Resurrection Friday: Believe the unbelievable!
Happy Resurrection, friends! Easter Sunday kicks off a week in the liturgical calendar known as the Easter Octave and a seven-week festival called Eastertide or The Great Fifty Days.
“It has always been a happy thought to me that the creek runs on all night, new every minute, whether I wish it or know it or care, as a closed book on a shelf continues to whisper to itself its own inexhaustible tale. So many things have been shown so to me on these banks, so much light has illumined me by reflection here where the water comes down, that I can hardly believe that this grace never flags, that the pouring from ever-renewable sources is endless, impartial, and free.”
-Annie Dillard
The whole creation is one lunatic fringe
“It could be that our faithlessness is a cowering cowardice born of our very smallness, a massive failure of imagination. Certainly nature seems to exult in abounding radicality, extremism, anarchy. If we were to judge nature by its common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed. In nature, improbabilities are the one stock in trade. The whole creation is one lunatic fringe. If creation had been left up to me, I'm sure I wouldn't have had the imagination or courage to do more than shape a single, reasonably sized atom, smooth as a snowball, and let it go at that. No claims of any and all revelations could be so far-fetched as a single giraffe.”
-Annie Dillard
Watch: Our Planet | Birds of Paradise Narrated by Sir David Attenborough. Watch the entire astounding series on Netflix.
via The Kid Should See This: “Birds of Paradise are more than 39 fantastical species of birds with vibrant colors and superblack feathers, flamboyant plumage, incredible sounds, and eye-catching mating rituals. Descendants of “a single ancestor that resembled a crow,” many of them can be found in New Guinea and northeastern Australia.
In this light-hearted clip from Netflix’s Our Planet, narrated by Sir David Attenborough and debuting on April 5th, 2019, we see three birds of paradise in action: The twelve-wired bird-of-paradise, the black sicklebill, and the western parotia.”
Read: Psalm 136; Psalm 118; Daniel 12:1-4, 13; Acts 4:1-12; John 16:1-15
Listen: I made us a new playlist for Eastertide - Resurrection 2021: Who Will Roll Away the Stone?
Pray: Book of Common Prayer, Collect for Easter Friday
Almighty Father, who gave your only Son to die for our sins and to rise for our justification: Give us grace so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness, that we may always serve you in purity of life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Do: In previous years, we've celebrated the Great 50 Days between Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday (aka, Eastertide) with a series I've dubbed Practice Resurrection (after the Wendell Berry poem). It's one of my favorite series all year, and I'm excited to start again. To get the photo-sharing party started, I’ve created an 8-day Instagram challenge for the first week of Eastertide. Use the prompts as simply or creatively as you’d like, add the hashtag #practiceresurrection2021 and tag me @a_sacramental_life!
Can’t wait to celebrate NEW LIFE together this week, friends! May you know new life, peace, and hope today, tomorrow, and forever.
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!
Tamara
You can read here for a brief description of the liturgical season of Eastertide, and see previous Eastertide posts here.
You might enjoy the list of ideas I brainstormed for simple ways to practice resurrection. Choose 1 idea or 50, but whatever you do, do it with gusto!