Easter baptism

I've chosen for my Easter Day photo that moment this morning when the congregation was baptised again in the middle of the service - the same ceremony as we who were there last night had experienced, only with a different priest (we share ours with the church on Bute, but are fortunate to have a retired priest in our congregation) and more people, including quite a bunch of assorted children and babies at the very back of the church. We have solemnly affirmed our faith, but if you look at the faces you can see that this is a joyful moment, and the service left everyone joyful (even if some of us were a bit exhausted!)

Because I still am (exhausted) and although the gospel account today wasn't quite the one referred to in the poem, I'm going to leave my poetic offerings for now with one I wrote some years ago, imagining the thoughts of Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection experience when she didn't recognise Jesus till he said her name. 

Talking with the gardener.

Is he real? and can I trust
the joy which sears across my soul 
with such delicious pain? 
The light is white, a curtain sparkling
so that I can barely look, can
hardly see the face I love.
Am I remembering? But the voice
which said my name – my given name –
it is the same, the cadences 
which bring my heart to song each time.
My tears still well, the picture flows
and changes as the light refracts
 – why do I weep? He asked me that
and yet I cannot bear to say
that what is joy for all the rest
is not enough without the touch
which now I know I cannot have.  
I would not have run, that night
of horror when the others fled –
not while he still breathed and stood
and spoke and suffered with that kiss
which I could never give.
So what is real? Is this enough
to share with joy and tell the world
that death can have no final word?
I cannot say. I need to hold,
to smile, to talk, to love, to be –
the shadow moves. The joy recedes
becomes more patient, calmer now
and I, alone among the trees,
must share my moment with the rest
and know it is no longer mine. 
But I was here. I loved. I lost.

C.M.M. Easter 09