Yesterday in Kirksville, we awoke to fogs and temperatures above freezing--quite an anomaly, as the norm is currently sub-zero wind chills. The mists cleared as the day went on, and afternoon recalled the feeling of spring. The air was mild and humid, full of the earthy smell of the ground thawing. Finches and sparrows called from the bushes, and squirrels rose from their shelters to look for food.
It felt like a tiny Easter in this already long winter. Perhaps that's what I needed it to be, at least. The priests that I know are fond of reminding people that the most important holiday is actually not Christmas, but Easter. Yesterday, though, I thought how perhaps it's fitting that most of us still like Christmas better--or at least, look forward to it more. As a kid, I understood Easter to be a sort of watered-down Christmas. Presents in small plastic eggs instead of big square wrapped-up things. Even when I began to consciously consider the religious aspects of the two holidays, somehow God coming into the world was easier to grasp than dying to save it. I'm still not sure anyone living actually understands what that really means. Christmas is easy to understand. What came afterwards is more difficult to parse out. Year after year, never feeling much wiser, always looking out from the same eyes, maybe we get a sliver closer to the truth.
We're always trying to understand the future in terms of something that has already happened to us. We're always looking for the Temple to be rebuilt, not destroyed. For a warrior-savior that conquers that which we fear, not someone who helps us not have fear. For a new Jerusalem, not an entirely new kingdom. We've never been ready for something entirely new.
Here are some pictures I took when it snowed at Truman on the Friday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day--well before yesterday's thaw.
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| One of the shelters in the Sunken Garden |
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| The Sunken Garden and the bell tower |
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| Dobson Hall (my dorm) and some bikes that probably won't be used for a while |
