And a blessed Easter to all who celebrate.

I guess our new pastor is still getting used to us...we are not a very vocal congregation. He had to sort of do the little rolling-hand prompt of "it's really ok for you to say something here" when he announced to the congregation

"Christ is risen!"

Of course, the proper and expected response is "He is risen indeed!" but we're not used to TALKING during church-time.

I also think of the old story that Madeline L'Engle recounted - I think it was from the early days of the Soviet Union? Where a Party official spent several hours lecturing to a group of assembled citizens, telling them of the glories of the state, how they didn't need the Opiate of the Masses, how God was dead. And an old Orthodox priest asked the officials if he could say "just three words" at the very end. The officials smugly consented, surely thinking that nothing the old man could say would have any impact. But the priest got up on the platform, looked out at the crowd, and cried out "Christ is risen!" and the assembled people roared back at him, "He is risen, indeed!"

I wonder what those Communist Party officials thought on their way back home.