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Easter

The Cloth

There were no plants. No flowers. No lights. No people. No music. It was dark and empty save for a single, rough-hewn cross-illuminated by a single light.

There is no trace now of the hopelessness that permeated the air just two days ago. I walk into the same room that isn’t the same room at all. There is life here: potted plants, some six or seven feet tall, beautiful, pure white calla lilies, white cloth airily cascades across the ceiling, colorful lights create a stained-glass effect on the walls. But these are only the background.
I am entirely taken by the cross that stands in the front of the sanctuary. My heart squeezes within me. My eyes swell with tears. I cannot avert my gaze though people jostle me as they hurry to get a seat before the music begins. I am drawn as a diviner’s rod to water. The cross stands exactly as it did two days ago, but it is not the same. It is no longer barren. It is no longer desolate. A single sheet of cloth is draped over the cross as if tossed carelessly upon it. I gasp in the sudden realization of the message that single cloth proclaims. I am undone.

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