I used to think Easter was about an ending. An ending I was unwilling to celebrate.
I understood the miracle of the new baby, wrapped in love, cooing in a stable.
The beginning made so much sense, the possibility, the hope.
I understood how to love the beginning, how to be wrapped up like that baby in imagination and wonder. I knew just where I belonged in the candlelight and the joy on a cold night.
And so I wondered, why this ending? Why the suffering? Why the heartbreak?
Why do I need to leave the manger, leave the promise, leave the hope.
I didn’t want to think about the ending, and so I filled my mind with more beautiful things.
I smiled through classes and drank cocoa on couches.
I painted and planned.
I walked wishing, as water from melting snow landed on my face.
I still smiled as springy shoots arose from the solid soil.
And as I waited the world woke up.
Hope sprang out of the frost bitten earth
Green shoots claiming first breaths of crisp morning air.
Quick glimpses, warm breezes and brave blossoms, reminded me that the ending had to happen.
The snow left, icicles fell into a kaleidoscope of cracked light. The world reclaimed itself, coming into its own, as surely as it had hidden itself.
I was too stubborn to be convinced by the story, too proud, too cynical.
And so I had to find it in the trees. Had to smell it in the flowers.
The beginning I was so comfortable with, was really a step toward the ending.
And the ending was not an ending at all.
The dark snow laden earth, has never been the beginning.
The beginning has always been the green shoots pushing up.
It has always been the melting snow rising the rivers and coaxing them to sing.
It has always been the robins plucking worms from the earth to feed a nest of new babies. It’s cracked blue eggshells, not crackling fire wood or cracked ice.
This is the beginning, the earth buzzing with new life.
This is the beginning, layers peeled back, skin touching sun.
This is the beginning, the bright hopeful sky inviting us to live again.