Today is Easter – a holiday I have always loved. As an optimist, I have always appreciated the return of Spring, daffodils, the egg hunt, spring baskets, Easter dresses, and fancy shoes after a long winter of boots and coats. We wore hats and gloves to church on Easter Sunday. This year, if we go anywhere, we’ll wear masks and gloves.
Easter stands for hope and rebirth.
And we cannot hope to control something beyond our control. We cannot have our rebirth on Easter, as planned. Like so many of our life events, rebirth is postponed. The virus controls our timeline, not us. So where can we find the Easter eggs? Where are the bright colors hidden in dark corners, under things, and up high, out of sight to the undiscerning eye? Where is our small victory on this the most optimistic and joyous holiday of the Christian calendar?
Many of us feel flat, trampled, like the few unfound eggs in the wet grass, a week later. But we can search for the rising. The rise of our spirits, the rising bread in your oven, the remembrance of Easters past, and Easters to come. Is there joy in this adpated celebration – however it plays out at your house?
For Passover – also this week – people were Zoomcalling their friends and family to celebrate the Seder. It might have seemed hopeless to pour Elijah a cup of wine and open the door to invite the prophet in. No one is coming over. Ever again. Or so it seems.
But we adapt. Loss and joy. Effort and resignation. Virtual and actual, isolation and togetherness. It is all paradoxical. Someone went so far as to create a dummy Zoom account for Elijah, and brought “him” into the call midway. I’m sure that family loved the techno-twist on a centuries-old tradition.
Passover celebrates being spared the worst of an ancient plague, at a time while we are suffering through a current plague.
We are all behind closed doors, hoping to be passed over for the dreaded COVID-19. There were 10 plagues of Egypt: Blood, frogs, lice, wild animals, pestilence of livestock, boils, hail and fire, locusts, darkness for three days, and death of the first-borns.
We should count ourselves lucky – suffering as we are under only one pandemic plague. Technically, novel coronavirus is not even the plague, bec it is not bacterial, like the Bubonic Plague of the 1300’s. It can be referred to as a plague, as blood, frogs and hail are plagues. In case you were wondering about the difference.
Last night, young children asked the question: How is this night different from every other night?
And everything is different. For all of us. I hope in the midst of uncertainty, angst, anticipatory grief, loss and lonlieness, you can find some joy, humor and love.