and bitterness...and that is where death is. That is not the place to look for the One who is alive!

But she knew it would never happen. She had no intention of visiting him there. Even if she were open to the idea, as Mom and Dad both hoped she would be, the mathematics of it seemed utterly impossible to her. What was she supposed to do, spend Christmas there and Easter here? See her dad every other holiday and one week during the summer, just enough to glimpse his new life in fragments, tiny slivers of a world she had no part in? And all the while missing out on those moments of her mom’s life—her mom, who’d done nothing to deserve to spend Christmas alone? That, it seemed to Hadley, was no way to live. Perhaps if there were more time, or if time were more malleable; if she could be both places at once, live parallel lives; or, simpler yet, if Dad would just come home. Because as far as she was concerned, there was no in-between: She wanted all or nothing, illogically, irrationally, even though something inside of her knew that nothing would be too hard, and all was impossible.

I don’t give up on people, even when they give up on me.

Love is at the root of a positive attitude.

Do you want me? I am yours.

Love is a word that can truly change any atmosphere.

V. R. Lang You are so serious, as if a glacier spoke in your ear or you had to walk through the great gate of Kiev to get to the living room. I worry about this because I love you. As if it weren't grotesque enough that we live in hydrogen and breathe like atomizers, you have to think I'm a great architect! and you float regally by on your incessant escalator, calm, a jungle queen. Thinking it a steam shovel. Looking a little uneasy. But you are yourself again, yanking silver beads off your neck. Remember, the Russian Easter Overture is full of bunnies. Be always high, full of regard and honor and lanolin. Oh ride horseback in pink linen, be happy! and ride with your beads on, because it rains.

We almost always undervalue the significance of the Victory at the Cross.But as our understanding is gradually enlightened, we are continuously awed at how much the Father hath loved us

Someone should tell you that you're beautiful every time the sun comes up. Someone should tell you you're beautiful on Wednesdays. And at teatime. Someone should tell you you're beautiful on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve and the evening before Christmas Eve, and on Easter. He should tell you on Guy Fawkes Night and on New Year's, and on the eighth of August, just because.

Nobody in Faha could remember when it started. Rain there on the western seaboard was a condition of living. It came straight-down and sideways, frontwards, backwards and any other wards God could think of. It came in sweeps, in waves, sometimes in veils. It came dressed as drizzle, as mizzle, as mist, as showers, frequent and widespread, as a wet fog, as a damp day, a drop, a dripping, and an out-and-out downpour. It came the fine day, the bright day, and the day promised dry. It came at any time of the day and night, and in all seasons, regardless of calendar and forecast, until in Faha your clothes were rain and your skin was rain and your house was rain with a fireplace. It came off the grey vastness of an Atlantic that threw itself against the land like a lover once spurned and resolved not to be so again. It came accompanied by seagulls and smells of salt and seaweed. It came with cold air and curtained light. It came like a judgment, or, in benign version, like a blessing God had forgotten he had left on. It came for a handkerchief of blue sky, came on westerlies, sometimes—why not?—on easterlies, came in clouds that broke their backs on the mountains in Kerry and fell into Clare, making mud the ground and blind the air. It came disguised as hail, as sleet, but never as snow. It came softly sometimes, tenderly sometimes, its spears turned to kisses, in rain that pretended it was not rain, that had come down to be closer to the fields whose green it loved and fostered, until it drowned them.

Want to know the coolest thing about the coming? Not that the One who played marbles with the stars gave it up to play marbles with marbles. Or that the One who hung the galaxies gave it up to hang doorjambs to the displeasure of a cranky client who wanted everything yesterday but couldn't pay until tomorrow. Not that he, in an instant, went from needing nothing to needing air, food, a tub of hot water and salts for his tired feet, and, more than anything, needing somebody - anybody - who was more concerned about where he would spend eternity rather than where he would spend Friday's paycheck. Or that he resisted the urge to fry the two=bit, self-appointed hall monitors of holiness who dared suggest that he was doing the work of the devil. Not that he kept his cool while the dozen best friends he ever had felt the heat and got out of the kitchen. Or that he gave no command to the angels who begged, "Just give us the nod, Lord. One word and these demons will be deviled eggs." Not that he refused to defend himself when blamed for every sin of every slut and sailor since Adam. Or that he stood silent as a million guilty verdicts echoed in the tribunal of heaven and the giver of light was left in the chill of a sinner's night. Not even that after three days in a dark hole he stepped into the Easter sunrise with a smile and a swagger and a question for lowly Lucifer - "Is that your best punch?" That was cool, incredibly cool. But want to know the coolest thing about the One who gave up the crown of heaven for a crown of thorns? He did it for you. Just for you.

