Easter

Today is Easter Sunday, the highest festival in the church calendar.  This year, in Manitoba, it coincides with beginning to dare to believe that winter might not really last forever.  The snow is (mostly) off the roads and you can see part of our front walk. The waist-high drifts on our yard are slowly shrinking.  Winter will lose... eventually.   I have noticed in myself a leaning towards spring, a wish for things to start growing and coming out of hiding, a desire to go for a walk in full stride instead of having to mince over ice, to wear runners rather than Sorels.  But not yet - it's still waiting time.

These longings for change and renewal and for things to be the way they're supposed to be, already! are so similar to my feelings about the invisible world- the Kingdom of God, or call it the Kingdom of Heaven.  Ramsy is already where things are restored, but here there is still breaking and rending and twisting.  Sometimes it's hard to be here.  Easter reminds me that someday, suddenly, like spring arriving, history will be over and the Kingdom will be fully realized.  But not yet - it's still waiting time.  We celebrate what Jesus already accomplished and the evidence we see of his Kingdom, and we lean towards the hope of what is to come.

This morning my girls and I get to sing about this in our church.  This song is by The City Harmonic, and it references the Book of Revelation (chapter 21).  It sums up all of history and the future, and it reminds us that Death has already lost.  Christ is risen indeed; we'll be risen indeed.

Alleluia.


Holy (Wedding Day)

This is the story of the Son of God
     hanging on a cross for me - 
But it ends with a bride and groom and a wedding by a glassy sea.

O Death, where is your sting?
     'Cause I'll be there singing
               Holy
                   Holy
                       Holy is the Lord.

This is a story of a bride in white
     waiting on her wedding day,
Anticipation welling up inside 
     as her groom is crowned a king.

O Death, where is your sting?
     'Cause we'll all be singing
               Holy
                   Holy
                        Holy is the Lord.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty,
     who was and is and is to come.

This is the story of the Son of God 
     hanging on a cross for me
And it ends with a bride and groom and a wedding by a glassy sea.

This is the story of a bride in white
     singing on her wedding day - 
All together, all that was and is will stand before her God and say:

               Holy, holy,
                    Holy, holy,
                         Holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.

How to get your paperwork done

1.  Put on some fun music.

2.  Clear the stuff off your kitchen table so you have room to work, including the appliance light bulbs you took out of storage earlier.

3.  Decide to actually change the oven light bulb instead putting it off.

4.  End up with only the glass portion of the bulb in your hand, with the metal end still in the oven socket.

5.  Grumble.

6.  Pull the oven away from the wall in order to access the electric plug.

7.  Say, "GROSS!" and get out the broom to sweep up the nameless detritus lurking under the oven.

8.  Wrestle with the huge oven plug until you begin to worry that you'll get a shock.

9.  Put on rubber-lined gloves and get the dang plug out of the wall.

10.  Attempt to use half a potato to remove the rest of the light bulb, as per Heloise's Helpful Hints, which you bought at a garage sale 20 years ago and read but never used.

11.  Give up with the potato and head to Google to read other ideas.

12.  Decide to go with the good ol' pliers (which are, happily, still on the kitchen table!).

13.  Try 4 non-working flashlights to help you see the oven socket, and a 5th which behaves like a strobe light.

14.  Abandon the flashlights and use the pliers in the dark recesses of the oven to unscrew the piece.

15.  Let the potato juice dry in the socket before installing the new bulb.

16.  Pause to write a blog post about the ridiculousness of your life, the fact that the last 3 light bulbs you've tried to change (each a different kind of bulb- are the light bulb people trying to keep up with the yogurt people??) has broken in the socket or gotten jammed or otherwise refused to work, and repeat that this kind of stuff used to be Ramsy's job.

17.  Install oven bulb, plug in oven, shove it back.  If possible, pinch cord behind stove so the stove won't fit back into its space and you are forced to pull it out again, partially unhinging the oven door.

18.  Refrain from saying bad words.  Put it all back.

19.  What was it I was doing again?

Universe 4, Paperwork 0