good friday

so this week has been wet. and rainy. and gray.

i haven't felt much like blogging, even tho i have pictures to post from last weekend and many varied thoughts swirling in my mind. i haven't been able to summon up any creative energy to do easter crafts with francis, even tho a week ago i really wanted to (envious of jennifer and ann-krestene!) and the best i can do is get down from the cupboard the eggs we made a few years ago. (don't worry, they're empty, not hardboiled!)
today is a no-school day, so i thought while francis was happily battling away on lego star wars, i would try to do an update. greg is gone for the weekend, to california, for his annual guys reunion that he's been doing since before we got married. i think it's pretty special that they still meet, once a year, here or there, even tho it's an effort to get away, with job, wives, kids... it doesn't usually happen the weekend of easter, tho, so this year they're cutting it a bit short, so the men can be home for sunday. my grand plans for easter projects with francis have been gradually losing its oomph this week, so we'll see what i can come up with. i still have a few days.



last saturday, it was raining (surprise, surprise!) and we had a planned excursion north, to the fairbanks residence, for the dinner party they were having to celebrate their soon-to-be adoption of two babies from ethiopia. it got sunny as we were preparing to leave, and i got excited for the bonfire. but then it started raining again on the drive there. and then it poured. and then it hailed. we had august and hazel with us for the evening; i hoped the weather would clear for them to get to explore outside, for the fairbanks have lots of woods, and the fairbanks have 5 kids! it did eventually stop raining, and the kids did indeed play outside all evening, and even into the night, with flashlights. forts in the trees, forts under the porch...it was kid heaven. sonora cooked up an amazing ethiopian feast for all of us, which was delicious, and it was a wonderful evening of celebration, with good food and good friends. ( more pics on flickr)







on sunday, greg went on a long bike ride with some friends, so francis and i caught the bus downtown to check out the irish festival, and see the irish dancers, for st. patrick's day. i think it was good for him, to hear music from another culture, to see even the littlest of girls dancing such intricate steps. he asked: why is it always the girls that dance? i said that's a good question. i don't know. maybe the men were out working. maybe the men were playing the instruments that supplied the music. (i'm not ready to say: because the men like to watch women dance?) but i did say, that back in the olden days, before tv and movies, people provided their own entertainment, by coming together, playing music, dancing, singing, telling stories... something you don't see too much of these days.

how interesting that a holiday to celebrate the life and deeds, of a missionary to an ancient God-less ireland, is celebrated now by wearing green, attending parades, and drinking beer. and how challenging it is to parent, to teach a child to question, that the world's ways aren't the only ways. or even the right ways, alot of the time. apparently, i was a child who questioned everything, wouldn't believe something until i researched it myself. i hear i drove my mother nuts. and now i have a kid who believes everything he sees, hears, or reads. even something another kid tells him is the gospel truth. and now, he drives ME nuts. i try to instruct him to not believe everything he hears, to come home and look it up for himself, or ask questions, ask us. but somehow, it still comes out like: "because i said so." it's the parent telling him to do something, and he doesn't want to do it. he doesn't want to question. because he thinks he knows. he just wants to believe. which is good when it's the right things. and not good when it's the wrong things. how do you teach discernment, without them disbelieving everything?

and this is the face i get alot of the time.



so here i am, approaching easter. i tell him, remind him: you know it's more than easter baskets and chocolate bunnies, right? we talk about jesus, the passover, the cross. (but he's got one eye on the clock. how do i talk to him, without talking AT him?) it's a fine line, a struggle. and even tho the commercialism bothers me, since it is here: i have to admit nostalgia exists. i love these things too. i can't wholly deny the culture i grew up with, and the excitement i remember as a child, dressing up extra special for church on easter sunday, the baskets with plastic grass, hunting for eggs, gifts of chocolate. they make easter sunday different from any other sunday. the preparation, the decorations, the gifts, (much like christmas) help a child recognize the specialness of the day, something to look forward to, and the symbolism, we hope, is not altogether lost on them. we hope that the words we teach them (love the Lord your God with all your heart), the stories we tell them (love your neighbor as yourself), will someday snag on their heart, and become life inside of them. that someday they will do these things on their own. and not because i said so.