This year, I started Holy Week feeling unsettled instead of reflective, so I went hunting for art to celebrate the season. I reached out to friends for recommendations of songs, poems, and visual art. Below are some highlights which made Easter more meaningful for me and my family this year. 

Not all of these are appropriate for young children. When offering the stories of Easter to my kids, I try to keep in mind the gentle way angel children learn of the Lord’s crucifixion–with only an “idea of a tomb” and other gentle images offered with “incomparable care and reverence” (Heaven and Hell 335). 

Visual Art

I love the disciples’ varied expressions in “Jesus Washing the Feet of his Disciples” by Albert Gustaf Aristides Edelfelt: thoughtful, uncomfortable, annoyed, touched. 

With vibrant colors and strong lines, Rose Datoc Dall captures the breathless joy of the three women in “First News of the Resurrection.”

Henry Ossawa Tanner painted many scenes from the Lord’s life, and it’s hard to find them separately, so happy scrolling.

“Peter and John Running to the Tomb of Christ” by Eugene Bernand gets me every time. The expressions on the disciples’ faces, the light, the moment–all wonderful.

Since mid-2019, New Churchwomen in Australia have taken to gathering for women’s weekends twice a year, in person when feasible and virtually when not. This is adapted from a session I presented at our April ‘22 weekend, just as applicable to this audience as to that.

When I think about our women’s weekends, I think about our group of ladies coming together, from various corners of the country (or world!), from various generations and various walks of life, and I think about the bonds we form, a sort of sisterhood, despite the lack of any blood ties.

Thinking about sisters in the Word, not many sister-sister relations come to mind. There are a number of sisters of men mentioned – Moses and Aaron’s sister Miriam, Absalom & Amnon’s sister Tamar, Laban’s sister Rebekah (Isaac’s wife) and King Ahaziah’s sister Jehosheba are the prominent ones. The only two sister-sister relationships that I thought of are Mary & Martha, Lazarus’ sisters, and Rachel & Leah, Jacob’s wives.

Mary & Martha are most well known for their interaction with Jesus when He visited them in their home: Martha spent time getting things ready for the Lord, while Mary didn’t seem to do anything except sit down at the Lord’s feet and listen to Him. Martha complained and Jesus chided her, saying that what Mary was doing was very important and that she must be left alone to do it. (Luke 10 / John 12)

“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord” (Psalm 127:1) 

Motherhood is such a mix of blessing and labor. Mundane and ineffable moments are all wrapped up together in this daily grind and daily magic. And how easy it is to lose sight of the magic midst the grind! I wanted to share these two unpolished poems of mine which help me to focus on the bigger picture, and the gift it all is. 

Witness
Dimpled legs as you stretch
on tiptoe to the bowl placed carefully out of reach 
of your curious cocked finger. 
Your chortle, a babble of indiscernible gifts, erupt around
your two-toothed smile, 
and then you turn to me, and raise your hug-soft arms 
And your need is the easiest wish I ever could fulfill as I 
scoop you up to my chest and 
for a moment
your sweet-warm head rests beneath my face and I breathe in
youness.
And then you are wriggling down, away from me, to a ball, a cup, a block:
any of the undiscovered joys of today.

And I watch your supple body squat and crawl and stand and grab and reach. 
There is such impossible perfection in your tiny form. 
And I can only wonder that it is given to me–
this stumbling, seeking, striving me–
to witness
your being. 

I Said a Prayer Today 
I said a prayer today 
as I stroked the sick head of my first baby 
lying listless on the couch, 
her eyes watching me with solemn trust 
as her younger brother chattered at me from the kitchen 
certain that I can see and know and fix,
because I am 
Mom.
All while their baby sister nuzzles warm head into my lap with small giggling grunts 
as if to burrow her whole being into mine. 
Lord, I pray, 
help me to catch these moments 
that are dropped 
as Gold
into my lap

If only I notice. 

“An atmosphere of innocence flows into little children, and through them into the parents so as to affect them… Little children have this innocence, because they do not think from anything interior; for they do not yet know what is good and evil, and true and false, so as to think in accordance with them. Therefore they do not have any prudence of their own, nor any design from a deliberate motive, thus are without any purpose for evil. They do not have a character acquired from love of self and the world. They do not credit anything to themselves. All that they receive they attribute to their parents. They are content with the little things they are given as gifts. They do not worry about their food and clothing, and are not anxious about the future. They do not pay regard to the world and covet many things on account of it. They love their parents, their nursemaids, and their little companions, and play with them in a state of innocence. They allow themselves to be guided; they listen and obey.
Such is the innocence of early childhood, which occasions the love called storge.” (Married Love 395)

Recently, I returned home to Scotland in the UK after many years living abroad. I left home for university at 17 and spent a year in Japan at 20, returning to complete my university education and move on to decide on my career, never thinking of returning to Scotland. 

I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, but my choices took me to London where I met my husband, and then to South Africa to raise our three children. When the politics and economics compelled us to leave our home in South Africa, we made the arduous move to New Zealand to start a better life. 

But Coronavirus had other plans for us… Our lives were turned upside down as jobs disappeared and opportunities diminished. We decided to move back to the UK. A radical and devastating move for all of us, but especially our children: uprooting and moving them across the globe twice in two years. 

In the car recently, the children reminded me that even though I lived in South Africa, I’m not South African. But I felt like I belonged in South Africa, like I had found my tribe. New Zealand never felt like my home, but I found wonderful friends who then became my new tribe. Here in Scotland, the land of my birth, the place I should call home, I feel disconnected, not part of the tribe that I thought I should be part of. I started to wonder where I really belong and what is it to belong?