Shortly after 8am Deirdre and I arrived at Crich Stand, where in the past we have celebrated Easter morning with a Communion. We did wonder if other people would be drifting that way, in which case we would have an illegal gathering and likely be dive-bombed by police drones. However we had that beautiful morning to ourselves with the sun on the haze
of 3 or 4 different counties sprawling off to the south and east, foregrounded by the beacon and church spire. Here was a real sense of the bigness of things, not just the coronavirus but the rising and diffusion of light, of a glorious sky and warming air. Equipped with an ipod and a bluetooth speaker we played the Huddersfield Choral Society singing ,'Jesus Christ is Risen Today' and read a short Celtic Liturgy. One or two other people, drawn by the occasion, wandered up and also sat quietly saturating themselves in the early morning: Andrea and Tessa, Anette and Lynda. It was good sharing the morning with them, albeit at a respectful distance. Walking back down the hill it was notable how cyclists and dog walkers all wished us A Happy Easter. It seemed that isolation and closed church buildings had spilled Easter out into everyone's consciousness and that no one could resist the pull of entering into something fresh and new. It is wistful thinking, but another word for that is hope. There's been lots of talk of a new style of community emerging from the current catastrophe and I felt intimations of this with the sun on the haze rinsing the landscape this morning.
The Archbishop of Canterbury had picked up these very thoughts as he celebrated the Easter Communion from his kitchen later in the morning (with Mrs Welby a voice off). Easter should be a time of crowds and cheering, lots of sweetness and chocolate, rolling eggs and bouncing bunnies. A strange but meaningful festival this year with a high empty hill and an Archbishop in his kitchen. There's been such a plethora of virtual Easter services that the Church won't be able to reverse its enforced flirtation with social media as a viable way of spreading worship beyond church buildings and Sunday service times.
Jamie Oliver provided divine advice on how to cook the lamb for dinner and yesterday's Chocolate Guinness Cake (which incidentally contains no chocolate) rounded it off nicely. Deirdre was forwarding holy videos to various people and managed to send them to some unintended ones so had to text them and explain the mistake. Still it did result in a very pleasant interchange with an old friend we hadn't been in touch with for years. He commented that these were indeed "strange times". I suppose holy videos winging at you in a random way is just another symptom of the strange times we're living in.
Easter Day was signed off with a Zoom singalong from the Cliff choristers - dismembered bodies, fractured sound, disembodied and ghostly noises fading in and out, not unlike the real thing. The sad news too of Tim Brooke Taylor's death, a man whose wit has had me giggling most of my life. This Covid-19 has a lot to answer for.