Some years ago in another parish, I had to deal with a situation in which the long-standing and very close friendship between two women came apart—spectalarly and publicly. The circumstances are no longer of any real significance, but the process by which the parish worked through the issues taught me a great deal. One of the learnings comes back to me every Eastertide, particularly on the "empty day" of Holy Saturday.

During a meeting between the two women, one of them turned to the other and said, "Our relationship is over now. But perhaps there can be a resurrection." In that moment, I had the (for me, anyway!) sudden insight that the death and the resurrection had to be separated by a time of living into the death, learning to live with the loss. Resurrection would not—could not!—be on the same basis as what had been before, but had to be something new and unexpected. Whatever might happen in their lives in the future, it would have to be on a totally new basis, and they would have to learn to live with the death of their old relationship.

In a conference a year or so later, the leader talked about transition events as essential but uncomfortable times in the life of an organization or person—times when the old has gone, and the new has yet to be, and we live both in loss and in uncertainty. I have come to call such experiences "Holy Saturday events," which seems to me to place them more in the frame of reference of the Easter story.

Today, the church is empty except for those who are preparing for the great festival. The holy water stoup is empty, the aumbry stands open, bereft of all reserved sacrament. The earth has received her King, who lies sleeping in the grave. Death is real.