Forget, too, the lamb-y, metaphor-male, the groinless, bourgeois Jesus, with his Easter-egg, candy-store-window eyes ogling the cruciform crosspiece of his eyebrows. If you meet such a Christ on the way, kill him. Do you wish to love? Do you wish to love? Leave love. Love nothing. Life is dark; life is dark at the no-place of the shocked heart cut two by the bone-handled, thrice-bladed Word.

God knows the hour of each person's passing. Whatever we did or didn't do for someone we loved, the timing of his or her departure was God's alone. "Thy will be done" is more than a prayer request. It's a forgone conclusion.

Sometimes I think Earth has got to be the insane asylum of the universe. . . and I'm here by computer error. At sixty-eight, I hope I've gained some wisdom in the past fourteen lustrums and it’s obligatory to speak plain and true about the conclusions I've come to; now that I have been educated to believe by such mentors as Wells, Stapledon, Heinlein, van Vogt, Clarke, Pohl, (S. Fowler) Wright, Orwell, Taine, Temple, Gernsback, Campbell and other seminal influences in scientifiction, I regret the lack of any female writers but only Radclyffe Hall opened my eyes outside sci-fi. I was a secular humanist before I knew the term. I have not believed in God since childhood's end. I believe a belief in any deity is adolescent, shameful and dangerous. How would you feel, surrounded by billions of human beings taking Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy and the stork seriously, and capable of shaming, maiming or murdering in their name? I am embarrassed to live in a world retaining any faith in church, prayer or a celestial creator. I do not believe in Heaven, Hell or a Hereafter; in angels, demons, ghosts, goblins, the Devil, vampires, ghouls, zombies, witches, warlocks, UFOs or other delusions; and in very few mundane individuals--politicians, lawyers, judges, priests, militarists, censors and just plain people. I respect the individual's right to abortion, suicide and euthanasia. I support birth control. I wish to Good that society were rid of smoking, drinking and drugs. My hope for humanity - and I think sensible science fiction has a beneficial influence in this direction - is that one day everyone born will be whole in body and brain, will live a long life free from physical and emotional pain, will participate in a fulfilling way in their contribution to existence, will enjoy true love and friendship, will pity us 20th century barbarians who lived and died in an atrocious, anachronistic atmosphere of arson, rape, robbery, kidnapping, child abuse, insanity, murder, terrorism, war, smog, pollution, starvation and the other negative “norms” of our current civilization. I have devoted my life to amassing over a quarter million pieces of sf and fantasy as a present to posterity and I hope to be remembered as an altruist who would have been an accepted citizen of Utopia.

The Manger of Incidentals " We are surrounded by the absurd excess of the universe. By meaningless bulk, vastness without size, power without consequence. The stubborn iteration that is present without being felt. Nothing the spirit can marry. Merely phenomenon and its physics. An endless, endless of going on. No habitat where the brain can recognize itself. No pertinence for the heart. Helpless duplication. The horror of none of it being alive. No red squirrels, no flowers, not even weed. Nothing that knows what season it is. The stars uninflected by awareness. Miming without implication. We alone see the iris in front of the cabin reach its perfection and quickly perish. The lamb is born into happiness and is eaten for Easter. We are blessed with powerful love and it goes away. We can mourn. We live the strangeness of being momentary, and still we are exalted by being temporary. The grand Italy of meanwhile. It is the fact of being brief, being small and slight that is the source of our beauty. We are a singularity that makes music out of noise because we must hurry. We make a harvest of loneliness and desiring in the blank wasteland of the cosmos.

