I took this picture in the lane behind the little church where I sing in choir. Sometimes, like today, I am asked to read. Today it fell to me to read a piece from the prophesy of Isaiah 53:7. “As a sheep before his shearers is dumb, as a lamb to the slaughter. Just as I was reading this the picture of a big Greek party at Pascha flashed through my mind. People from long ago appeared, cooking a lamb on a spit and dancing to music, cracking red eggs and sitting out in the sunshine as Spring finally uncovered her changeable face. Pascha, like everything else is mixed up, full of the profane, the profound, the mystical and the banal.

This sight summed up Holy Friday for me. Dark, obscure, full of nature’s tears and yet holding out the most beautiful promise of blossom, color, joy.