For the first time in days, sunshine lit up lush green grass and leafing trees. What a relief from days and days and more days of gray rain and cold winds. The blue sky floated puffy white clouds and wildflowers blossomed along the fence row. I was driving to meet with good friends from the days when our children attended grade school together. I had not seen some of them in over a year. My heart was light and happy – an Easter spirit.

After using a voice therapy CD to lead me through vocal exercises, I flipped open the CD holder and fumbled through the few disks, hoping to find some music to pop into the player. I wanted something strong, majestic, and beautiful, like the morning. The choices were few: a “Greatest Lectures” sample CD that featured classes on black holes and British history; “Classical Meditations.” “ How did the ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ DVD end up in here? ”I wondered.

Ah. Pavarotti: “Oh Holy Night.” I hesitated but a moment before sliding it into the player. In a moment the opera singer’s powerful voice and rich strains of orchestral accompaniment filled the car. I smiled and sang along.

I remembered Christmas season years ago when, on my high school pre-calculus assignments, I had drawn a small manger resting in front of the cross connecting the two feasts: Christmas and Easter. They formed a unity, each necessary for the other.

I reflected on that truth as I drove down the highway, singing Christmas songs with Easter heart. After all, Easter began with the birth of Jesus and his acceptance of who he came to know himself to be. And the journey of that baby which began in Bethlehem seemed to end in an ignominious death, but instead, defeated death and continued, transformed, with the resurrection.

“…A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn…”

The words fit the moment. Surely, our world is weary. Wars drag on and revolutions erupt after years of oppression. Extreme weather and natural disasters bring death and destruction. Ignorance, fear, and the violence they engender flourish. The earth itself seems to groan under the demands and greed of humankind. The gap between the very poor and the extremely rich grows larger.

Yet, I looked out the car window and hope filled my heart. Spring had come again. So often obscured by clouds, the light from our nearest star gave shine to everything it touched. I opened the window and let my hand move through the brightness, spreading my fingers to feel cool air rushing through them. Everything I saw was bursting with life

We need these magnificent mornings. We need moments of hope and light. For, like Jesus, our lives pass through winters and sufferings as surely as they pass through spring. Like tornados ripping across our country in the past weeks, unexpected adversities can shatter our lives and leave us wondering how we can go on. Our Good Fridays must be embraced, Holy Saturdays waited through, before Easters come.

During the Christmas season, we remember the incarnation; God came to be one with us. The birth of the baby became the life of a boy and then a man. Like us, as he walked the earth, he knew suffering and loss as well as joy and fulfillment. He walked through deserts as well as through fields. Like us, he died.

During the Easter season we recall his resurrection and, at Pentecost, the sending of the Spirit. Not only is God-with-Us; God is within us. Liturgically, we celebrate these two seasons at separate times, but we live them as they really are: both present at every moment.

I guess that is why singing Christmas carols the week after Easter is not as strange as it might seem.

A blessed Easter season to you.

Copyright 2011 by Mary van Balen.  Visit van Balen’s blog at http://maryvanbalen.com/blog.htm