A few years ago, I came across a paper-cutting shop, run by the artist.
Inside were some amazing pieces of art made from a single piece of paper cut carefully, gently, to form beautiful designs.
The paper was delicate and it must have taken a great deal of skill to place each one in their frame.
There was a papercut of a woman above the door, showing the side profile of her face, she was looking down and it had been cut to look as though light was falling across her face.
The piece was called Compassion and when I asked the artist about it, he said that he would only put this piece in a white frame; when he changed the frame, it seemed to alter the whole picture so that the expression on her face changed from compassion to grief.
Last weekend we celebrated Easter and went through this exact reframing.
Good Friday and Holy Saturday are grief-filled days, before our outlook is reframed on Easter Sunday to one of joy and new beginnings.
When I think of Jesus’ disciples, peering into the empty tomb and discovering that Jesus had risen from the dead, I imagine their sense of awe, wonder and fear.
The world was suddenly completely different to how it had been, and they had to work out what this meant.
Everything was reframed because of this amazing miracle of compassion, where love triumphs.
We are Easter people, and our lives are reframed because of this love.
Happy Easter.
Cara Smart is the assistant curate at St Paul’s, Wokingham, writing on behalf of Churches Together in Wokingham