He cannot do anything deliberate now. The strain of his whole weight on his outstretched arms hurts too much. The pain fills him up, displaces thought, as much for him as it has for everyone else who has ever been stuck to one of these horrible contrivances, or for anyone else who dies in pain from any of the world’s grim arsenal of possibilities. And yet he goes on taking in. It is not what he does, it is what he is. He is all open door: to sorrow, suffering, guilt, despair, horror, everything that cannot be escaped, and he does not even try to escape it, he turns to meet it, and claims it all as his own. This is mine now, he is saying; and he embraces it with all that is left in him, each dark act, each dripping memory, as if it were something precious, as if it were itself the loved child tottering homeward on the road. But there is so much of it. So many injured children; so many locked rooms; so much lonely anger; so many bombs in public places; so much vicious zeal; so many bored teenagers at roadblocks; so many drunk girls at parties someone thought they could have a little fun with; so many jokes that go too far; so much ruining greed; so much sick ingenuity; so much burned skin. The world he claims, claims him. It burns and stings, it splinters and gouges, it locks him round and drags him down… All day long, the next day, the city is quiet. The air above the city lacks the usual thousand little trails of smoke from cookfires. Hymns rise from the temple. Families are indoors. The soldiers are back in barracks. The Chief Priest grows hoarse with singing. The governor plays chess with his secretary and dictates letters. The free bread the temple distributed to the poor has gone stale by midday, but tastes all right dipped in water or broth. Death has interrupted life only as much as it ever does. We die one at a time and disappear, but the life of the living continues. The earth turns. The sun makes its way towards the western horizon no slower or faster than it usually does. Early Sunday morning, one of the friends comes back with rags and a jug of water and a box of the grave spices that are supposed to cut down on the smell. She’s braced for the task. But when she comes to the grave she finds that the linen’s been thrown into the corner and the body is gone. Evidently anonymous burial isn’t quite anonymous enough, after all. She sits outside in the sun. The insects have woken up, here at the edge of the desert, and a bee is nosing about in a lily like silk thinly tucked over itself, but much more perishable. It won’t last long. She takes no notice of the feet that appear at the edge of her vision. That’s enough now, she thinks. That’s more than enough. Don’t be afraid, says Yeshua. Far more can be mended than you know. She is weeping. The executee helps her to stand up.

Jesus’s use of the phrasing “a new commandment” is frequently scanted in light of its implicit ramifications. Because Jesus at the Last Supper has executed the “new covenant” with his disciples, the Great Commandment itself now acquires an unprecedented meaning. Its new meaning belongs to this sudden revelation not merely about who God is but also about what love is. Previously the Great Commandment bade us to love God and our neighbor. Now this love can be comprehended only in an incarnational situation. Its incarnate presence is the activation of profound rhizomic relations that explode from the center toward the ends of the earth. We are commanded to be incarnational in relation to one another just as God at the cross was incarnational in Christ. . . . We are no longer simply Christ’s “followers" - the pre-Easter form of relation to a master-and-teacher that is conventionally called “disciple” - but also perpetual Christ incarnators . . .

As I was about to complain that this 2020 is not the year I have ordered. Then I remembered Romans 5:3-11 3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love….

King refused to lose hope or to relinquish the belief that “all reality hinges on moral foundations.” He focused his hope on Jesus’ cross and resurrection. “Christ came to show us the way. Men love darkness rather than the light, and they crucified Him, there on Good Friday on the Cross it was still dark, but then Easter came, and Easter is the eternal reminder of the fact that the truth-crushed earth will rise again.” No matter what disappointments he faced, King still preached hope with the passion of a prophet: “I still have a dream, because, you know, you can’t give up on life. If you lose hope, somehow you lose that vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you to go on in spite of all.”[49]

My sin murdered Him. And out of this self-loathing shame borne of the understanding that I could perpetrate such a heinous act, I am barely able to raise my head sufficiently to ask what crazed insanity would prompt Jesus to walk out of an empty tomb for the single purpose of pursuing a decaying soul that murdered Him? And I would be wise to consider that the question itself is asked only because I have yet to touch the barest periphery of God’s love despite the fact that because of an empty tomb it stands right in front of me.

There are times when I hear my name, turn, and recognize Jesus. There are times when faith feels like a friendship with God. But there are many other times when it feels more adversarial or even vacant. Yet none of that matters in the end. How we feel about Jesus or how close we feel to God is meaningless next to how God acts upon us. How God indeed enters into our messy lives and loves us through them, whether we want God’s help or not. And how, even after we’ve experienced some sort of resurrection, it’s never perfect or impressive like an Easter bonnet, because, like Jesus, resurrected bodies are always in rough shape.

За Отрока — за Голубя — за Сына, За царевича младого Алексия Помолись, церковная Россия! Очи ангельские вытри, Вспомяни, как пал на плиты Голубь углицкий — Димитрий. Ласковая ты, Россия, матерь! Ах, ужели у тебя не хватит На него — любовной благодати? Грех отцовский не карай на сыне. Сохрани, крестьянская Россия, Царскосельского ягнёнка — Алексия! 4 апреля 1917, третий день Пасхи Pray for the Son - the Dove - the Adolescent, For the young Tsarevich, for the young Alexis - Russia, pray, who the true faith confessest! Wipe those angel eyes now, ponder deeply Him that fell upon the stones - think meetly On the dove of Uglich, on Dimitri. Gentle mother, Russia, kind, caressing! Is thy heart so hard as not to grace him With thy loving-kindness, with thy blessing? Visit not upon the son the father's trespass. Russia of the country folk - be his protectress: Spare the lamb of Tsarskoye Selo, Alexis! 4 April 1917 Third day of Easter

Crucified Love lives with us today and till the end of times, as He promised.Amen.The beauty of the cross and our crucified Lord cannot be easily fathomed by human mind or by barely reading scriptures in bits, but by careful reading of entire scripture in the spirit which will in turn engulf one with wisdom and love.

Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him” (Luke 4:8). Jesus knows what that means. It means lowliness, abuse, persecution. It means remaining misunderstood. It means hate, death, the cross. And he chooses this way from the beginning. It is the way of obedience and the way of freedom, for it is the way of God. And therefore it is also the way of love for human beings.

Nothing in my life had prepared me for this.Not one single thing.I feel like a lad rat stuck in some horrible experiment meant to measure how I adapt to brutal forms of social segregation and weirdness.And the sad news is,I'm producing way below average results. I stand to the side of the lunchroom or cafeteria,or whatever they call it.The vegetarian lunch Paloma packed with great love and care tightly clutched in my fist,though I've no clue as to where I'm supposed to go eat it. Having already committed the most heinous crime of all by sitting at the wrong table, I'm not sure I'm up for trying again.I'm still shaken by the way those girls acted-so self-righteous and territorial,so burdened by my presence at the end of their bench. It's the seniors' table, I was told. I have no right to sit there. Ever. And that includes holidays and weekends. "Duly noted," I replied, grabbing my lunch and standing before them. "I'll do my best to steer clear of it on Christmas.Easter as well.Though Valentine's Day is a wild card I just can't commit to." And though it felt good at the time,I've no doubt it was a reckless act that only made things worse.

Dell pulled out his cell phone, speed-dialed a number, and put the phone on speaker. A woman answered with a professionally irritated tone: “What do you need now?” “Jade,” Dell said. “Nope, it’s the Easter Bunny. And your keys are on your desk.” Dell shook his head. “Now darlin’, I don’t always call you just because I’ve lost my keys.” “I’m sorry, you’re right. You wallet’s on your desk, too. As for your little black book, you’re on your own with that one, Dr. Flirt. I’m at lunch.” Dell sighed. “What did we say about you and the whole power-play thing?” “That it’s good for your ego to have at least one woman in your life that you can’t flash a smile at and have them drop their panties?” Dell grinned. “I really like it when you say ‘panties.’ And for the record, I knew where my keys and wallet were.” “No you didn’t.” “Okay, I didn’t, but that’s not why I’m calling. Can you bring burgers and fries for me and Brady? Oh, and Adam, too, or he’ll bitch like a little girl.” “You mean ‘Jade, will you pretty please bring us burgers and fries?’” “Yes,” Dell said, nodding. “That. And Cokes.” He looked at Brady, who nodded. “And don’t forget the ketchup.” “You forgot the nice words.” “Oh, I’m sorry,” Dell said. “You look fantastic today, I especially love the attitude and sarcasm you’re wearing.” Jade’s voice went saccharine sweet. “So some low-fat chicken salads, no dressing, and ice water to go, then?” “Fine,” Dell said, and sighed. “Can we please have burgers and fries?" “You forgot the ‘Thank you, Goddess Jade,’ but we’ll work on that. Later, boss.

People can go on telling themselves things like “Think before you speak!” or “You don’t believe that yourself” or “Forget it!” But they can also say, “Oh, what lovely flowers!” or “Are you a phone freak or something?” or “Suit yourself,” or “This record makes me feel so happy!’ Wonderful! Words are delightful little gifts we exchange like the Easter eggs we paint and hide for others to find and enjoy. I’d forgotten that, but you reminded me of it.

You can’t give yourself to love for a soldier without giving yourself to his suffering in war. It is this body of our suffering that Christ was born into, to suffer it Himself and to fill it with light, so that beyond the suffering we can imagine Easter morning and the peace of God on little earthly homelands such as Port William and the farming villages of Okinawa. But Christ’s living unto death in this body of our suffering did not end the suffering. He asked us to end it, but we have not ended it. We suffer the old suffering over and over again. Eventually, in loving, you see that you have given yourself over to the knowledge of suffering in a state of war that is always going on. And you wake in the night to the thought of the hurt and the helpless, the scorned and the cheated, the burnt, the bombed, the shot, the imprisoned, the beaten, the tortured, the maimed, the spit upon, the shit upon.

