Easter is over for this year, 
having just passed, 
but it always conjures up excitement in me. 
I have an expectation that something marvelous, 
unbelievable 
and inherently mysterious 
is about to happen. 
And it always does. 
The burning yellow orb of the sun 
peeks above the horizon 
reminding me I am alive!
Flowers throw open their petals with abandon shouting:
kiss me, sun!
Plants, presumed dead, gloriously reappear. 
Resurrection is palpable.
Photos © Sondra Sula.
Take a walk with me by reading my daily devotional book, Meditations on Mendocino by Sondra Sula. Available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle versions.
If you’d prefer a daily river walk, Reflections on the Fox River and Beyond by Sondra Sula, might just be the book for you.
Nothing says spring like its flowers. Take the trillium. Its trinitarian stance always reminds me of Easter: three leaves, three sepals, three petals and a three-pronged stigma. 
Today is Good Friday, a day I normally spend hours upon hours in various churches. I thought about my recent visit to the Mendocino Presbyterian Church, which hosts many cultural events in its adjacent building, Preston Hall. I was there to hear a trio of musicians and walked outside during intermission.
The small area around the church was festooned with flowers—large and small. Purple buds flung themselves wildly about on wiry stalks looking alien-esque against a whitewashed wall.
Tiny clumps of flowers beckoned me closer to see their detailed petals and smell their subtle fragrance.
I heard the shuffle of feet, the rustle of clothing rubbing against limbs. Intermission was almost over. I looked down to see a fiery orange blossom dying on the pavement. Although its life was short, its striking death brought undue pleasure.
Hurrying back, I almost tripped over a geranium whose hairy stem had reached beyond its garden boundary to caress my ankle. I stopped and noticed how the emerald leaves had ruffled red edges. The entire plant seemed to glow from within.
Before I reentered the hall, a pot of pink and yellow tulips shouted: Easter! I suddenly realized that Good Friday was just the intermission.
Last week, I went to the Chicago neighborhood of Pilsen with my spiritual companion of thirty years to walk the “live Stations of the Cross.” This somber three-hour procession has been a tradition for nearly forty years, and my friend and I have been participating in it for about half that time. We both felt sad not only because our nun friend who normally shared this day with us had moved east, but also because I would soon be moving to the west coast.
Endings are always difficult. The Stations of the Cross are all about the end of Christ’s ministry. Easter has not yet arrived, and none of Jesus’s followers know that the stone at the entrance of his tomb will soon be rolled away. There is no way for the disciples to know that the story they are living will be told again and again, even 2,000 years later, on 18th Street in Chicago, Illinois.
Another loss was the place where we always ate lunch afterwards, Nuevo Leon. A local favorite, this colorful Mexican restaurant always had a line out the door and halfway down the block on Good Friday. But it had gone up in flames. What remained was a charred interior and jagged glass-edged windows, yet the exterior still had a bright, festive feeling.
We came to the end of our journey watching Jesus taken down from the cross and hauled away on the shoulders of men dressed in robes and sandals. The end was a beginning. This I knew from hindsight. And as we passed a pair of pink and creamsicle-orange steps that led to a dark, mysterious entrance, I knew my friend and I would each find our way to fresh, new stories.
All photos © Sondra Sula.
Sondra Sula's Blog: The Nature of Spirituality 