Friday or Sunday

I chilled out in Montmartre on my way home from a fantastic visit with Becky in Tuscany, and it made me bizarrely homesick. It is strangely like Montreal. Or maybe just more like Montreal than anywhere else I've visited in the last nine months.

It's been good getting back to the Centre. I only had one day of work before the holiday week-end, which means that I think I'm actually read to start work tomorrow.

Highlights from my Easter celebrations would include a hymn sing in the garden yesterday (nothing says Easter like the old classics), followed by being part of a choir at St. Paul's for a Taizé themed service in the evening. I should get to Taizé before this chapter of my life is over.

And here's a nifty ancient ditty I heard for the first time yesterday, but of which I am now a big fan:
"Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
Wheat that in the dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

In the grave they laid him, love whom men had slain,
Thinking that never he would wake again.
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green,

Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,
He that for three days in the grave had lain.
Quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
Thy touch can call us back to life again;
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green."

When I heard Tony Campolo the other month, he talked about a sermon he heard once where the pastor simply repeated "It's Friday...but Sunday's coming!" for an hour, and kept the congregation absolutely rapt. It's a simple message, but sometimes on "happy" occassions like Easter, I find it helpful to remember, for all intents and purposes, it is still Friday. So it's okay to not necessarily feel particularly joyous. But I guess that's what the faith bit is all about, Sunday's coming!(And yes, I did heard sheep in Tuscany.)