Because of the jobs I’ve had, I’ve lived in some pretty…interesting…. places.

I’ve lived walk up apartments in the city, townhouses in the suburbs, basement studios in small towns, in a yurt [which was WAY too close to roughing it for my liking], and once, in an actual house, in the city of Flemington, NJ.

It was the parsonage of the church, and I moved in the day before Easter. I was super stoked about this, because not only did I have an actual backyard for my dog to run around in, I had NO NEIGHBORS. There was a synagogue to the left, their parking lot behind me, our church across the street, and on the right was the local cemetery. I was the only residence on the street.

This made me happy to the point of being giddy.

No neighbors meant that it would be QUIET.

None of the furniture was going to be delivered until Monday because of the holiday weekend, so I spent my first night on an air mattress in my new bedroom, which had a big, beautiful window that looked out over the cemetery.

The next morning, Easter, I was jolted out of my sleep by, I kid you not, HERALD TRUMPETS. I jerked awake, and my first thought was “oh my God Jesus decided to come back! HOLY SHIT, it’s actually real! And because it was barely dawn, I was disoriented in a new place, and still mostly asleep, I promptly fell off my air mattress and smashed my face on the hardwood floor.

Now I was REALLY disoriented, but I was determined to get myself outside so I wouldn’t miss the messiah.

So I threw on my bathrobe, flew down the stairs, and flung open the kitchen door that looked out into the cemetery…and scared the HELL out of about 40 Presbyterians who were having their sunrise service in the graveyard. It was their trumpets that woke me up. They thought it would be a nice touch to start their service with a flourish.

Some fucking flourish.

I ended up spending my Easter at the ER with a broken nose, but that remains one of my favorite Easter memories because of how I felt in those first few moments before I realized what was going on.

The whole encounter was less than two minutes, but in those moments, I felt excitement, disbelief, surprise, anticipation, disorientation, exhilaration, even a little fear. And it made me stop and think about what it felt like to really LIVE, what it felt like to have something you wanted to believe in but weren’t *quite* sure was possible- actually happen.

Now, when I think of the Easter Story, the resurrection narrative, I remember how I felt that morning, and I realize that, even if I don’t believe in the resurrection as a literal, historical fact, that omitting it or not thinking about it does a disservice to all the hope and joy that Jesus stood for.

I want to remember that feeling of anticipation, of expectation, when I flung open the door, and try to approach life with that sort of  joy every day.

Maybe without the falling out of bed part though….