Easter Eve

Yesterday was a quiet, yet busy day - Bob went to the Hospice and shared in a Good Friday service, then came home, and after lunch we went to Chapel for a Good Friday Meditation. We drove from there to see our relation in King's Lynn Hospital. She has been there three months, and was expecting to go home this week, then told "sorry, it will be after Easter now" Despite the delays she was in bright spirits and looking much better. On our way home, a WhatsApp from my neighbour's DIL. They'd brought the floral tribute back from the Crem. and placed it in her garden - but now wondered if I would retrieve it, and take it to my church in Easter Sunday? These lovely flowers are now in my lounge - the one room which is not disrupted at the minute. I am in limbo, caught between the grief of losing a friend - and the prospect of time with family members in coming weeks. Between the overwhelming chaos of the unfinished kitchen, and the anticipation of preparing food for loved ones in a beautiful workspace, when all the hitches and glitches have been dealt with.

But this is nothing compared to the limbo of that first Easter Eve, experienced by Mary, and Peter and the others. I found this thoughtful poem by Emily Gibson on the Internet

This in-between day

after all had gone so wrong
before all will go so right,
puts us between the rock
and the hard place:
all hope, love and faith is squeezed from us.

Today we are flattened,
dried like chaff,
ground to pulp,
our destiny with death sealed.

We lie still
like sprinkled spices
trying to delay
inevitable decay,
wrapped up tight
stone cold
and futile.

The rock is rolled into place
so we lie underneath,
crushed and broken.

We are inside,
our bodies like His.
We are outside,
cut off and left behind.

We cannot know about tomorrow,
we do not fathom what is soon to come:
the stone lifted and rolled away,
the separation bridged,
the darkness giving way to light,
the crushed and broken rising to dance,
and the waiting stillness stirring, inexplicably,
to celebrate new life.