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Happy Resurrection Day!
The pictures are from around our neighborhood today. Miss E has the prettiest daffodil patch I've ever seen, and the four ducks waddle around their part of the neighborhood, eating up the bugs in the grass. They're so fun to watch.
We never have been into bunnies and eggs at Easter, though we'll happily gobble up the candy, but we talk to our children, especially on a day like this, about the importance of Jesus's resurrection and the death that led up to it.
We sang several traditional hymns this morning that really made me miss being able to join in with a choir, but we all sang with gusto anyway.
Of course, the younger children of the church had a song to sing. The tots stole that part of the show with their happy, unsure clapping and shout-singing. Cute, cute, cute!
What has stuck with me through the day, and hopefully through the future, is the visual our pastor used from the past two weeks through today. With sermons leading up to Jesus dying and being buried, he kept asking what was keeping us buried. Worry? Fear? Anxiety? Anger? Depression?
We had the opportunity to write out what was keeping us "buried" in a sense, fold the paper, and cast it in the stage-prop tomb. No names, just a note between the writer and God.
Today, he took all those papers, and without reading them, simply ran them through a paper shredder to give a visual of those weights and chains being left in the tomb on this Resurrection Sunday.
I won't say what was on my paper; that's private. But I will carry that visual with me of what weights and chains in my life need to be left in the tomb.
Why carry that junk around?
Otherwise, we are wrapping up the last day of Spring Break. Kal is lamenting the looming school day tomorrow. Adjectives that come to mind are: dark, gloomy, heavy, depressing, stormy, and such other precursors of doom as might present themselves. Throw in a requiem for sound effects.
He was compelled by Mother--that's me--to prepare for the upcoming day even though he felt like a prisoner facing his execution the following day. Requiem, again.
Kara, on the other hand, bounced around, ready to go back to school and routine.
And me? I'm ready, READY, R-E-A-D-Y for routine to return. The time with my children is lovely, but we all suffer when routine is gone for too long.
Part of preparing for the school day is preparing the backpack.
Um, if you don't have school-aged children yet, please let me forewarn you that the excavation of the contents of a backpack is not for the faint of heart. You will surely find all manner of disgusting debris among what should be usable schooling implements.
What does have to be salvaged will be wrinkled and torn beyond recognition, yet it will still require a parent's signature.
If possible, excavate the backpack next to the trash can and a bucket. The bucket is for you when you come across a half-eaten turkey sandwich with what used to be grapes--from last week. You'll need the bucket when you smell that.
Somehow, children eventually graduate despite all this mess.
Now, I'm making myself sad thinking of how quickly time is slipping away, and our children are growing up faster than we can grasp the moments with them.
Even through difficult times with parenting, I don't regret the time we spend together. Somewhere, lurking in the recesses of my conscience, is the knowledge that time is short and I need to enjoy today, this moment, with them.
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