Henri Nouwen wonderfully describes the practices of silence, solitude and fasting. Within a world of words, silence allows us to hear the voice of God and ultimately gives us a liberating word for others. Solitude, as Nouwen says, is “the place of purification and transformation, the place of the great struggle and the great encounter.”[5] Solitude is the place where we stand alone, naked before a holy God, and learn to accept his grace and love, which set us free. Finally, fasting allows us to enter into the sufferings of Christ and walk closer with God. As Eddie Gibbs says, “The Church in the West has got to learn to suffer. We love Easter, but we don’t like Good Friday.”[6] Fasting gives a needed break to our digestive organs and sharpens our spiritual senses. As we engage in the three practices of silence, solitude and fasting, we can overcome a noisy, overwhelming, frenzied life and connect with the heart of God. Here we find love and liberation for all, responding to the suffering and captivity in the world.

Easter was late in April that year; my first three tours of trenches occupied me during the last thirty days of Lent. This essential season in the Church calendar was not, as far as I remember, remarked upon by anyone in my company, although the name of Christ was often on our lips, and Mansfield (when a canister made a mess of the trench not many yards away from him) was even heard to refer to our Saviour as ‘murry old Jesus!’ These innocuous blasphemings of the holy name were a peculiar feature of the War, in which the principles of Christianity were either obliterated or falsified for the convenience of all who were engaged in it. Up in the trenches every man bore his own burden; the Sabbath was not made for man; and if a man laid down his life for his friends it was no part of his military duties. To kill an enemy was an effective action; to bring in one of our own wounded was praiseworthy, but unrelated to our war-aims. The Brigade chaplain did not exhort us to love our enemies. He was content to lead off with the hymn ‘How sweet the name of Jesus sounds’!

Holidays: Imagine if the great holidays and seasons of the Christian year were redesigned to emphasize love. Advent would be the season of preparing our hearts to receive God’s love. Epiphany would train us to keep our eyes open for expressions of compassion in our daily lives. Lent would be an honest self-examination of our maturity in love and a renewal of our commitment to grow in it. Instead of giving up chocolate or coffee for Lent, we would stop criticizing or gossiping about or interrupting others. Maundy Thursday would refocus us on the great and new commandment; Good Friday would present the suffering of crucifixion as the suffering of love; Holy Saturday would allow us to lament and grieve the lack of love in our lives and world; and Easter would celebrate the revolutionary power of death-defying love. Pentecost could be an “altar call” to be filled with the Spirit of love, and “ordinary time” could be “extraordinary time” if it involved challenges to celebrate and express love in new ways—to new people, to ourselves, to the earth, and to God—including time to tell stories about our experiences of doing so.

But if my father could stand up to schoolmasters and if he inherited some of his own father's gifts as a teacher, he himself could never have become one. He could teach and loved teaching. He could radiate enthusiasm, but he could never impose discipline. He could never have taught a dull subject to a dull boy, never have said: "Do this because I say so." Enthusiasm spread knowledge sideways, among equals. Discipline forced it downwards from above. My father's relationships were always between equals, however old or young, distinguished or undistinguished the other person. Once, when I was quite little, he came up to the nursery while I was having my lunch. And while he was talking I paused between mouthfuls, resting my hands on the table, knife and fork pointing upwards. "You oughtn't really to sit like that," he said, gently. "Why not?" I asked, surprised. "Well..." He hunted around for a reason he could give. Because it's considered bad manners? Because you mustn't? Because... "Well," he said, looking in the direction my fork was pointing, "Suppose somebody suddenly fell through the ceiling. They might land on your fork and that would be very painful." "I see," I said, though I didn't really. It seemed such an unlikely thing to happen, such a funny reason for holding your knife and fork flat when you were not using them... But funny reason or not, it seems I have remembered it. In the same sort of way I learned about the nesting habits of starlings. I had been given a bird book for Easter (Easter 1934: I still have the book) and with its help I had made my first discovery. "There's a blackbird's nest in the hole under the tiles just outside the drawing-room window," I announced proudly. "I've just seen the blackbird fly in." "I think it's probably really a starling," said my father. "No, it's a blackbird," I said firmly, hating to be wrong, hating being corrected. "Well," said my father, realizing how I felt but at the same time unable to allow an inaccuracy to get away with it, "Perhaps it's a blackbird visiting a starling." A blackbird visiting a starling. Someone falling through the ceiling. He could never bear to be dogmatic, never bring himself to say (in effect): This is so because I say it is, and I am older than you and must know better. How much easier, how much nicer to escape into the world of fantasy in which he felt himself so happily at home.

