!Easter vigil --- agk's diary 17 April 2022 @ 0312 UTC --- written on iPad via ssh.sdf.org at kitchen table while dishwasher runs and everyone else sleeps --- At the end Father chanted "Now our Mass is ended." When Evy chanted "thanks be to God," she meant it! She expected 30 minutes of church, not two and a half hours! It was my first time in the local Roman Catholic parish in three years. My beloved history professor Christensen, a medievalist and the only school- teacher I think understood me well, designed it. A small, open, airy space, it abides by ancient rules of sacred architecture. I felt her beautiful spirit. Our last visit, Evy and I attended her funeral and I cried in my old Chevy truck. My first Easter Vigil I was 15. Dad took us to a Carmelite monastery in Indiana. My protestant family did our best to follow along with the dis- orientingly beautiful liturgy. It's Christians' oldest service. You feel echoes of all human history in the Easter Vigil. The fire's lit at the beginning, kindling light for the Pascal candle. The creation story's read later, during the service of the word (air, spirit). Of course there are services of water (baptism) and earth (holy Eucharist). And what's more primal than staying up all night keeping vigil with the dead body of the One who truly loved you? You feel the Passover seder---the story of Exodus from Egypt is read, we stay up late, share bread and wine, sacred story and family. Galilee and Rome are there in Gospel and epistle, the central story of our faith, we become Easter. You feel feudal Europe. Priest and acolytes, dark- ness save candlelight, plainsong echoing chancel to transept to nave, gold woven in vestments, organ bellows. Outside fire burns, inside incense sweet- ens our time together. You feel today's postcolon- ial church, aging Irish and French Catholics out- numbered by young Africans, Filipinas, Central and South Americans, all jubilant: Christ is risen! Alleluia! Spring began when Evy and I turned garden and planted peas. Evy made hot bacon dressing for greens of dandelions she dug. Bitter, sweet, fat, spring began. Now with Him we rise---from death to a new and everlasting spring. We ain't done! At sunrise we'll join the Southern Baptists in the country cemetery down the rural road. They put on a fine breakfast after the service. Our baby won't be the only baby there. I get ecumenical at Easter, as dad taught. With all our faithful kin we proclaim, Hell's fury's calmed, death sting's gone! Christ is risen indeed!