It's Friday...And No One Wants To Talk About Saturday.

"It's Friday, but Sunday is coming!"

This one phrase is filled with such anticipation and hope. If we can just hold out a little longer, the celebration will be here in all its glory. So, attend community egg hunts on Saturday. Get your picture with the Easter bunny before it's too late.* Iron coordinating outfits and whip up egg salad. 

While none of those activities are wrong (alright the bunny thing freaks me out), the sentiment leaves me feeling a tad uneasy. It's much easier to look toward sunrise on Easter than to weep and mourn on Saturday. No disciples smiled broadly when the curtain was torn, proclaiming "Whelp! It's Friday, but Sunday's a-comin'!" No. They beat their breast, keening, and clinging to one another in fear. They were bereft, and seemed to be in a fog of uncertainty and anguish. 

May I suggest something?** May I suggest that it's OK to sit uncomfortably and painfully with today? Let's sit in the separation of Saturday, with its loss and sorrow. With its sackcloth and ashes. With its burial linens steeped in oils and spices. With its brokenness and borrowed tomb. With the stillness of One who was loved and lost. There was not yet a holy breath inhaled into a resurrected frame. There was nothing more than guarded decay and salty tears dried upon cheeks. There were memories of His first steps as a child and those upon the waves-all marred by watching his last steps to Golgotha. There were scores of anxious questions whispered behind closed doors-unanswered. 

Yes. Sunday is coming. The darkness of today won't last, but today is indeed still a day of lament. And that's OK.


Aching,

Cynthia




*When did that become a thing?!?
**Since it's my blog, you don't really get a say anyway. Nanny-nanny-boo-boo.

The One Where You Thought I Ditched You

Did you feel that little lurch last week? It was the world stopping on its axis. You see, I unintentionally took a week off from blogging (cue Home Alone scream). The Professor had a week off from both jobs and we had waaaaaay too much fun! We started off with a bang: We all got sick. Thankfully, all of my immune-boosting activities for the children* paid off, and we were back to normal our normal selves soon enough.

Here area few lessons from my blogging vacation:

1. A movie featuring the Easter bunny, Santa, the tooth fairy, Sandman and Jack Frost can surprisingly offer some meaningful talking points with the kiddos. Rise of the Guardians had little to offer our children. Did I mention we don't do the whole Santa-Easter bunny-tooth fairy ballyhoo? You take that away from the plot and you're pretty much left with diddly-squat. However, we had plenty to talk about, and it didn't sound like this: "You see children, that is why Santa isn't real. And remember Jesus trumps the Easter Bunny. Repeat after me. Tooth fairies are ridiculous and imaginary. Tooth fairies are ridiculous and imaginary. Good girls."**

2. It's important to communicate the day's order of events to my husband so as to not drive 30 minutes on the wrong freeway. 

3. It doesn't matter how many times I go to Ikea, I will never be able to push their stupid carts and I will always feel like a rat in a giant Swedish showroom maze. 

4. Watching my daughter engage a little boy in an impromptu spitting contest was both comical and disturbing.***

5. It's important to take the fishing licenses with you when at the lake.

6. Fishing can be rewarding without a single nibble.

7. The safest way to fish with a toddler is to remove the hook and just let them cast a weighted line in the water. She was none the wiser and everyone on the fishing dock breathed a little easier. 

8. I'd never used a computerized children's check-in program for a church service, and I'm in no hurry to do it again. On the bright side, I now have a receipt that says those kids are mine. 

9. Not informing one of your children that their Poppa is a police officer can cause alarm upon seeing him in uniform.****

10. Mimosa trees are charming and planting one is a classy way to honor a much-loved and dearly-missed woman of God.

Find some time to enjoy the changing weather, watch a movie, plant some flowers. Go live a little!

Take A Load Off,

Cynthia

*Eating dirt at the park and licking public water fountains. Works like a charm.

**FYI: I'm not getting paid to yack about this movie. Isn't that shame? 

***NOT in Ikea.

****Nothing a little therapy can't undo.

The Easter Conundrum

Ah yes. The true meaning of Easter.

When it comes to holidays, there's a growing focus on minimalism within the Christian community. Any number of popular blogs are addressing the over-the-top celebrating, which is prolific in our corner of the world. 

Leprechauns and gold coins have bedecked St. Patrick's Day. Bunnies and an ever-widening array of designer plastic eggs have smothered Easter. Fireworks and a barbecue have overshadowed the truth of Independence Day. Thanksgiving is just an excuse to stuff our faces. Presents and Santa have usurped Christmas. 

The Devil is naturally bent on profaning that which is holy.* What better way to distract us from true celebration than to hand us pseudo-celebrations to replace the sacred?

And yet...

My children will still decorate eggs. The will still search high and low for brightly colored eggs, filled with candies and loose change. We will still take extra care on our appearance this Sunday. Why? Because it's Easter; One of the highest, holiest celebrations on the Christian calendar. Putting a little more effort into my hair on Easter doesn't detract, diminish or otherwise cripple the work accomplished on the cross and in the tomb. I know my holiday minimalist friends are cringing that I appear to be going soft, but hang in there with me.

I am all for doing away with the commercialism accompanying our holidays. One special day bleeds into the next and they are beginning to be generically celebrated. It's now possible to trim your home year round with a variety of holiday lights available on the market. Just take down the Christmas lights and put up the heart lights. Take those down and put up the egg lights, the flag lights, the skull lights. How charming.

Enough already.

But Cynthia, aren't you buying into this whole mess if your kids have matching outfits on Sunday? 

Maybe. But I don't think so. 

What do my kids see when their mama puts on her finest and double checks her reflection in the mirror? They see that something important, something BIG is happening. It puts a sense of magic in the air, and rightly so. It's up to us to tell our kids to tell them what that BIG thing is. Typically, going to church on holidays doesn't really connect with kids. It's not interesting and it doesn't help commemorate the holiday from a child's perspective. I bet if we asked our kids how they would celebrate Easter (with no preconceived notions), church wouldn't make the top ten.** I lay pretty good odds that our girls would say throw a party and invite the whole neighborhood. With that in mind, what does hunting through the yard for eggs say to my children? It says this is no ordinary day. The level of excitement runs so high the air practically crackles with glee. Now show them that it is Jesus who gives us reason to be gleeful.

This isn't about taking a middle-of-the-road stance. I'm not trying to find a "Christian compromise" or some sort of mash-up that keeps all parties satisfied. I am absolutely not suggesting we find a way to marry our beliefs to our traditions. There is no marrying the two. They are righteously unequally yoked. Our traditions exist to help us celebrate and commemorate the holidays, to remind us of what is holy, of what is uncommon in this common (profane) world. In order for this to be the case, we need to ask ourselves if the festivities are in service to to the main focus, or have they supplanted Christ, who is always, always, always the main focus?

The reason our society has begun a trend of commemorating less significant days, stems from our need to find significance and meaning. We need to flip this upside down and realize that we celebrate BECAUSE the holidays have significance and meaning. When we value the sacred of the holiday, how it is celebrated means little; It is that it is celebrated that means much.

So, whether you pull out all the stops or eschew anything pastel colored and chocolate coated this Sunday...

He Is Risen!


He Is Risen Indeed,
Cynthia

Easter 2011

P.S. A shout out to the handsome man for his help working through this with me.

*Here's a little trivia: To profane is to make common. OK, not trivia-just a dictionary. Whatever.
**Seriously, don't you remember how long Easter church services were as a kid?