Sunday, April 17th, 2022, was the first of my two Easters that year, and I certainly needed both of them.  I sent back a message then, which Joel Francis posted for me.  Listening a year later, I find that the same Easter themes, of rejoicing, and forgiveness, and of freedom as a daily choice, are still so very much part of these daily wrestlings.  Here’s the ‘transcript’:

“Happy Easter from free Ukraine!

“This is the first of two Easters this year; it’s the 17th, which is Western-calendar Easter, and on the 24th, next Sunday, God willing, it will be Orthodox Easter.  So, two Easters this year.

“The message of Easter matters even during a war – maybe especially during a war.  More and more I see the people around me, and I see in them sons and daughters of our Father in Heaven.  It’s hard for me to look across the lines at the people on the other side of this conflict, but even though I wrestle with responding appropriately, God has told us to forgive everyone, and that He will forgive who He chooses.

“At the same time forgiveness does not mean sitting idly by and letting your country be conquered, or letting the country of any free people be conquered, without resistance to tyranny.

“So, we celebrate freedom today.  Freedom from death, freedom from sin, and freedom to choose liberty and eternal life, or captivity and eternal death.  And these are the same choices that all of us have every day.  But it’s particularly noteworthy on Easter Sunday.

“God bless you all, and God bless Ukraine.”

A certain stealthy lobster gets in on the classic Easter activity of “hunting for things that are hiding in plain sight” (hmmm, maybe there’s a message there too)