Alleluia Christ is Risen

 The golden sunrise of this morning greeting another Easter morning - Alleluia Christ is Risen Alleluia. The familiar refrain over nearly two thousand years now rises from the Churches around the world but not all of the Christian Churches celebrate Easter today. The Eastern Orthodox Easter will not arrive until the 16th of April as they celebrate by the Julian calendar whereas the rest of Christendom celebrates by the Greorgian calendar. Many many services on YouTube today as always. I find this to be the gift of COVID making the Christian Church available around the world for all those who wish to attend and do not or can not attend in person. It is what Jesus asked of his disciples/apostles to tell the Good News around the world. 

Continuing with my Siderfin research yesterday and the hits on Find My Past. I am now on page 64 so have passed the half way mark in the 2433 hits. Reaching halfway in anything is always a relief; it reminds me of running. Once you are half way the shortest way to the end is straight ahead. Follow the Word of God and you will find your path to the rest of your days whether life ends tomorrow or in the future; God is with the world but he does not interfere in the world. Jesus showed us the way. 

Today is a beautiful Easter Day. We are promised nine degrees celsius and even warmer into the next week. The stacks of snow are slowly melting and where the land is close to the buildings we can now see the grass - still asleep from the winter but soon to green. The pile of snow on my garage roof has taken on the look of a crocodile with its snout pointing towards the sun as it crosses the sky and the arms pointing towards the sun as well. The body slowly melting away with the small feet and body still clinging to the roof. Waiting for summer for sure that snow sculpture so that it becomes part of the water cycle once again (and I wait impatiently for it to happen, next year I shall try using a broom handle to knock that snow down). From my grandfather I acquired such an imagination. He loved to look at the clouds floating above us on their way to Upper Clatford as he said and pointed out all the marvelous shapes in the sky. It was a fun child thing that I enjoyed. I think he thought it kept my nose out of my book for a little while. Although he too, like my grandmother, encouraged me to read and read. He taught me to count the dishes as I washed them. I was just four years old when I stood on a chair to wash the dishes for then eight people and he would sit beside me on his chair to make sure I did not fall off. My memories of my grandfather are so very clear in my old age. He talked and talked about Upper Clatford where he spent his childhood. His grandmother lived next door to him (Ann Farmer married John Blake 4 Sep 1823 at St Mary Andover). His father's many cousins used to come and stay with her just for short times but the names that he said were blurred to memory but found again when I researched the siblings of Edward Blake (my grandfather's father) and once again the names blended with those memories. My grandfather would follow his older brother John to Eastleigh, Hampshire once he had completed his apprenticeship as a blacksmith (one of his uncle's was a blacksmith) and there my father (the only child of my grandfather) was born. I am blessed with an excellent memory. 

On to Easter Day and the celebration of the Risen Lord. Alleluia Christ is Risen Alleluia.