My most vivid memory of Easter is not on the day of Easter itself. It's from the Saturday afternoon service held before Easter, when the first part of the Gospel that hints at the resurrection of Christ is read and the colors of all the cloths and candle holders are changed from the black of Holy Week to the white of Pascha. A wonderful two hour service--one of my personal favorites. It starts fairly solemn with the reading of prayers and such, but it builds with the Gospel reading and the uproarious chanting of hymns: "Who is so great a god as our God? You are our God who does wonders! Our God, Our God, Our God is so great, who does wonders!" (in both English and what I believe was either Russian or some form of Czechoslovakian--the music was written in the Cyrillic alphabet and I always had trouble singing it).

The grace and beauty of it is only matched by the Easter midnight service itself, and perhaps the very short service on Easter morning when the Paschal Canons are sung again and a procession around the church is held that stops to read the different Gospels that tell of Christ's resurrection, which I've always been fond of.

It was a few years back, though I don't remember exactly how long ago it was. I was sitting on one of the side pews after the service watching as everyone was cleaning up the church for the Easter midnight service that was to take place that night. The whole church echoed with the sounds of vacuum cleaners, the spraying of Windex bottles, and a dozen different conversations. Several men passed by carrying a massive ladder that could reach up to the vaulted ceiling. Slava, a dedicated care-taker of the church who was in his eighties, was volunteering to climb the ladder fifty feet up to replace a burnt-out light bulb.

The afternoon was gorgeous, and at four o'clock in the afternoon at that time of year the sun is at just the right angle to shine through the side windows in large, bold shafts of light, illuminating the particles of dust that floated by. The front doors of the church had been propped open to let in fresh air, and there was a steady warm breeze drifting in.

At the center of the church there was a massive shrine that represented the tomb of Christ. Laying on top of it was the epitaphios (the Greek name according to Wikipedia--it's different in Russian but I don't know how to spell it), and around it there was a whole consortium of white flowers.

That comes to mind whenever I think of Easter. And while I've heard a lot of people this past weekend tell me about how they didn't celebrate Easter or how it doesn't matter to them, it's hard for me to imagine not having that memory of Easter from when I was younger. I believe pleasant memories are good for the soul. They comfort you long after they've passed.