A Sabbathy Easter Weekend

Our book club just finished Eugene Peterson's Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places. I had read it years ago, but though I often prefer thinking things through on my own (it's nice and quiet in my head and no one calls on me unexpectedly), I gained tremendously by going through this book with friends.

Peterson prefaces a section on the ten commandments with this:

And if we are going to live in community, dealing with the men and women whom we look at and see every live-long day has to be faced head-on. This may not be as obvious as it appears, for there is nothing more common among us than turning the people among whom we live into abstractions, lumping them into categories, idealizing or demonizing them, dealing with them impersonally as principles or projects.

In Peterson's comments on the fourth commandment, sabbath-keeping, he points out that the Exodus reason for sabbath-keeping was that we keep it because God did. As God rested on the seventh day, we get back in stop with the creation rhythms of work and rest. Then he says:

In Deuteronomy we are told that keeping sabbath is a matter of simple justice; it prevents the stronger from exploiting the weaker, whether parents over children, employers over workers, even masters over horses and mules. Everyone is given a day to recover the simple dignity of being himself, herself, in the community without regard to use or function or status. Even dogs and cats are included.

In our discussion, my friend Angie talked about how they try to observe sabbath as a family--to have a time where chores and homework and clean-up pause and she and Joe and the kids can just be, without usefulness or productivity.

We are entering a busy time. May is a busy month anyway as school seems to wind up before winding down. In the next six or seven weeks, Justin will be full-on busy with soccer and band and school. He has some kind of rehearsal or practice four nights a week and one or two games every weekend. Anna will have rehearsals for the 5th grade play. Scott will be away for two weeks as well, adding to the general mayhem.

So, a church retreat over Easter weekend in Michigan was a perfect way to get away and and breathe and, well, just be.

Some people flew kites...

Idyllic weather

Kids buried each other in the sand...

Anna has ALWAYS loved the sand. It's her happy place.

We karaoke'd...(don't tell Justin I put this up--he never reads the blog, so he'll never know...unless you tell him)...

We shared meals and worship times, scavenger hunts and bonfires; we played basketball and volleyball and card games; we had long conversations and walks.  And on  Easter morning, we worshiped together before parting ways. I imagine that I'm not the only one who took a Sunday afternoon nap when we got home.

I'm thankful for this warm, welcoming community and for the rest and refreshment that were ours together this weekend.

Oh, and Harris Easter Basket Hunt report--We did it in the evening. Here's Anna hunting for a clue in her tree (yes, it's her tree).

Just so you know, we didn't hide it way up in the tree. She could have found it with her feet on the ground. She just enjoys the climb.

My Easter Problem

Easter was simple when the kids were little. Color some eggs, fill their baskets with goodies, and sing some Easter songs.

When Justin was three, he insisted that we sing, "He Arose," before going to find his Easter basket. Sweet child.

I had a picture of kids with baskets in Gabon, but as they were highly unclothed (as they were most of the time inside during our time in Africa) , it wasn't appropirate. Here they are in Nice, where it was cool enough for clothing.

Besides coloring eggs and gathering some Easter basket fillings, I got them dressed up, a step above the usual, for church.

Anna loving being dressed up in an Easter dress for church.

But no, I couldn't leave it at that. I added homemade cinnamon rolls. We made Easter Things out of marzipan.

I know they're scary looking.

And as soon as they were old enough to read, the Annual Harris Basket Hunt began. This involved me writing and placing clues for them to follow to find their baskets. Most years, it was too manic for pictures or video, but I did dig up a few videos from a year in Nice. If you don't get dizzy easily, feel free to look. I didn't know that you shouldn't video holding the camera sideways, so um, it's not stellar videography...

Here's Justin looking for a clue that's hidden in one of his How to Train Your Dragon books.

And Anna's friend Jasmine hunting in the dictionary for her next clue. Anna and Jasmine's clues were in French.

