My plans for the centerpoint of the Christian year are falling into place. On Maundy Thursday, I will read St. Mark's passion with whichever of my Greeklings can spare the time in the busiest week of a seminarian's year. (Just need to double-check room availability.)

For Good Friday, to my great delight, I have been invited to be a part of the narration team for the service at my church. I can't tell you how good it feels to know that somebody remembered that I love to proclaim scripture, and that they are happy to have me taking part. Lately it's been all I can do just to get to church, so sometimes I feel like a second-class member of the community by never doing anything to give back. So this is a great encouragement, even if it hardly feels like "service" since I enjoy it so much. (Okay, "enjoy" is maybe not quite the word for reading on Good Friday -- it is a phenomenal experience, but not "fun." Better to say I love it so much.)

For the Feast of the Resurrection itself, I will be celebrating at chez Fink, home of an amazing little boy who just two minutes ago (it seems) was a tiny infant. Maybe we can even do an Easter egg hunt!

Which leaves Holy Saturday, and there I have a problem. The principle drawbacks of having become Presbyterian are that we don't have communion every week, and we don't do an Easter Vigil. My brief heart-breaking love affair with the Episcopal Church has left me feeling that the Saturday night Easter Vigil is THE most significant event of the whole year, and now I have no home community with which to celebrate this occasion.

I have vigiled at a different church every year since I moved to NC. The first year I went to Church of the Holy Family, which really does it up right. The second year I went to Duke University Chapel; the third year to St. Joseph's. For various reasons the two Episcopal churches I have visited before are not really live options this year; I suppose I can go back to the Duke Chapel if nothing else comes along. But I am quite open to suggestions, or better yet, invitations. Does anybody know of a place I can go for Easter Vigil?

Someone remarked that this is one of those years that Western and Eastern Easters coincide, which I suppose means that I could attend an Orthodox Vigil, which I've been wanting to do for years. But that blurs the line between worship and ethnographical participant-observation. And as I'm not in full communion with the Eastern church, I couldn't take part in the Eucharist, which would be a sad omission. I'd be more at home at a Protestant vigil, even though Protestants can sometimes make a mash of liturgy.