In Praise of Blowing Off Easter

Brunching to the glory of our risen Lord

Hi, it’s me.

I’ve been a church-goer my whole life. Born into it, really, from generations of faithful believers in Christ. Growing up, my family was in the church building whenever the doors were open, and I spent my childhood getting into mischief during the “off hours” while exploring darkened choir rooms and prank calling staff on their multi-line phone system. And even on into adulthood and with my own kids, weekly church was part of the regular rhythm of our lives.

So when I tell you that I skipped church on Easter Sunday this weekend, you’ll know it’s kind of a big deal. You see, the last time I missed church on Easter Sunday was the year Thomas was born. He just turned twenty, so it seems I had a pretty good streak of Resurrection Sundays.

View from the garden on Easter morning, 2022.

Thomas arrived in the wee hours of Saturday morning—the day in between death and life—the day we held our breath in the hushed silence of grief that The One Who Promised to Save Us was now dead. What fools we were to believe such a thing.

We couldn’t have known then what we know now, singing up from the grave he arose and chanting it’s Friday, but Sunday’s a’coming! No, in the wee hours of Saturday morning as I held my boy with his impossibly long feet that curved and gripped my finger like a tree frog, God’s people despaired in the darkness of lost hope, having heard the man himself say, it is finished as he took his last breath.

But anyway, I’ve seen the full trilogy of this story multiple times from betrayal to resurrection, and I know how the third act ends.

So this Easter Sunday, I chose brunch with my family and an old friend who was passing through town on her way home to Portland. In fact, she’s probably reading this right now (Hi, Nancyjean! 👋).

Nancyjean and The Zugs (April 2025).

It was Ross Gay who gave me comfort in blowing off Easter, having just read an essay in his Book of Delights about how, after committing to writing an essay every day, he frets about missing an installment just four days into the project. After considering his failed plans, he writes:

I quickly revised my position to regard the occasional lack of discipline—let me call it failure; no, let me call it blowing it off—into a delight. Rather than putting Ross on the rack and whipping him with a cat-o’-nine-tails (what is that?) and pouring alcohol all over the wounds (antiseptic?) and then flicking matches at him and telling him to dance you lazy, worthless goat turd (are you asking how can one be on the rack and dance at one? Me too.), I decide, despite all the disciplinarians breaststroking the slick and gooey folds of my noggin, double-fisting sickles, swinging at anything that looks too glad, to just blow it off.

So after a lifetime of service to a ritual—one that I love, mind you; one that grounds me in the practice of dying to live, of holding grief and hope in the same hand—I broke from the ritual to break bread with a Fellow Traveler who shares a nearly 25-year history with the Zug Family.

And it was a delight.

Thanks for being here and delighting in my words.

Until next time,

Jen

---

What’s Happening In My Garden This Week

March and April are busy months in the garden! In addition to starting seeds, it’s prime time for weeding pathways, mulching, pruning, and adding or updating infrastructure. Over the weekend I installed a drip irrigation line for our espalier fruit trees on the south side of the house so I don’t have to drag the hose all the way over there.

In the garden this week: apple blossoms, plum blossoms, tulips, ferns unfolding, and seed starts!

---