"Lord, help me to get through this day."
From the slumber of sleep, these words greeted my day. Yesterday was full from morning till night. No respite in sight again today – or for the rest of Holy Week.
Holy Week – I had better words for this week that seemed to hold no punches, take no prisoners, or gave any rest to the weary.
That morning, I knew that I had to commit to my prayer before anything else. If I left it to later, it would never happen. Sure, there was important work to do – deadlines to meet, phone calls and e-mails to answer, not to mention the many details of fast approaching Easter Triduum. Some people would ever call it Go
d's work (Opus Dei) – but, I knew that without my morning prayer, the work would not be of God.
While at prayer, I am blessed to look out through my rather large window onto a leafy backyard and laneway. Close to my window, an old lilac and apple tree break the monotony of the evergreen cedars.
Out of the blue they swept in to settle in the sunlit, early spring branches of the branchy lilac tree. Within a flash, the lilac was transformed. The avian flash mob had descended transforming the early morning radiance into a melody of dawn chorus. 
For some, such bird songs, or if you rather, avian vocalizations, are simply the result of evolutionary pressures that enable birds to describe and maintain territory, to reproduce well and to spread those "selfish genes." That may be true, but that is like stating that fine scotch or wine are simply the products of anaerobic ethanol fermentation of sugars. They are that indeed, but the "gladdening of mens' (and womens') hearts" is how the Bible likes to describe such distillation and fermentation products. The same for the heart-warming melodies of the spring passerine birds in the lilac tree in my backyard.
Regardless of my epistemological perspective that early morning, the sweet song of the dawn did much to raise my prayer to heaven. In fact, I d
are to say that the birdsong was my prayer to heaven.
My eyes blinked open that morning with much on my mind. The coming day seemed too short to possibly embrace all that awaited me. During t hose times, my mind is prone to anxiety. How, in heaven's name, will I get through all this?
But, along comes a chorus of song from out of the blue – literally. It awakened other thoughts – the beauty of God's gift of creation, the pure gift of that unique moment unknown to any other.
I felt it as a call to simply trust the day, to let it gently unfold. I rested easily into prayer. I gave over the moment to God, to mystery, to my inability to control life.
That's a form of resurrection. It may not sound like much. It won't make the Catholic headlines nor compete with the Shroud of Turin. But, resurrection is new life, transformed life, glorious life in the Spirit – no matter how it happens. It is never a one-shot deal, never simply a resuscitation, but a transformation into something unknown and brand new.
That morning the impossible happened. Resurrection is like that. A blessed Easter.