Reminded of Faith

Happy Easter, my friends. It’s been a wonderful, haunting, faithful, and reflective eight days, as we celebrate Passover and Easter.

My mother loved both of these holidays. She was such a powerful influence on my spiritual journey growing up. Our dialogues and disagreements shaped my faith as I moved into adulthood.

Virtually all of my memories of the first four decades of my life of religion, spirituality and faith — and they are different — have her as a part of them.

So it can be hard for me to process my faith and spirituality today, in the context of deeply meaningful occasions, celebrations and rituals, that she would have normally been a big part of.

Like Easter.

Over the past eight days, we connected what it meant to experience Passover and Easter, and to commune more deeply, more authentically with the innermost. We thought, read, watched and talked deeply about what our shared faith tells us about justice and injustice in this world, and what we ought to do about it.

A little over a week ago, Darcy prepared the Passover feast, and as she lit the candle in memory of those who have passed, I was flooded with the images of family and friends who have gone on, sometimes tragically. And I wonder how all of us process the grief of our losses.

And still, we found joy at that Passover table. We found laughter and tears, both fallen and unfallen.

And today, as I cooked Easter dinner, we listened to gospel and worship music, CeCe Winans on repeat, and contemporary versions of classic hymns — the songs my mother sang and loved. These songs calm us and heal us, they let us dance, sometimes they make us cry, but they always reconnect us to one another, to the loved ones who have passed, and to our shared faith.

May we all continue to journey together, on this road, which is to love God and one another as best as we can. To live faithfully. To be full of faith for one another, to protect, defend, support, lift up, believe the best in, trust, depend on, LOVE one another, through a commitment to being the best versions of ourselves. Faithfully, better.

As Passover ends, and we conclude Easter Sunday, I remind myself of the things my mother taught me about faith. And living. And I think this is a good way to be. To live. Faith. Full.

Love you. Mean it.

#happyeaster #chagsameach #faith #family