dual personalities

Here it is Friday again. It was a fine, rainy week but spring is definitely in the air, the birdies are tweeting like crazy, and shoots are beginning to poke through the winter detritus. Our son James is coming home for the weekend (yay!). Other than going to church on Easter and then having brunch we have no plans. All of this got me thinking about past Easters, egg hunts, ham dinners and Easter dresses (I only remember one Easter bonnet). Our Easters were always pretty basic. 

The older I get, the more I appreciate simplicity. I’ve never been one for elaborate rituals — there’s the whiff of the pagan about them. Those doughty Puritans were onto something in their 1645 “Westminster Directory for the Public Worship of God” where they wrote, “There is no day commanded in Scripture to be kept holy under the gospel but the Lord’s Day, which is the Christian Sabbath. Festival days, vulgarly called Holy-days, having no warrant in the Word of God, are not to be continued.” Okay, maybe it’s a little extreme, but the instinct is right. We need to focus on what’s important.

Let’s take art as an example. So much religious art is full of chubby cherubim and half-naked people being overly dramatic — kind of like a modern superhero movie (see almost any Italian Renaissance religious painting). The paintings that capture the mystery are more subtle and luminous like this one by Mikhail Nesterov of the Angel sitting outside Christ’s tomb.

Here’s another good one: the Raising of Lazarus by Henry Ossawa Tanner (1896).

His Daniel in the Lion’s Den (1914) is also great. I love the blue light and lions prowling around oblivious to Daniel.

Whenever the brouhaha of modern life gets me down, I go back to the basics – good art, good music and the Bible (and other wonderful writing).

Have a lovely Easter!