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Dear Northwest Region,
 

Last week I wrote to you about the need for all of us, but especially our active clergy, to be able to take a breath. I remarked that some of us may feel stuck in the tomb.
 
I feel like for many clergy, the true elation of our Christian calendar celebrations are often delayed. I know when I was serving a church, I felt like Easter happened sometime in the week following Easter. Christmas happened three days later, after many, many, many naps.
 
Those of you who are aficionados of sunrise service: I admit, they can be beautiful and holy. There is something about the grey light; the cold and chill; the silence that connects us to the women who went to the tomb to care for Jesus’ body.
 
But for me, the dawn of Easter is slow. It is something I grow into over the days and weeks that follow, with tunes of “Alleluiah” creeping back into my soul.
 
However your Easter comes this year, I pray you are able to get a taste of that resurrection spirit. The wonder of it all. The stone rolled away. And to know, that especially after the year we’ve had, that love triumphs over death through Jesus Christ.
 
United Methodist Minister and artist-poet Jan Richardson has a blessing for Easter Day for us all. I hope you can claim some of it for yourself, and that you find your own way forward from the tomb of Holy Saturday.

Risen
If you are looking
for a blessing,
do not linger
here.
Here
is only
emptiness,
a hollow,
a husk
where a blessing
used to be.
This blessing
was not content
in its confinement.
It could not abide
its isolation,
the unrelenting silence,
the pressing stench
of death.
So if it is
a blessing
you seek,
open your own
mouth.
Fill your lungs
with the air
this new
morning brings
and then
release it
with a cry.
Hear how the blessing
breaks forth
in your own voice,
how your own lips
form every word
you never dreamed
to say.
See how the blessing
circles back again,
wanting you to
repeat it,
but louder,
how it draws you,
pulls you,
sends you
to proclaim
its only word:
Risen.
Risen.
Risen.
1.

 
God Bless you all, and Happy Easter!
Rev. Terry Yasuko Ogawa
Area Conference Minister, NW Region

 
1.Jan Richardson, “Easter Sunday: A Blessing for the Rising,” The Painted Prayerbook, March 26, 2016, accessed March 25, 2021, https://paintedprayerbook.com/2016/03/26/easter-sunday-a-blessing-for-the-rising/.
 

Northwest Region of
The Southern New England Conference, United Church of Christ

508-963-8106
holmesd@sneucc.org 
www.sneucc.org/northwest

Office Hours: 
Monday: 8:00 AM - 2:30 PM
Tuesday-Thursday: 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Friday: Closed