Mining Gold in the Commonplace-Prepare Yourself for Easter Writing

BAUTZEN, GERMANY -  Easter riders at traditional lunch during a break of the parade on horseback on April 08, 2012 in Ralbitz, Germany. Sorbians, a Slavic minority in eastern Germany, celebrate Easter with processions of mounted riders dressed in 19th-century outfits who travel from village to village to sing and announce the resurrection of Jesus Christ. ( Getty Images via @daylife)

Writers planning blog posts, articles, or poems for Easter are likely rereading gospel accounts and related Old Testament scriptures, making notes or outlines, praying, and thinking now. 

  Beryl Adamsbaum's Only Believe climaxes at Easter, a golden time for the world that needs to know. On page 118 in her final chapter for the book, Beryl tells about a time she had alone, away from home and "in a small apartment in the Swiss Alps." She was trying to renew herself in a change of scene during a particularly stressful time in her life and her thinking. In the mountain apartment, a change occurred in her habitual way of viewing a big part of her life:   

"God enabled me to see my daily grind as service 

to others and therefore to him. 

He gave me a different perspective on life. 

He helped me to see what I call

'the glorious in the mundane'"

With the last line, above, Beryl continued to extract the ore, the gold, while telling of God at work in a commonplace context...tiredness from drudgery that threatens us in everyday work or service to others. 

  Beryl's description of a deeply experienced insight could be a launching point for you, if you write about the Friday before Easter. What was more mundane, commonplace, or routine than the everyday routines we need to keep. In the world of Jesus in his earthly time, what was more accepted than the crosses of shame used by the punitive Roman Empire? 

  Yet, routine in Roman-occupied Palestine was soon to be revealed as a scene of glory, where One sent of God and Son of God, took the sin of the world upon himself. Even soldiers at the foot of his cross suspected or foresaw glory without realizing it. The "worst of sinners" for whom Jesus prayed from that rugged cross must have wondered, deep within, what they were not seeing in what they were witnessing, of which they were participants.  

  We think of the record we have of that time: a dozen friends together for a private Passover meal with their mentor, a Roman hearing and trial soon to begin in the middle of the night, lifeless bodies brought down from crosses as "criminals," a tomb gifted for one, and weeping Jews--men and women of no rich reputation or power. These were among the many common ingredients of that historical time when in the midst of the commonplace glory was at work. 

     

C. S. Lewis said, of Easter, "Away with tears and fears and troubles!...Man is a creature whom the Angels--were they capable of envy--would envy. Let us lift up our hearts! At some future time perhaps even these things it will be a joy to recall" --Letters, C. S. Lewis/Don Giovanni Calabria, 27 March 1948, from The Quotable Lewis.

  What gold of truth and encouragement will you put yourself into mining soon, in preparation to write about Passover or Easter days and nights?