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When I was younger I used to say Easter was my favorite holiday. There are a couple reasons for that: (1) I felt like if I said Christmas or Halloween that would make me sound greedy; (2) Easter occasionally fell on my birthday, and I liked that. 

That's all, that's it. It probably says something not entirely positive about me that those were the reasons I wanted to say Easter was my favorite, but on the other hand--picking favorite holidays is kind of a weird exercise, anyway. For me holidays tend to become one of the axes the year cycles around, and I'm beginning to realize that the way I approach each one usually says more about my state than the holiday itself.

Easter in Norway is a more widely celebrated, secular holiday than it is in the U.S.--complete with the traditional airing of crime shows on TV--which might account for why this year especially, my understanding of the holiday is personal. So right now, I'm approaching Easter as a journey: Christ's journey towards his life's purpose. Reflective, perhaps, of my own attempts to figure out what my life is for and what I'm supposed to do with it. But this isn't so far off from a lot of the tradition around the Lenten holidays, and Easter is really just the culmination of that, the arrival at the end of a journey. As a result, it's difficult for me to extricate Easter from everything else. I'm not sure we should, just because context is so important. Even as we acknowledge the holiday, celebrate, say Lent is over--what Christ began continues.

This is not to belittle what Easter celebrates (He is risen, He is risen indeed). But it celebrates the fulfillment of prophecy, the fulfillment of purpose, and I'm not entirely sure that means it celebrates completion. We continue. The road, as the song says, goes on forever.

And the party never ends. Happy Easter, god Påske. Now, if you need me, I'll be on the next train to the arctic circle.