Someone should tell you that you’re beautiful every time the sun comes up. Someone should tell you you’re beautiful on Wednesdays. And at teatime. Someone should tell you you’re beautiful on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve and the evening before Christmas Eve, and on Easter. He should tell you on Guy Fawkes Night and on New Year’s, and on the eighth of August, just because.” He kissed her lips once more, gently, and then pulled away and gazed into her eyes. “Hazel Sinnett, you are the most miraculous creature I have ever come across, and I am going to be thinking about how beautiful you are until the day I die.

Pakistan is an Islamic country and the victim of an Easter terrorist attack. Groups like Isis or in this case the Taliban are not about religion. No more than the KKK is about Christianity. These groups are about hate! I did post on the Pakistani attack because it is really important to point out that brown and black people in the middle east and Africa are being killed. Terrorism isn't about Islam. It is about hate. SO let's fight this hate. Let's stand united with our Islamic brothers and sisters who are being slaughtered. Step back from judging a religion you are not exposed to. Understand that we need to work together. ALL faiths. That's how we defeat this

Коли в землю солдаты всадили — штык, Коли красною тряпкой затмили — Лик*, Коли Бог под ударами — глух и нем, Коль на Пасху народ не пустили в Кремль — Надо бражникам старым засесть за холст, Рыбам — петь, бабам — умствовать, птицам — ползть, Конь на всаднике должен скакать верхом, Новорожденных надо поить вином**, Реки — жечь, мертвецов выносить — в окно, Солнце красное в полночь всходить должно, Имя суженой должен забыть жених… Государыням нужно любить — простых***. 3-ий день Пасхи 1918 *Красный флаг, к<отор>ым завесили лик Николая Чудотворца. Продолжение — известно (примеч. М. Цветаевой).↵ **Поили: г<оспо>жу де Жанлис. В Бургундии. Называлось «la miaulée». И жила, кажется, до 90-ста лет. Но был ужасная лицемерка (примеч. М. Цветаевой).↵ ***Любили (примеч. М. Цветаевой).↵ Now that the troops stick their bayonets - in the earth, that they wrap the Saint's Face - in a scarlet cloth, That, in face of these blows, God is - deaf and dumb, That at Easter the Kremlin admits no one - We shall soon see old revellers ply the loom, Fishes - sing, old wives - meditate, birds - creep, soon see the steed mount its rider and race away, see them start feeding wine to the new-born babe, Rivers - burn, windows - open to pass the dead, on the stroke of midnight - the sun rise, blood-red, the fiancé forget his beloved's name... and tsarinas - love commoners once again*. Third day of Easter, 1918 *They did love them (M.S.)

Remember, please remember, you do not (you must not!) fear, attack, or hate the False Self. That would only continue a negative and arrogant death energy, and it is delusional and counterproductive anyway. It would be trying to “drive out the devil by the prince of devils,” as Jesus puts it. In the great economy of grace, all is used and transformed, and nothing is wasted. God uses your various False Selves to lead you beyond them. Note that Jesus' clear message to his beloved, Mary Magdalene, is not that she squelch, deny, or destroy her human love for him. He is much more subtle than that. He just says to her, “Do not cling to me” (John 20:17). He is saying, “Don't hold on to your needy False Self. We are all heading for something much bigger and much better, Mary.” This is the spiritual art of detachment, which is not taught much in capitalistic worldview where clinging and possessing are not just the norm but even the goal. You see how trapped we are. Great love is both very attached (“passionate”) and yet very detached at the same time. It is love but not addiction. The soul, the True Self, has everything, and so it does not require any particular thing. When you have all things, you do not have to protect any one thing. True Self can love and let go. The False Self cannot do this. The “do not cling to me” encounter between Jesus and Mary Magdalene is the most painted Easter scene, I am told. The artistic imagination knew that a seeming contradiction was playing out here: intense love and yet appropriate distance. The soul and the spirit tend to love and revel in paradoxes; they operate by resonance and reflection. The ego (False Self) wants to resolve all paradoxes in a most glib way and thinks that it can. It operates in a way that is mechanical and instrumental. This is not always bad, but it is surely limited. The ego would like Mary Magdalene and Jesus to be caught up in a passionate love affair. Of course they are, in the deepest sense of the term, but only the True Self knows how to enjoy and picture “a love of already satisfied desire.” The True Self and False Self see differently; both are necessary, but one is better, bigger, and even eternal.

