Easter Sunday was Wonderful -- Except

More photos from Easter

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The Lilies were beautiful, the Church was full, (well not really since the sanctuary can hold over 300 and our attendance was 125, but it looks much fuller than the usual 75 people) and a few ladies had on their Easter bonnets. Actually very few had on Easter bonnets since straw hats and wool clothing just doesn’t go together and it was a very cold and very early Easter. I thought that the sexton with his cap on might be the only hat I had to photograph, but then more people showed. If you look at the picture set, however you will have seen all the hats there were.

The choir was in its best form following a prelude for Organ and Piano with Dianne Ney on the organ and Tonya Spears on the piano, and then Ray Gonzales came in with the trumpet on the first Hymn. Dianne invited all the singers in the congregation to join with the choir in singing the Halleluiah chorus from the Messiah after the benediction and over a half a dozen did. It sounded spectacular. I thought I had a good sermon, and it was brief.

There were just the two of us for dinner and we had pistachio encrusted rack of Lamb, it was delicious!

It was a Wonderful Easter – Except, Except, on Easter Sunday on the other side of the world the 4000th officially recognized casualty to an American serviceperson took place in Iraq. On Easter, the holiday of life, resurrection, hope, renewal we go on with business as usual in Iraq, and business as usual involves killing and being killed.

Photos from Holy Thursday service at Westminster

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary
of the war in Iraq.

I was among 200 plus protesters on Main Street in Hartford on a cold and rainy day. After over five minutes of conversation with a Hartford Courant reporter I got one sentence quoted. "As nasty as [this weather] is, I could not, not be here. Other people are making much worse sacrifices than walking out on a cold day," said Terry Davis, pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Hartford. Link to full article. (Pictures from Courant Web Site)

The protest started on the steps of Center Church (UCC) and ended at the Federal Building. At the Federal Building five of the protesters blocked the employee entrance to the building (leaving the public entrance open for those needing to conduct business with the immigration or other offices and courts in the building). They were eventually arrested by city police, although from conversations I overheard at the edge of the crowd the city police at first insisted that they should not make arrests on Federal Property. They wanted the private security officers guarding the building to call the federal Marshals to make the arrests.

Among those arrested were two people over 80 years old. The Rev Kathy McTigue, senior minister at the Unitarian Society in New Haven, said moments before she and the others were taken into custody. "It is a way of putting our bodies in the way of business as usual and business as usual is killing people.”

The cost of the war have been tremendous, nearly 4,000 dead American Soldiers, and no counting how many have been injured physically, mentally and spiritually. It has cost over $3 trillion to pursue the war according to Bob Beckel, a liberal Democratic strategist who also estimated that over 150,000 Iraqis have died. This war has now lasted longer than World War I, World War II, or the Civil War.

Barack Obama asked in a recent fund raising letter: “And where are we for all of this sacrifice?

We are less safe and less able to shape events abroad. We are divided at home, and our alliances around the world have been strained. The threats of a new century have roiled the waters of peace and stability, and yet America remains anchored in Iraq.

Enough!”