where is the risen sun

Talk about a glooming hanging over the land. It’s day two of cold, wet and gray. Bet there were no sun-rise services anywhere in Northern Ontario.

And given that gray is the color, there’s a need to find something other. Can these qualify – the green moss, the blue plastics, the yellow globes, the white towel, the clay pot, the arctic-blue fencing? Can they lighten a dreary morning?

The branches are off the plum tree my dad cut down. He will finish removing the rest of the trunk and the lower branches once he gets the chain-saw serviced. It’s amazing that a 91 year-old is taking down 20-foot trees.

Easter lunch was pleasant and low-keyed. It was a Sunday meal with a few extras – Connie and Ron, Uncle and Aunt, Rose and Derrick, my parents and I. Here in Canada, Easter and Catholicism don’t have the same cultural pervasiveness that they do back in Calabria.

In contrast, my relatives in Cosenza have been uploading hundreds of pictures showing Palm Sunday processions, passion plays complete with chubby Jesuses and fake blood, Good Friday stations led by arch-bishops and Holy Saturday services with huge vigil fires and giant Pascal candles. The rituals of the week have brought the people of the Calabrian hill-towns into the streets to celebrate both spring and their shared cultural heritage.