Pictures from Easter 2025 - sowing seeds…
Thanks to Spence Moore for these beautiful pictures!
We had a wonderful Holy Week and Easter. Anticipating our public launch this September, we felt free to experiment with different ways of stepping into the stories at the heart of this Christian tradition. Stories of God’s solidarity with the suffering. Stories of God’s intimacy with us in simple acts of care and service. The story of how the dominating, controlling powers of Jesus’ time tried to bury him—not knowing he was a seed. (You can read a version of Fr. Carl’s reflection on that theme here.)
On Palm Sunday we gathered in the All Saints garden to wave our palms and sing “Hosanna in the highest!” We welcomed Jesus as the king who turns all our ideas of kingship upside down and inside out: he comes not in might to conquer, but in non-violent solidarity—to liberate and serve.
Our procession of the palms… Hosanna in the highest!
After we marched into the church, we had a “choose your own adventure” section where kids and others returned to the garden to make cyanotype crafts with our wonderful teaching artists Cristina Ferrigno and Spence Moore. (Cyanotypes create a negative image—a great image for how Jesus inverts the values of traditional, “power-over” ideas of kingship.
Others stayed in the sanctuary to read and reflect on the Passion narrative, where the crowd that has shouted in praise as Jesus enters Jerusalem turns on him, demanding he be crucified. In this time of strongmen leadership and performative cruelty, we asked
what does it mean for us that God is not afraid to be weak?
What does it mean for us that not afraid to suffer for God’s dream of a world where everyone has what they need to heal, and grow, and flourish?
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR US THAT GOD DOES, actually DIE?
The two groups then came together again for Holy Eucharist, with some impromptu help at the table from two of our youngest members.
We make Eucharist together. And the children lead us.
On Maundy Thursday, about 10 of us gathered for a simple and yet touching potluck supper: before we ate and talked and laughed, we washed each others’ hands. That act of care for one another’s bodies grounded us in our shared vulnerability, and it brought us into the revolutionary spirit of the Jesus movement, in which the leader takes on the role of the servant. For Jesus himself, at the Last Supper, took on the role of the servant, getting down on his knees to wash his disciples’ feet.
Good Friday was a powerful experience of the Passion narrative through the immersive open-hearted work of Dzieci Theatre. This group of Jews, Christians, and people of good will has set the story of Jesus’ last hours in the Jewish world of the Warsaw Ghetto, under the shadow of the Nazi policy of genocidal terror. It was a testimony to the power of this work that every single person who witnessed the performance stayed for a discussion with the cast.
On Easter Sunday we celebrated with a festival Eucharist, in our experimental style. It was a joyful and raucous occasion, full of full-throated singing, and kids moving their wiggly bodies in celebration. We’re so excited for more gatherings like this in the months and years to come.
