Easter 2021

I forgot to commemorate, in my own spirit, that it was two or maybe three Easters ago when I gathered up my parents and our friend, Brad, in the car and we went to the casino. We needed to get my parents signed up for a casino card. Instant cash, ten dollars each. And then five dollars a week from there on out, unless it was their birthday. Resurrection money, I guess. 

Easter is an interesting holiday for me, especially considering my clerical responsibilities. Some Easters live vividly in my mind.

On the first Easter I ever preached, filling in for my previous mentor, who, in some odd overlapping spiritual conundrum, was placed in his own grave of sorts. But unlike Jesus, he was not wrongly buried. He was on an elder-imposed mandatory leave of absence. Circumstances aside, I was filling in even though I was on my way out. Six days later my friend died in an avalanche. Easter is supposed to be about death being defeated.

A few Easters after that, in a Phoenix parking lot under the hot sun, we were baptizing people. A reprieve in more ways than one. Death to life. I had the privilege of baptizing a friend of mine, Dominike. Four years after that he moved in with my wife and I, sharing all the challenges of new life along the way. 

Some Easter after that was the casino Easter. 

Then, this Easter, in 2021, was the first in-person Easter in the life of Kaleo, a community I co-founded (with God and others). But in the upside down nature of the day set aside to celebrate the miraculous, it was 98 degrees and everyone was wearing face masks, distanced from one another, gathered outside. Just like we planned it… 

All this and more, about as unpredictable as a resurrection, I suppose.