Pastor's Letter

Dear Friends in Christ,

I love the fact that the most important Christian festival is named after a pagan goddess, Eastre, the goddess of springtime. For me, this roots our celebration of new life in Christ deeply in the earth itself, deeply in the wheat arising green. Alfred Corn, an American poet who is also an Episcopal layman, says that when Christianity gets too Protestant, it loses the sacramental nature of our faith, our grounding of our faith in the sensual facts of human life. Resurrection is different from Greek concepts of an immortal soul precisely because it sees life--for humans--as always being about our bodies.

I came across this quote in a book by the great literary critic, Richard Ellmann, and it made me think of what Christians are trying to say when we celebrate Easter as our central feast:

The Edwardian writers granted that the world was secular, but

saw no reason to add that it was irrational or meaningless. A kind

of inner belief pervades their writings, that the transcendent is

immanent in the earthy, that to go down far enough is to go up.

I think that Incarnation, sacrament, and Easter are three ways of saying the same thing. Our religion is not otherworldly. Our spirituality is not spiritualism. Eternity is not "later," eternity simply IS. Resurrection is not something that will happen to us at some future date--the resurrection is all around you right now if you but open your eyes, or, more importantly, if you but open your heart.

Alan Watts, Anglican priest and Buddhist monk, puts it this way: "Your soul isn't in your body; your body is in your soul." That is, your body is part of the whole spiritual reality that you are. Body is where we live out our spiritual lives, this is why, for Christians, it has to be resurrection of bodies we are all about.

I'm writing this Easter letter in March. They are predicting snow for tomorrow. Winter and snow are part of life. But after Winter comes Easter, Spring, new life, hope and joy. As I write this, I am fasting, but on Easter Pat will cook a leg of lamb and we will break the fast. Under the cold earth, Eastre is preparing the seeds that will spring forth--first will come those lovely crocuses. Emily Dickinson says that March wears purple shoes. All these things point me beyond my sorrows and despairs to Easter hope. In Lent we go down deep, but we have faith that to go down deep enough is to go up. He is Risen! He is Risen indeed!

Have a happy Easter,

--Pastor Bastien