Early on Easter morning in the waning darkness before dawn, church members, family and friends of BCMC gathered for our annual Easter sunrise service.  We arranged our lawn chairs and blankets near a pond on a grassy mown pasture at the Prouty home, and sat overlooking greening wheat fields stretching to the horizon.  As we waited and watched, light grew in the eastern sky, and a pink glow entered the clouds. The cool quiet of the morning was punctuated by calls of meadowlarks (and, someone told me later, a pheasant!).  The youth group led us in a simple service of readings, songs, prayers and silent reflection.  Several youth quietly caught our attention with the shape of a large cross formed from white fabric on the bank across the pond.  And then, as the service concluded, we saw the sun: An orange-red ball of flame peeking over the edge of the earth, then growing, until it was in full view! We shared a breakfast of fresh fruit and cheese, muffins and cinnamon rolls, fresh pascha (Easter bread), coffee and juice.   Easter had arrived! Hallelujah, the Lord is risen!

What if we greeted every morning as a day of resurrection, filled with opportunities to witness God’s gift of new life and love? Here is traditional Celtic prayer, fitting for the Easter season:

Thanks be to you O God,
that I have risen this day
to the rising of this life itself.
May it be a day of blessing,
O God, of every gift,
a day of new beginnings given.
Help me to avoid every sin
and the source of every sin to forsake.
And as the mist scatters
from the crest of the hills,
may each ill haze clear
from my soul, O God. Amen.

– Traditional Celtic Prayer

Heidi Regier Kreider, pastor