This morning, as is our wont, Ann and I arose early, prepared for Church and at dusk, headed out for Easter Sunrise Service at our church in Keezletown.  Keezletown is a small community tucked up underneath the east slope of the Massanutten Peake, the southern terminus of the Massanutten Mountain Range that divides the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley for approximately 80 miles or so.

 For the first 8 years of our marriage we lived in this little hamlet, just down the alley from the Methodist Church.  There is nothing more convienient than walking out your front door and ambling down to church on a Sunday morning, so we naturally joined the congregation and have made many, many friends there over the years.  We continued to attend the chruch even after we moved about 10 miles up the road and still do to this day. 

Now this is a very early Easter this year, so I wondered abit about our timing for sunrise.  You see our current pastor always holds our service out doors in the back facing the alley and the
Massanutten.  The service was scheduled to begin at 7 and I wasn't sure the timing was quite right.  There is nothing more meaningful to me than to be celebrating the Sonrise at sunrise.

Now you have to realize that because of its location tucked under the west slope of the Peake, that sunrise occurs later in Keezletown than else where.  That mountain casts a long shadow in the morning so you really have to be there for a few days at sunrise to figure just when its going pop over the Mountain.  In the house we lived in in Keezletown we had installed a large sliding glass door in the back that faced east so we could view the Peake and the long ridge that trailed away from it to the northeast.  This ridge ran for about 4 or 5 miles northeast before it slid behind another similar peak rearing up from the Valley floor, known as Lairds knob.  And so the Massanutten Range rises ourt of our fair Valley for its entire length. 

In the years we lived in Keezletown, we would observe the seasons in the movement of the rising sun back and forth along that long ridge.  In mid-summer it arises over the Peake itself.  Then its rising gradually migrates to the north along the ridge till in mid-winter it is coming up in the Northeast somewhere just short of Lairds Knob.  It never quite reaches the knob itself. 

At this point of the year it is about mid-way thru its southern run.  Today happens to be a georgous morning, and in the dusky shadow of the mountain, we can't see a cloud in the sky.  No doubt we are going to see a sunrise this morning.  As our pastor leads us through her service, the sky in the east is continually lightening.  Now, the twenty five or so of us gathered in the brisk, frosty air sing our last hymn.  At that midway point on the mountain, the a bright glow is building.  The hymn ends and most clamor to get inside the building looking for a respite from the frosty temperatures. 

 We had missed our timing a bit, but not by much.  A couple of us decide we will await the sunrise, because our day just won't be right without it.  So we hang around, discussing local happenings and the state of our friends heath and  after about ten more minutes of waiting and watching, the sun's orange lip finally peeps over the mountain top.   Relentlessly it emerges to its full glory, on this morning, a large orange ball.  We can almost see it moving.  As it appears, someone remarks, that we need to give Dawn Marie just a few more years in Keezletown to be able to get the timing down right.  Of course someone else remarks that the fact that Easter jumps around the calendar doesn't make it any easier.  We all nod. 

At any rate I got to see the sun rise this morning, and I dare believe that that first Sonrise that we celebrate at Easter put this one to shame.

Wes