I recognize we are not the same. We all celebrate in different ways.

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, and I spent the morning sharing a sunrise message on the Bridge YouTube site at 7am. Then, I ate a delicious greek yogurt fruit parfait breakfast. At 9:30ish, the Angel and I loaded up the car and left for church. The car was packed because we would stay there most of the day. In my family, Easter is the holiday where we all come here and we host, and this year, there were so many of us (and it was raining and our house is fairly small), we had our Easter meal at the church, after service. The food was excellent, the people even more so. In addition to the usual crew, my youngest son brought home 3 young men from his college basketball team. They live all over the country and we got to be their family this year. I hope this is a new tradition. We ate and ate, then laughed like crazy as we played board games together. Then, we came home, gave all of the kids (ha, kids!) their Easter baskets, hugged them, told them we loved them and watched them pull away to make the journey back to school.

It was a long weekend. Friday was our Good Friday service, where we focused on the sadness of the crucifixion. Our mourning was deep and meaningful, perfectly preparing us for Sunday. On Saturday, I married an absolutely gorgeous couple. They would have reaffirmed your faith in the institution and people, in general.

So, yes, the weekend was long, but my heart was in such a soft, open space, it was so wonderful and I was overflowing with love. Easter is my favorite day of the year. Maybe you don’t see faith the same way I do, but you don’t really have to – we all understand being loved, often in spite of ourselves. Jesus asks us to love each other as He loves us, and it’s as real as it can possibly be on the morning we celebrate His resurrection. We have hope, anything seems possible, we sing “All You Need Is Love,” and (for at least this day) think that’s probably true.

We’re different, right? But for this day, our differences don’t seem quite so insurmountable. We can get along, or better yet, we can love each other.

I think about how others feel. I wonder how they, how you, celebrate. Do you celebrate at all?

Social media can be cool to see others cultures and practices, right? We look at pictures and read perspectives. We get to see inside of each other’s homes & hearts.

Our President celebrated this deeply holy day (the day where Jesus was resurrected, ushering an entirely new creation, one not based on power, status, money, or violence, but on love) by posting – and I am choosing to censor 2 words in this post by using asterisks, I like to keep this space clean-ish: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F*****’ Strait, you crazy b******s, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Yep. Easter sure looks different to different people. It’s my favorite day, but that doesn’t mean it’s yours.