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.

During Lent, the phrase retrieve lament captures me through the words of Rilke. During the Great Fifty Days of Easter, it's the lovable contrarian Wendell Berry exhorting my imagination with two words (plus many more): Practice Resurrection.

I also remember each year the passage I've fallen in love with from N.T. Wright:

"... we should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children's games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts, anything that comes to mind. this is our greatest festival....This is our greatest day. We should put the flags out.

...if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter ought to be a time to take things up. Champagne for breakfast again -- well, of course....The forty days of the Easter season, until the ascension, ought to be a time to balance out Lent by taking something up, some new task or venture, something wholesome and fruitful and outgoing and self-giving. You may be able to do it only for six weeks, just as you may be able to go without beer or tobacco only for the six weeks of Lent. But if you really make a start on it, it might give you a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new ventures you never dreamed of. It might bring something of Easter into your innermost life..."

After attending Good Friday service together this year, my daughters and I talked honestly about how sometimes Easter feels like a let-down. It seems to be easier to understand fasting better than feasting. We thought that might be, in part, because our world is generally obsessed with feasting, and whatever we try to do to mark Eastertide feels like the stuff we're normally trying to do every day anyway.

Maybe so.

I wonder, too, if sometimes feasting shows more plainly how far away from God we still live. When I can be satisfied with just the right amount of wine or chocolate, that is feasting. When I can't stop either one, that turns into gluttony - which is no longer true feasting. In some ways, fasting is easier, see?

Put another way: feasting is a discipline, too. We take in the good with gratitude and contentment without making an idol of the gifts. This requires us to depend on the Creator as much (maybe more so) as any other spiritual exercise.

To help prime the pump, I thought 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!

Listen to the Easter portion of Handel's Messiah.
Use a special candle at family meals.
Add a "hallelujah" song (or proclamation) to the grace you say before each meal.
Talk about baptism, retell baptism stories, set out family baptism photographs.
Read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (or the entire Chronicles of Narnia series), preferably out loud, and with children in the room.
Drape crosses and other liturgical art in your house with white or gold ribbons or strips of cloth.
Take a short trip to a beautiful cathedral or prayer garden.
Visit a botanical garden.
Sing and play instruments often (or invite friends over who do).
Plan an evening sing-a-long (maybe the first campfire of the season).
Host a different group of friends for dinner each week during the season.
Go to lunch with a different group of friends after church each Sunday of the season.
Choose a place in your home to hang a visual reminder of resurrection (print, painting, verse).
Keep fresh flowers on the table throughout the season.
Take walks in scenic locations - maybe each Sunday afternoon of the season. Learn how to pray as you walk.
Take a half day off work for a quiet retreat.
Plant a flower garden (or vegetables) as a tactile reminder of Jesus as the vine and ourselves as the branches (Jn. 15:5).
Take a dance class.
Throw a spontaneous dance party in your living room. (Here's 12 dance moves I dare you try!)
Order a butterfly garden kit and watch the miracle of metamorphosis.
Keep a daily gratitude journal to help you pay attention to ordinary signs of life and joy.
Read the Scripture passages recounting Jesus' post-resurrection appearances to his followers. (You can follow the daily lectionary readings listed in my Sunday blog posts.)
Ask God for a renewed joy in the weekly liturgy of Communion.
Take a picnic breakfast to the park (or just the backyard) and read the story of Jesus making breakfast for his disciples (Jn. 21).
Visit a farm or petting zoo where you might see baby animals.
Visit a sheep farm or try to meet a real-life shepherd. Ask them what it means to be a good shepherd.
Start a hobby you've always wanted to pursue.
Pick up an old hobby that used to bring you joy.
Take an art class - drawing, painting, photography, calligraphy, ceramic, sculpting, improv comedy!
Watch a movie that always makes you laugh.
Start music lessons or join a community choir.
Join a local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Search for new veggie recipes.
Plan one or more "sunrise services" for morning prayer, Scripture reading, or just quiet contemplation at a nearby scenic location.
Build a new piece of furniture.
Repair or restore old furniture, appliances, or fixtures in your home (or someone else's). Maybe even repurpose curb-side trash to furniture treasure.
Paint a room in your house with a fresh new color.
Pray for your enemies. Forgive someone who wronged you.
Invite your neighbor over for drinks on the porch.
Bake bread (or try your hand at braiding bread). Give some away.
Ride a bike.
Learn a new game, or re-learn a game from your childhood. (Hopscotch, anyone?)
Make homemade ice cream.
Rent a canoe or kayak for a day.
Learn the names of the trees in your neighborhood.
Adopt a kitten or puppy.
Wash your car by hand.
Write a poem or short story. (Read Wendell Berry's poem for inspiration!)
Go to the park, and swing on the playground. Blow bubbles. Make sidewalk chalk art.
Try a new ethnic food.
On Ascension Day, find a spot outdoors - a park, a hillside, a body of water - someplace where you can see the open sky and clouds, to sit for an hour of meditation on the exaltation of Christ to glory.

Thanks to Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God by Bobby Gross for some of the ideas above.

Eastertide Daybook

The Restful Eastertide Daybook arrives daily for the first eight days (also known as the Easter Octave) and then each Sunday until Pentecost for those who subscribe to the Daybook ($6 a month or $60 a year) membership.