I am writing this as I sit near the north end of Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis. I am looking out on the fullness of a day in March. There is a blend of mud and snow, mostly shaded with the dust and dirt of a winter that has gone on a long time. Puddles line both sidewalks and roadway. Melting is a visible practice if one has the eyes and the patience to see. Gray clouds hug a horizon that is trying desperately to burn blue into the world. The light posts of the now gone skating rink look like de-branched trees in a sea of other leafless sentinels. In many ways the scene tells a story of winter on the outer edge.

The humans who walk and ride this lake’s path tell a different story. Only one cross country skier is making his way bravely across the frozen lake holding onto the gift of ice. The others who walk and run have the shape of spring in them. Gloves that served them a few minutes earlier are now held in sweating hands. Some runners still are in long pants. Others have switched to shorts, some with tights, others with legs bare for all to see. No one is walking with the familiar stance of shoulders hugging their ears. There is a lightness in the steps of most that says they are a people about to see something new. It might just be right around the corner. Or at least in the glow of a new day.

Perhaps not everyone is having the same experience of this landscape that I am. Perhaps others would not see the lift(is it joy?) in the walk of the people getting their daily exercise. But it is Holy Week and I have been steeped in the stories of this faith into which I was birthed. A faith whose message each year brings with it new and different insights. I am, as is everyone, a different person than this time last year. The experiences of this past year have made it so. It seems only right that I spend time wrestling once again with these life-shaping messages.

And so, as I watch the scene before me, I do so with eyes that long to see how the telling of this Easter story is also told in the sights and sounds of this day, this week, this life I am blessed to live. Of course, the Easter story is told through the lens of this one we call Jesus. But the perhaps even deeper message of the gift of birth, life, death and rebirth moves among us all the time. As those in the Christian household, we may view things through the life of this one life but it is at his urging that we live our own lives with the same passion and compassion for the lifetime that is ours, for the world that is our home.

In the email inspiration that comes to me each day, the words of preacher N. Gordon Crosby speak to me: “The whole created order has been brought into being by a loving God in order that we might enter into a covenant relationship with God. The creation is intentionally incomplete in order that we might know the awesome honor of participating with God in its completion. One day it will end. One day we will end. Creation’s potential–and ours–is being brought to a great finale of love. Jesus’ life was all about the passionate reckless abandon of being a co-creator with God.”

Watching my fellow co-creators make their way around the kidney-shape of this lake, I am heartened by the sweet, gentle voice of master calling to a frolicking dog. A mother’s song speaks to a young child being propelled at warp speed in a jogging stroller. Young people run with intention and commitment. The spray of water, once ice, washes the dirt from a curb. The yellow gold of a weeping willow tree blazes forth its own brand of glory. The clouds are still winning but the blue of a day’s end is brilliant and beautiful.

Some place in it all, there is Holy in this week.