Easter Update

Yesterday morning, Easter morning, I had planned to write something, even if it was a rerun of a past post.  But I had no time.  I did morning watch, my televised morning matins from the liturgy of the hours that I do on my church's Facebook page.  Then it was off to church to set up and play for the sunrise service that started at 7 a.m.

My church had 3 services:  sunrise outside at 7 a.m., and 2 indoor services at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.  My spouse did a lot of singing for all of them.  In past years, I played hand chimes, but this year, I played upright bass in the sunrise service:

photo by Keith Spencer

It went so well that I played the bass during the song "Now the Green Blade Rises" (ELW 379) for the 2 later services too.  It's an interesting Easter song, since the music is a French carol.  It was far from perfect, but it was better than I thought it would be.  If I had had another 2 weeks to practice . . . 

The other highlight of the day was my pastor's Easter sermon.  I think that Easter would be a tough sermon opportunity.  You know that the audience has been to Easter services before, and many of them have been to many services.  In short, it's tough to say something new.

My pastor talked about resurrection ferns, plants that can lose 97% of their water in the South Florida dry season and come back to life with the return of the rainy season.  He also gave us an interesting lesson about the passage of a caterpillar to a butterfly, how the caterpillar in the chrysalis collapses into ooze and from that protein goo emerges a butterfly.  I didn't know about the imaginal disks that develop into the separate parts of the butterfly or that the butterfly might retain some of the knowledge it had as a caterpillar.

In short, the imagery was unique and perfectly suited for Easter.  I was happy to be able to hear it 3 times.

After the 3 services, my spouse and I stayed to count the money and make the bank deposit.  Then we came home and watched the services several more times.  My spouse likes to watch the music and try to challenge himself to do better.  

Is it a good way to do this?  I don't know.  But I was intrigued to watch myself playing the bass, to know that I was actually doing a much better job of keeping time than I might have thought.  Hurrah.

And now, to nurse the blister on my bass picking finger.  Yes, I have a blister on my bass picking finger!  That may not ever happen again . . . or maybe it will!