We Have Each Other…We Have Today

We attended a wonderful Easter church service, this morning.  I am slowly catching on to Zoom Church.  If you want to see your fellow congregants…you have to click the little arrow to facilitate the scrolling of the images of those in attendance.  There were all of my friends!  Beaming and smiling, virtually radiant, as they sat in their homes…and joined together for worship.  Pastor Kerry was there, with a photographic backdrop that is of the front of our sanctuary.  The first time that I saw it I thought that he was preaching from our church.  This morning he had the, ancillary effect, of fog around him…that slowly thickened as his message continued.  It produced a bit of a spiritual theatrical prop…by virtue of a technological hiccup.  Kerry, during his children’s sermon, produced what appeared to be  unbroken eggs, and subsequently asked what the children thought would happen when he broke one.  I thought, a splat of yoke!  When he did crack the shell…there was nothing inside!  I was totally immersed in the lesson…and I thought, as one of the fathers of a child uttered, ‘What?’  Of course the lesson was for our Easter morning…the empty tomb of the resurrected Christ.

Today is, Jonathon’s birthday, and we celebrated with Hunan curbside, delectable cuisine.  Aaron ordered a dish that I have witnessed Jonathon consume on more than one occasion.  It is called Beef Hot Pot.  Jonathon and I agreed that we were going to watch Aaron’s face as he enjoyed the first bites of the….Hot Pot.  Upon taking the initial sampling…his cheeks began to redden!  After the third…great drops of sweat appeared on his forehead!  I asked him how it was, and he replied that he had never eaten anything hotter!  He said that it was on par with a dish that he had enjoyed in Juarez, Mexico…many years ago when we were visiting Uncle Merle and Aunt Lauretta, who lived in El Paso, Texas.

We snapped photos…many photos…we always do.  MJ made peanut butter pie…and it was to die for!  There was craft beer to enjoy…I had a glass of wine.  Have you ever had a spring roll?  Earlier, I had visited two markets to seek a 6 to accompany the 3 that we already were in possession of…to adorn the peanut butter pie…with ganache topping.  There was no 6 to be had…and so we improvised…as we are all doing during our pandemic mutual experience…and placed a 3 and a 5 and a single regular birthday candle on top of the confection.  So…it was 3+5+vertical candle=36…or it was 356…or it was 35 and single candle…

I think that we are discovering, across our planet, that we have each other…and there is nothing else that has permanence in this human experience.  Everything else that surrounds our image of life…can be overcome by a sudden fog…that changes our entire reality.

The old folks knew that we had better focus on today.  They had lived through the 1918 Spanish Flu, and, personally, had their lives altered by the loss of family and friends and they understood that a,  new normal, can happen…overnight!  They had lived through the Great Depression…they had fought and lost loved ones during the Second World War.

Life is constructed of many days linked together to comprise months and years and decades.  But, the mystical and magical and mysterious trick…is that each day is a photo of our lives   and our loves and our passions…as we travel the road to Emmaus.

‘Now the same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem.  They were talking with each other about everything that had happened.  As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.  He asked them, ‘What are you discussing together as you walk along?’  They stood still, their faces downcast.  One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, ‘Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?’  ‘What things?’ he asked.  ‘About Jesus of Nazareth,’ they replied. ‘He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people.  The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was going to be the one that was going to redeem Israel.  And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place.  In addition, some of our women amazed us.  They went to the tomb early in the morning but didn’t find his body.  They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive.  Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women has said, but they did not see Jesus.’  He said to them, ‘How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken!  Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’  And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.  As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he was going farther.  But they urged him strongly, ‘Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.’  So he went into to stay with them.  When he was at the table with them, he took bread, and gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.  Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.’    Luke 24: 13-31   NIV