Prayer #162: Leavened

Easter bread, mid-rise. Taken April 2011.

Assorted thoughts for a gorgeous Easter Sunday:

"For all of us there is the painful paradox of living in a world that is incredibly beautiful yet hopelessly violent at the same time. Death and life are never far apart in our world, it seems. But that is not the whole story. Easter proclaims for all to hear the one thing that really matters, the one thing we need to know above all else: that death does not have the last word. Life does!"
-- Rev. Msgr. Jameson, rector at St. Matt's Cathedral

"If only I could remember that the mystery which frightens me -- the vanished body, the empty fear -- also consoles me. That each disappearance promises deliverance. And that tombs are nothing but dark rooms with light a mere wall away."
-- Prayer #61: Roll Away the Stone

"May I rise to meet Your challenge, Lord. May I leave in the tomb the shrouds that obscure my faith, and find You on the sunlit road."
-- Prayer #108: Once Lost, Now Found

"Glaze the bread once it has risen (like our Lord!!!)."
-- Easter Bread recipe from my mother

Prayer #162: Leavened

I am spending this Easter Sunday afternoon making bread for the first time. In the quiet of my house, with only the sound of trees budding outside, I watch yeast bubble to life and dough form beneath my knuckles.

To hear You tell it, I could make my life on Earth just as simply -- follow Your recipe, combine ingredients, wait to rise. But it doesn't really pan out that way, does it? Our dizzying secular world demands my attention. I have trouble discerning how to use the gifts You've granted. Doubt besets me; I fear not hell, but nothingness.

Lord, this Easter, leaven my bread and my heart. Knead my teary, distracted soul until I expand to fulfill every design You've ever had for me.

Hope is a divine lightener. May it raise me to dizzying heights.

Alleluia, Amen!