Dave and I have an Easter gift for you!

This is a very special Easter gift! The following piece was written by a very special friend, David Schelhaas. Dave is a retired college English professor who now lives in Iowa. Many years ago he lived here in our part of the state, taught at Western Michigan Christian High School in Muskegon, and was a charter member of HIS MEN…a singing group that I founded in 1972. He’s not only a fine singer, but an excellent writer. I invite you to savor this little gem on Easter Sunday, 2021: Thinking He Was the Gardener Thinking he was the gardener she did not recognize him, eyes blurred with tears, the weight of grief breaking her heart. Now, all these centuries later, we find her misidentification of him as gardener happily apt. For he is the gardener of our lives and our salvation--- planter, waterer, weeder, feeder, completer. He is the gardener of all green and growing things, of grasses, flowers and trees. The great sequoias, redwoods, and cedars of the world bow down to him who bends to tend the almost invisible lettuce seeds planted this morning in my garden. He cares for all creatures, plants the conies, those “feeble folk,” in houses of stone to protect them, gives water for the wild donkeys, delights in the antics of leviathan. Before time was, he cast stars like seeds into the endless furrows of space and still charts their growth over seasons that linger on for eons. Dear, sad Mary, one word and she knew him, yet all eternity may not be time enough for her to comprehend him. Thank you, David. Christ, the gardener, is risen. He is risen, indeed!