Olive Crest United Methodist Church
7180 North 60th Street
Omaha, Nebraska 68152

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Rev. Debra Tompsett-Welch

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The Spiritual Life

April 1997

When Easter Stays for More than a Day

By Rev. Michael Lee Burgess

Why does Easter come in power and majesty and then leave so quickly? It leaves behind a hole in my life. I have been preparing for six weeks and then Holy Week brings power into my life with Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Then it is Easter and the adrenaline makes my heart race and we are triumphant in the joy of the resurrection and sharing as the family of God. Then it is over. Yes, we are still in the season of Easter, for all 50 days until Pentecost, but the magic seems to have left and everything is back to normal. The same feeling I can get after Christmas, if I don't remember Christmas is 12 days long.

I was walking over to the church and it was a misty, foggy, gray morning. It matched my mood perfectly. I also felt foggy and gray. My grandmother is sick, very sick and I expect she will die soon. I have had 2 deaths in my church this month. My secretary, Sara, is in the hospital and so are other friends. I feel tired. Not a terrible body tearing exhaustion, just the foggy kind that makes everything seem like it is moving in slow motion. Easter was only a day or so ago, yet it seems so very, very far away.

I was walking up to the back door of the church when my eyes focused on a lilac bush. Something was very strange. "Look how bright the bush looks under its load of excited sparrows", I said to myself. Then I noticed the light. The sun light was indirect. Everything had a soft edge to it and the colors were intense. The green looked like the green of Ireland. A vivid shimmering color, yet still soft and mysterious. The last time I remember seeing light like that was during a partial solar eclipse I witnessed while I was in college. I felt that tingling feeling again when beauty or joy is trying to reach me. Perhaps God was trying to speak to me, to break through my gray shell of exhaustion, light depression, and work anxiety. Was Easter trying to become real again to me? Was resurrection from the gray life of "quiet desperation" to abundant and joyous life come for me?

This week a friend of mine was visiting one of her friends at the psychiatric hospital and he wrote a poem about his life that he shared with her and with me.

Little Child Little Child, can you come out to play? No, I can't ask, I'll get in daddy's way. Son, I'm asking you, did you make this mess? No daddy I promise, and I am sure of this! One slap, 2 hits, 3 hits, more and more. Inside I'm dying, tears forming a shore. Little Child, can you come out to play? No, I can't ask, my mommy is mad today. Yelling and screaming, running down the hall. As she comes towards me, one push and I fall. You're bad, you're rotten, get the hell out of my way. I roll over, pick up my tooth, with nothing to say. Little Child asks Jesus, why? Holding back tears, afraid to cry. Do you love me like they do? Or do you love me as I love you? Ron Textor, 3/97

She read that poem to me over the phone and power started to sing in my ears. The world in its darkest and most vile secret heart of hate and despair could not prevail against the light. A child who has had his loved betrayed and the brokeness and pain of a wretched adult crushed into his life, still knows the hope of love reaching out to him. He was not lost in the pain of his past, he was reaching for the light and healing. Easter is laughter in the midst of the darkness. Wonder breaks through when all is lost and we see the world with new eyes. The dead are alive again.

It was a gray and drizzly day, but the birds were laughing. I was tired, but friends were calling to energize me. Sunday will soon be hear and word of God will speak to me and my brothers and sisters in Christ will hug me or shake hands and share love with me again. All tiredness will flee and I will be whole again.

My grandmother is dying, but soon she will be free of weakness and the pain that have been her constant companion since her beloved husband died last year. Soon she will be with those she loves and all those friends she has "out lived." Soon she will be whole again. Easter does not leave. Every Sunday is a little Easter, and every breaking through again of wonder, love, beauty and joy is a resurrection of our ordinary lives by God. God is calling with the still small voice of love. Help each other to listen for it, and together our song will be joyous, like the sparrows in the mist. A thing of mystery and beauty. May God open you eyes and heart to wonder this month. Your brother in Christ,

Your brother-in-Christ, Reverend Michael Lee Burgess

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