Showing posts with label Easter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Easter. Show all posts

24 March 2008

Easter

It seems like it was just a couple of months ago that we were coloring Easter eggs. But that was a year ago, and this weekend, we were at it again. Boiling eggs, smelling that acidic vinegar smell as the little tablets of dye bubble and pop and dissolve into it. Covering the kitchen table with old newspapers to keep the dye - which will inevitably be spilt - from staining the table.

No. 2 Son is too old this year for coloring Easter eggs. No. 1 Son became too old a couple of years ago. So it was up to Little Sister and myself to color the eggs. She did a great job. The 5/8 had bought some egg coloring kits which came with little foam stickers. So, naturally for a nine year old, the more foam stickers you can use, the better off the entire world is. Needless to say several of the eggs were so covered with foam stickers, they could have been dropped from the top of the house without even cracking the brittle shell.

On Good Friday, it has become somewhat of a tradition that we get Long John Silver's for lunch, eat it at Gage Park (which, BTW, got a lot of print in Stephen King's "Dark Tower: Wizards and Glass"), and tour the Zoo. Two years ago we went, it was dreadfully cold and windy. Last year we didn't go. The weather man promised rain in the afternoon, so we skipped the Gage Park/Zoo tour. But the day was mostly nice, not near as bad as it was the year before. Lesson learned I suppose. This year, despite the gloom predictions of weather, we made plans to go anyway.

Our plans were delayed by the need to meet the Lowe's delivery guy at the Ol' Man's apartment building. The Ol' Man owns an old, mostly run-down apartment building. It was built eons ago. Sometime in the early part of the 20th Century, the building belonged to the American War Dads fraternal organization. The building has a gigantic, beautifully decorated (at one time anyway) basement which was hand-dug by the AWD. I can't imagine digging that basement, with 10 foot ceilings, by hand. I certainly can't see anyone doing that kind of work in this day and age. Instead, they would simply tear down the building and build a new one with a basement built-in.

At any rate, the Lowe's delivery guy called me about noon, just as we were getting ready to head over to LJS to get our food. He was wondering if someone would be there to help him unload the tons of carpet, ceiling tiles and linoleum the Ol' Man was having delivered. The Ol' Man is in his 70s, and about 8/10 blind. He has trouble standing, let alone walking or actually carrying anything, so we took a detour to the building to help the Lowe's guy unload the items.

The zoo was nice. It wasn't too cold, but chilly nonetheless. I have discovered over the last couple of years, that the best time to see the zoo is when the temperature is somewhere between 50 and 65. In the cool temperatures, the animals seem to be out and about much more than in either the cold or the hot weather. The bears were out playing and wrestling with each other. The Orangutans were outside, climbing on the impressively complex looking equipment their environment contains. Even the female gorilla, which usually only has her foot or knee visible from her hiding spot, was able to be seen.

Easter was...well...Easter. We spent the holiday with the in-laws in Lawrence. Not my favorite place to be. The 5/8 family, especially her sisters, tend to treat her like a red-headed stepchild. Constantly putting her down and pointing out her faults, even ones that aren't there. It ticks me off, and the kids are aware of the tension all around which usually lasts for a day or two after any visit to Lawrence. But this time, this time they seemed much more cordial than they have in the past.

While Easter and Christmas are closely related, it is clear to all that Christmas is definitely the bigger holiday. My kids know the reasons we celebrate these times. If you ask them, they'll acknowledge that of the two, while Christmas is a bigger celebration, Easter is the more important of the two. I'm thankful, and proud they know the reasons, not only in a way that they can recite that Easter is the "day Jesus rose from the dead". But that I get the feeling they really, really know what it is about. We haven't kept them close-in and sheltered from other faiths and beliefs. They know that Buddha, and Mohamed and a host of other religious founders were all born a natural birth, like Jesus. But they also recognize that only one of them rose from the grave. No re-incarnated, but re-animated. He conquered death, and with that, waits to absolve us of all our sins and fallacies.

With that, I extend to everyone a (belated) Happy Easter day, and season.

06 April 2007

Good Friday

It's Good Friday. The boys were asked to serve at the noon Stations of the Cross at the Church of the Assumption downtown. It had been I don't know how many years since I had actually been to a Stations of the Cross.

They (Catholics) usually do this on Good Friday. It got me to thinking how neat it would be to spend Easter in Jerusalem, and on Good Friday walk the real Stations. would also like to spend Christmas in Bethlehem sometime.

*sigh* When that numbers on that lottery ticket (which I never buy) finally get picked.

The Stations were very moving. What was said at most of the stations seemed so...personal. Almost as if they were talking specifically about my own life. The crosses that I am to bear. I know that what seems like giant heavy crosses I tug along are rather insignificant to a lot of people, but they are there nonetheless, and I (like most I believe) think how much better life might be without them. Pains, trials, reservations, resignations, regrets.

But without these personal crosses, I would be a completely different person. Without them my wife - whom I love with complete devotion - would be a different person. We are the sum of our personal experiences, and if any of those experiences were to change, we as we are now would cease to exist. We would become someone else. Perhaps not very much, perhaps just the vanity to splash some Grecian Formula on the gray around the temples, but enough that it would change us. Forever.

No, I don't want my crosses removed. I'll bear them, and hope and strive to bear them with pride. They are a gift. A gift which is given by God. Sure, they don't seem like a gift. How can one make a gift of pain and despair? But it is through these trials that we emerge as a better person.

Sheesh, this post didn't start out to be so melancholy, but it seemed to have ended up that way. Sometimes my mind gets to racing when I'm sitting at the keyboard, and what was going to be just a post, ends up quite the ramble.

I want to thank you for your attention, and for visiting.

Happy Easter everyone!









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