A time for Faith,Hope and Love
And chocolate...
Normally I love Easter. It is traditionally the time for joyous
family parties, large gatherings for a BBQ on those sunny years, roast lamb around
the dining table on those chillier ones.
Always there are Easter egg hunts amidst the flowers, always
there is laughter, always the sounds of happiness and love echo across the garden
and throughout my home.
This year I am bereft. Like families across the world we are all separate,
confined to our own small household. Technology links us as a whole for one
special hour together. The memory sustains me all weekend.
Everyone s resolve is being tested to the upmost as the unseasonably
hot sun shines tauntingly on our deserted beaches, closed forests, empty trails
and into our empty gardens.
My garden is still and silent. So this year is a time for recollections, reflections and remembrance, a time to
think about faith, about hope, about love.
Childhood memories of church vigils on Good Friday drift across my thoughts, I can almost smell
wafting incense, hear low murmurings of prayer before the shuttering of the doors in
anticipation of the glorious resurrection mass at midnight on Easter Sunday, I
can almost see the church ablaze with
light as hymns of praise rise to the rafters.
As an adult I have failed to commit to any organised religion although
I am not an atheist, I feel an instinctive belief in a greater good, somehow,
somewhere, I just cannot make any more sense of it.
I have been privileged to join worshippers in many different
faiths across many different lands. I have climbed mountains at daybreak to
pray with Buddhist monks at sunrise, walked hundreds of steps to a sacred
Himalayan Hindu temple in India,
sat cross legged for hours at the feet of a Sikh master in
the Punjab, watched in awe as a Jain temple saved insects from underneath
passing pedestrians in the dirt of Delhi, admired the quiet reverence of
Muslims rolling out their tiny prayer mat on mud churned up by monsoon to pray.
In Indonesia altars to every possible object have fascinated me, in a country
where everything can be held sacred, everywhere is sacrosanct.
One Easter I walked amongst thousands celebrating Semana Santa in
South America as our vast candlelit procession with giant floats held aloft
above us weaved through the streets of Antigua, flowing into one living river of
humanity towards the luminous cathedral.
Not all my experiences of faith have been positive. In Sri Lanka
I watched in horror as orange clad Buddhist monks beat an old lady trying to
protect a Christian cemetery from destruction. I have seen Muslims and
Hindis hurl fire bombs at each other in the street, I have seen Jews and
Christians fight bare knuckled over a tiny patch of ground in
Panama. But these moments are rare compared to those of respect, awe
and admiration of the power of religion.
For myself, my faith is in hope and in love. We are surrounded
by beauty in nature and we are surrounded by the kindness of strangers, human
nature at its best. In this current crisis volunteers have come forward in
their hundreds and those of us who cannot help do our best to stay inside, to
do our bit, to protect others as much as we protect ourselves.
This weekend I miss my family so acutely but although I
personally will not participate in the online masses streaming from behind the
doors of closed churches to give succour to the faithful. I have taken comfort in my own faith in hope
and love. I hope our journeys along this
hard road converge into the light of a happy ending.
Until then, I have my cupboard full of Easter eggs in
anticipation of an Easter party postponed but not cancelled, my garden full of happiness,
full of the voices of those I love around me once again.
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