In this video, Jasmine's hunting for a word in English, Anna's drawing a rabbit, and Justin is wanting to use the dictionary for his next clue.

Here Justin is apparently making a rabbit out of Legos. Though it looks an awful lot like an airplane.

This hunt ended in our underground storage unit, where the girls, off-camera due to my stellar videography, do find their baskets.

So, here's my problem. We're going out of town on a church retreat this weekend in Michigan. It will be lovely and calm and restful and fun. But, by the look in their eyes, it was clear that not doing the Basket Hunt would have ruined this Easter for my children. Justin's already bummed about missing the Easter service at our church--he still wants to sing Easter songs after all these years (we will be singing them, but with a smaller group and minus the electric guitars and drums).

So, in addition to getting an oil change and all the other little things that need doing today, I need to come up with clever tasks and clues and place them in clever places so the children can have their Easter fun.

I'll probably still be doing this as they come back from college. Writing clues for them and their spouses. Then for them and their kids. It will never end. What have I done?

On the other hand, no mention has been made of cinnamon rolls, so I may be off the hook. Or we may be eating them Sunday night. And there will be no making of marzipan creatures

Easter

I teach Sunday school at church about every other week. Our class is roughly five to nine year-olds and on any given Sunday there may be from one to seven children, all girls. The parents of these girls hail from France, Senegal, Madagascar, Congo, Russia, and the U.S.

Since the fall of 2010, we've used the rotation model. I came across it when we visited a church in Bogotà that summer. We follow a six year (or so) teaching plan and stick with one Bible passage for three or four weeks before moving on.  I have loved it as we've had the freedom to approach the passage in different ways each week. We've done drama, cooking, praying, crafting, reading, acting the passage out with Playmobil people, art and probably other things that I've forgotten.

For Easter, we've looked at Jesus' trial. Last week, we acted out a few examples of what happens when someone is caught stealing.  We juggled the roles of thief, victim, police officer, and judge between the three who were present. Then we read the story of Jesus' trial and talked about it. No fancy craft, and the acting out was even done as we sat around the table because our Sunday school room has no space for us to move around. But, the kids were completely engaged.

This week, we read and talked through the resurrection passage from Luke. Then we did the above coloring page while we kept talking. Since we don't color very much, the girls were extremely enthusiastic. I've honestly never seen so much care go into something as seemingly boring as coloring rocks.

So, the girls are coloring their rocks, and we are talking about various things. Things like whether you should use a grey marker or a pencil, and whether to use your finger to smudge the pencil to add shading to the rocks. And we are talking about Jesus and his life when one of girls mentions that Jesus never married.

And another replies, "Of course he did, he had a son."

At which point we talked a lot, and I got her back on the right track theologically.

We continue to color, and I mention that the city in the background is Jerusalem. I also say that I once visited Jerusalem.

Same girl with wide-eyed curiosity, "Did you see Jesus?"

At which point I draw a time line which ends up having everyone from prehistoric peoples to Louis the fourteenth on it.

Happy week after Easter to you all!

Easter

The last week and a half has been very busy, so I'm finally posting my favorite Easter pictures.

We colored our eggs on Easter Eve. The eggs we buy here are brown, like they were in Gabon. No Paas coloring kits in France, or Gabon for that matter. We just use food coloring and a bit of vinegar in water-the colors mix beautifully with the brown. The only snag this year was that the only dye sets available were red, yellow, and green. No blue. And the green was wimpy. So no lovely deep turquoise blue this year, which is ironic considering that this is our first Easter on the Cote d'Azur...


Happy little Easter Basket Girl. She wants to color all of our eggs now, by the way. I may need to make it a monthly activity. Don't tell, but her present for her birthday next month is a little Playmobile bunny set, so it would fit with the theme. She's already agreed to a bunny cake. So we just might be painting eggs in May.
We picnicked at the beach after church with some students, so I snapped this before the kids changed into play clothes.