Happy Easter

Western Easter, 2005

I stopped at the Starbucks in Lake Oswego after church today. It's the second Sunday in Lent for us Orthodox (Pascha is May 1), because of a glitch in the calendar and Orthodox recalcitrance. Papacino's, our neighborhood coffee shop, was closed, and its empty parking lot was my reminder that this was not an ordinary Sunday. Nevertheless, Seattle-based Starbucks was open -- appropriately enough, because the only state with a lower church-going percentage than Oregon is Washington.

So I stopped at the Starbucks in Lake Oswego, an affluent suburb of Portland, a small city with a lively downtown and beautiful tree-lined streets. I assumed that its customer, being affluent Lake Oswegans, would be uninterested or unaware of the holiday.

I was surprised to find that even in Starbucks, even in Lake Oswego, Oregon, Easter and resurrection are not far from people's minds. People came in dressed in uncharacteristic finery, exchanging greetings of "Happy Easter." And against a backdrop of Miles Davis playing "It Ain't Necessarily So" from Porgie and Bess, another man, sitting behind me, railed against the preaching of the resurrection and the Catholic Church.

If I were trying to get away from Easter, I wouldn't succeed.

Instead I'm waiting.

To my Western Christian readers, "Happy Easter."