“Easter Joy and the Slightly Overfilled Inbox”

There comes a moment in Eastertide — usually a Monday, and almost always before the second cup of coffee — when one opens one’s email inbox with great theological optimism…

…and is immediately greeted by 47 unread messages.

Some of them are important.
Some of them are mysterious.
And at least one of them appears to involve a committee you do not remember joining.

Now, it is at precisely this moment that the great proclamation of Easter—Christ is risen!—meets the equally great reality of parish life — and so is everything else.

Schedules.
Requests.
Questions that begin with, “Just a quick one…”

And the temptation, of course, is to imagine that these things somehow compete with Easter joy. That resurrection belongs to lilies and trumpets and radiant mornings… but not, perhaps, to inboxes and interruptions.

But here is the quiet surprise of Easter:

The risen Christ does not avoid the ordinary.

He steps into it.

He meets his friends not only in moments of wonder, but in the middle of their routines — on roads, at tables, in conversations that begin with confusion and end, quite unexpectedly, in recognition.

Which suggests that resurrection joy is not something we leave behind once the choir has gone home.

It is something we carry… even into Monday morning.

Even into email.

Now, I will confess that I have yet to receive an email that begins, “Alleluia! The Lord is risen!” (though I remain hopeful). But I have discovered that Easter joy has a way of sneaking into the smallest exchanges:

A note of gratitude.
A moment of patience when a reply is slower than we’d like.
A gentle kindness in how we respond, even when we are tired.

These, too, are signs of resurrection.

Not dramatic.
Not headline-worthy.
But real.

Because the resurrection is not merely an event to be celebrated — it is a life to be lived.

And that life, it turns out, includes Mondays.

It includes inboxes.

It includes the quiet, steady work of showing up with grace in the midst of whatever the day brings.

So if your Easter joy feels slightly buried beneath a list of things to do — do not be discouraged.

The tomb was empty long before anyone checked their messages.

And the risen Christ is quite capable of meeting you right there,
between the subject lines and the second cup of coffee.

Alleluia.

A Companion Prayer

Risen Christ,
meet me in the ordinary rhythms of this day.

In the tasks before me,
in the messages I answer,
in the people I encounter —
let your life be quietly at work.

Give me patience where I am hurried,
grace where I am stretched,
and joy that does not depend on everything going smoothly.

Teach me to carry Easter into the small moments,
until even the ordinary becomes a place of resurrection.

Alleluia. Amen.