The Story of Easter: Read and Share Book

This isn't the exact book that I read to the girls last night, but close enough. We have a box (well...two boxes) full of Easter swag in the basement: bunnies, baskets, hollow plastic eggs, a dancing chicken, fake grass. I pull this stuff out when I put the Christmas stuff away and put it in front of the storage closet. Yesterday, we took it all upstairs. The girls were wearing their Easter bunny ears and playing with their "Resurrection Eggs," a curious but nice gift from one of their godmothers last year. Before bed, I read them this book.

On Friday evening, we colored eggs which I hid this morning just as the Methodist church in town began to ring its bells for their yearly sunrise service. Later, we will go to church, then host dinner for my parents and my brother's family. We will end the day with an all-family gathering at my uncle's house.

These are our Easter rituals for the past seven years. The sun is staying out longer each day; the air is warmer, and things are beginning to grow in my yard. The world is being resurrected from winter and born into verdant spring. Our new Pope, Francis, went to a juvenile prison in Rome and washed the feet of a young Muslim girl, scandalizing the Pharisees of our day. Gay Americans had a good week at the Supreme Court, or so it seems to me. There is hope, I think, which is the rarest bloom of spring.

And that's the story of Easter, 31 March, 2013.