This reminds me of a funny Chris story. Back when we lived in California, Easter was coming up and Chris was home with the kids. I forget exactly what the children did, but they got out of line and Chris decided rather than disciplining them, he’d use a little daddy logic on them. Daddy logic, as expressed by a SEAL sniper. “I’ll tell you, you better behave,” he said, “or I’ll keep the Easter Bunny from coming.” “How?” one of them wondered. Daddy logic met kid logic and raised the ante through the roof. “I’ll sit on the stoop and I’ll shoot him when he comes,” said Chris. Somehow he kept a straight face. “You’ll ruin it for everyone, not just yourselves.” We had great behavior for weeks. It’s different living with a sniper as a dad.

Achild acquires stuffed animals throughout their life, but the core team is usually in place by the time they’re five. Louise got Red Rabbit, a hard, heavy bunny made of maroon burlap, for her first Easter as a gift from Aunt Honey. Buffalo Jones, an enormous white bison with a collar of soft wispy fur, came back with her dad from a monetary policy conference in Oklahoma. Dumbo, a pale blue hard rubber piggy bank with a detachable head shaped like the star of the Disney movie, had been spotted at Goodwill and Louise claimed him as “mine” when she was three. Hedgie Hoggie, a plush hedgehog Christmas ornament, had been a special present from the checkout girl after Louise fell in love with him in the supermarket checkout line and would strike up a conversation with him every time they visited. But Pupkin was their leader.

The first Easter Chris was gone, I stayed up late Saturday night to hide the Easter eggs. We got up early, and I watched as Bubba and Angel went to work finding them. You can’t help but smile at kids who are just alive with the fun of it all. For a few moments I was so absolutely into their happiness that I forgot how tired I was, and didn’t think of Chris or the fact that we were missing him so badly. Finally, after all the eggs and candy were gathered, I told the kids I was going to take a shower and get ready for the rest of the day. I was feeling great--until I closed the door behind me. The sense of loss that I’d been screening out hit me. It drove me to my knees, and I began crying uncontrollably. There was a knock on the door. Angel opened it and looked in. I did my best to smile. “Hey, what’s up?” I asked. “Are you okay, Momma?” “Yes.” “You miss Daddy?” she asked. I nodded. Angel came in and gave me a hug. “You know he’s still here with us, right?” “Yes. Yes, I do.

Christmas In India Dim dawn behind the tamerisks -- the sky is saffron-yellow -- As the women in the village grind the corn, And the parrots seek the riverside, each calling to his fellow That the Day, the staring Easter Day is born. Oh the white dust on the highway! Oh the stenches in the byway! Oh the clammy fog that hovers And at Home they're making merry 'neath the white and scarlet berry -- What part have India's exiles in their mirth? Full day begind the tamarisks -- the sky is blue and staring -- As the cattle crawl afield beneath the yoke, And they bear One o'er the field-path, who is past all hope or caring, To the ghat below the curling wreaths of smoke. Call on Rama, going slowly, as ye bear a brother lowly -- Call on Rama -- he may hear, perhaps, your voice! With our hymn-books and our psalters we appeal to other altars, And to-day we bid "good Christian men rejoice!" High noon behind the tamarisks -- the sun is hot above us -- As at Home the Christmas Day is breaking wan. They will drink our healths at dinner -- those who tell us how they love us, And forget us till another year be gone! Oh the toil that knows no breaking! Oh the Heimweh, ceaseless, aching! Oh the black dividing Sea and alien Plain! Youth was cheap -- wherefore we sold it. Gold was good -- we hoped to hold it, And to-day we know the fulness of our gain. Grey dusk behind the tamarisks -- the parrots fly together -- As the sun is sinking slowly over Home; And his last ray seems to mock us shackled in a lifelong tether. That drags us back how'er so far we roam. Hard her service, poor her payment -- she is ancient, tattered raiment -- India, she the grim Stepmother of our kind. If a year of life be lent her, if her temple's shrine we enter, The door is hut -- we may not look behind. Black night behind the tamarisks -- the owls begin their chorus -- As the conches from the temple scream and bray. With the fruitless years behind us, and the hopeless years before us, Let us honor, O my brother, Christmas Day! Call a truce, then, to our labors -- let us feast with friends and neighbors, And be merry as the custom of our caste; For if "faint and forced the laughter," and if sadness follow after, We are richer by one mocking Christmas past.

Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it ... The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly – and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being – he must with his unrest, uncertainty and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ. He must, so to speak, enter into him with all his own self, he must ‘appropriate’ and assimilate the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find himself. If this profound process takes place within him, he then bears fruit not only of adoration of God but also of deep wonder at himself. How precious must man be in the eyes of the Creator, if he ‘gained so great a Redeemer’ (Hymn ‘Exsultet’ of the Easter Vigil), and if God ‘gave his only Son’ in order that man ‘should not perish but have eternal life’ (cf John 3:16).[646]

Philosophy can speak of the Cross in many tongues; when it is not the ‘Word of the Cross’ (1 Corinthians 1, 18), issuing from faith in Jesus Christ, it knows either too much or too little. Too much: because it makes bold with words and concepts at a point where the Word of God is silent, suffers and dies, in order to reveal what no philosophy can know, except through faith, namely, God’s ever greater Trinitarian love; and in order, also, to vanquish what no philosophy can make an end of, human dying so that the human totality may be restored in God. Too little, because philosophy does not measure that abyss into which the Word sinks down, and, having no inkling of it, closes the hiatus, or deliberately festoons the appalling thing with garlands: The Cross is thick bestrewn with roses: who has joined roses to the Cross?37 in place of Jerome’s ‘naked, to follow the Naked One’. Either philosophy misconceives man, failing, in Gnostic or Platonic guise, to take with full seriousness his earthly existence, settling him elsewhere, in heaven, in the pure realm of spirit, or sacrificing his unique personality to nature or evolution. Or, alternatively, philosophy forms man so exactly in God’s image and likeness that God descends to man’s image and likeness, since man in his suffering and overcoming of suffering shows himself God’s superior. Here God only fulfils himself and manages to satisfy his own desires by divesting himself of his essence and becoming man, in order, as man, ‘divinely’ to suffer and to die. If philosophy is not willing to content itself with, either, speaking abstractly of being, or with thinking, concretely of the earthly and worldly (and no further), then it must at once empty itself in order to ‘know nothing . . . except Jesus Christ and him crucified’ (I Corinthians 2, 2). Then it may, starting out from this source, go on to ‘impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification’ (ibid., 2, 7). This proclamation, however, rises up over a deeper silence and a darker abyss than pure philosophy can know.

Or, in your case, as wide. Wait. Did you just say Gandalf?” “He is the founder of our order, and the first of the Five Warlocks. He comes from afar across the Western Ocean, from Easter Island, or perhaps from Japan.” “No, I think he comes from the mind of a story writer. An old-fashioned Roman Catholic from the days just before First Space Age. Unless I am confusing him with the guy who wrote about Talking Animal Land? With the Cowardly Lion who gets killed by a Wicked White Witch? I never read the text, I watched the comic.” “Oh, you err so! The Witches, we have preserved this lore since the time of the Fall of the Giants, whom we overthrew and destroyed. The tale is this: C. S. Lewis and Arthur C. Clarke were led by the Indian Maiden Sacagawea to the Pacific Ocean and back, stealing the land from the Red Man and selling them blankets impregnated with smallpox. It was called the Lewis and Clarke Expedition. When they reached the Pacific, they set out in the Dawn Treader to find the sea route to India, where the sacred river Alph runs through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea. They came to the Last Island, called Ramandu or Selidor, where the World Serpent guards the gateway to the Land of the Dead, and there they found Gandalf, returned alive from the underworld, and stripped of all his powers. He came again to mortal lands in North America to teach the Simon Families. The Chronicle is a symbolic retelling of their journey. It is one of our Holy Books.” “Your Holy Books were written for children by Englishmen.” “The gods wear many masks! If the Continuum chooses the lips of a White Man to be the lips through which the Continuum speaks, who are we to question? Tolkien was not Roman. He was of a race called the hobbits, Homo floresiensis, discovered on an isle in Indonesia, and he would have lived in happiness, had not the White Man killed him with DDT. So there were no Roman Catholics involved. May the Earth curse their memory forever! May they be forgotten forever!” “Hm. Earth is big. Maybe it can do both. You know about Rome? It perished in the Ecpyrosis, somewhat before your time.” “How could we not? The Pope in Rome created the Giants, whom the Witches rose up against and overthrew. Theirs was the masculine religion, aggressive, intolerant, and forbidding abortion. Ours is the feminine religion, peaceful and life-affirming and all-loving, and we offer the firstborn child to perish on our sacred fires. The First Coven was organized to destroy them like rats! When Rome was burned, we danced, and their one god was cast down and fled weeping on his pierced feet, and our many gods rose up. My ancestors hunted the Christians like stoats, and when we caught them, we burned them slowly, as they once did of us in Salem. What ill you do is returned to you tenfold!” “Hm. Are you willing to work with a Giant? I saw one in the pit, and saw the jumbo-sized coffin they pried him out from. What if he is a baptized Christian? Most of them were, since they were created by my pet pope and raised by nuns.” “All Christians must perish! Such is our code.” “Your code is miscoded.” “What of the Unforgettable Hate?” “Forget about it.