The tooth fairy was there too

Holy week started with Palm Sunday; the parade of Jesus and his disciples into Jerusalem. Today is Maundy Thursday where we remember the last supper and the first communion. Tomorrow we remember the death and resurrection of Jesus and then Sunday we celebrate that he has risen!

Explaining the Easter season to a 5 year old is hard. Blood, torture, death, resurrection, angels...all of it just sounds so awful. And it was awful. Horrible. Something a 5 year old should not have to hear about. I am blessed we live in a place where my children are shielded from all of that. Perhaps if they had experienced trauma or seen mass causalities like children in Syria, the Easter story truly would bring them hope and light but they haven't and for that we are lucky. 

Henry began asking about the Easter bunny about a week ago. 

"Mom, is the bunny just a guy in a suit?"

Me (after gasping and having no clue what to say) "What do you think?"

"I think yes, maybe he is"

Then he dropped it. Until later that evening.

Henry "Dad, is the Easter bunny just a guy in a costume?"

Paul "Yeah, it is, bud"

Me- silently hitting Paul on the arm in the front seat of the car because we had not discussed how to handle any of this Easter bunny, Santa stuff. I then asked him "Well do you think that Easter bunny brings your presents?"

Henry "No, the real one does.." end of discussion.

To be honest, the Easter bunny freaks me out. Most of them are creepy and I just can't get on board with the connection between Easter and Jesus. It is a stretch and simply not there. Now, Santa makes more sense. He is an actual person and there was a Saint Nicholas that gave presents to children. Okay, makes sense. I am just glad he didn't ask about that.

Then we come to the tooth fairy.

I picked Henry up from school on Tuesday and he told me that he knew the story of Easter.

"Jesus came to this town on a donkey. Then these bad guys put him in a cave. THEN the tooth fairy came and said "JESUS IS ALIVE"'. 

Okay...donkey, yes. Cave/tomb whatever. Tooth fairy? 

I asked if it was an angel... nope, tooth fairy

I asked if it was a woman named Mary, nope the tooth fairy. And he knows he is right because it was in his teachers favorite book and she is always right.

As you embark on this holy week try to remember the joy and hope that comes out of the sorrow and pain. 

Tonight we remember the last supper, the first communion, the time that Jesus washes the feet of his disciples and again tells him what will happen. 

Tomorrow we remember the ultimate sacrifice, the 7 last words that Jesus spoke before dying on the cross and being carried to the tomb.

Then Sunday morning we will stand together, as one, as people of God proclaiming that Christ is Alive and Christ is risen, even the tooth fairy will be there.

Happy Easter

Rain Rain Go Away....or maybe stay

It's raining today. Rain means several things in my life.

1. Kids can't go outside. Explaining to a 1 year old why they can't go blow bubbles in the rain is pretty much impossible The poor thing keeps yelling at the back door which is driving me crazy... The 5 year old is literally jumping on the couches so do I let him keep doing that and wait and see if he gets hurt or continue to yell and lose my voice and my sanity...

2. The dogs won't pee and poop in the yard. Yep, they won't. They refuse to go into the yard because heaven forbid their feet get wet. So there is literally crap on my deck. Poop broom (yes we have one of those) will have to be used when it dries. Gross

3. I can't do laundry. There is literally standing water in our yard. We are on a septic system and have had issues with it so doing laundry when we have this much rain is too hard on it. So the pile just keep growing.

So my life is super fun today. But here is what I know about rain.

It means new life. The flowers in my garden are starting to grow which means I am extremely happy. The flowers bring me joy and happiness at times when I struggle to find it.

Rain waters the ground that is incredibly dry and maybe just maybe will wash away all of the pollen that is making my ears, throat and nose angry.

Rain is also a sign of hope. When the rains came in Genesis, Noah built an arc. Now, I won't go into my thoughts on the whole Noah and the arc story but what I will say is that at the end God created a rainbow and said that never again would God wipe out an entire Nation. God made a covenant with Noah that after the rains a rainbow will appear as a sign of hope, life, grace and mercy.

While the rain creates conflict in my own life it is beyond and bigger than myself.

My dad loved rain and storms. His birthday is this week. He would have been 61. He would love a day like today. Keeping watch on the rain gauge to see how much he got. He would be texting his brothers to see how much rain they were getting.

Rain is a sign of love for me. It is a sign that even in the darkness there is light and love and hope of new life. Rain brings the flowers, rain brings the memory of my father to the forefront of my mind, rain brings life.

While I still have to figure out what to do with these children, dogs and all of my laundry, I will try to sit with the beauty of the rain and the promise that God made to each of us with the rainbow.

God bless you all.

I surrender

When I was a kid I can remember hearing my friends talk about lent. They would talk about giving something up because God wants you to give something up that you really love. I can remember asking why and no one could really tell me; they said it was because they were supposed to.

As a United Methodist I was never told that I had to give something up- in fact I can't remember ever having a Pastor mention anything about it. But it was kind of cool to do so a few times I gave up soda, which I really wasn't allowed to have so that wasn't too hard and one time I tried to give up sugar but that lasted like a day and then I felt like I had betrayed God and that didn't feel right.

Giving up "things" at lent still doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I understand the need and purpose of fasting in order to experience a more spiritual connection to God, I can understand not eating meat one day a week in order to celebrate the lenten season and build community with others during your weekly fish fry. All of that I can get. But giving something up.

I am not sure that God really wants us to be lacking of things we enjoy. 

As my faith has grown and my understanding of lent has matured- I have realized that giving something up is not the purpose of lent. The purpose of lent is to surrender. To surrender to God. To allow God to take over our anxieties, our worries and our fears. To allow the holy spirit to work in our lives so that when we feel all the weight of the world on us we know that we are not alone. We can trust in the power of the Divine to hold us and make us safe because that is the very covenant God made with us from the beginning of time. 

As Jesus is preparing for his arrest, death and resurrection he foretells of this many times. His disciples, particularly Peter, don't want to hear it. They don't want to believe that their teacher, their friend, their Rabbi will be arrested and killed. I mean who would want to believe that about the beloved son of God?

In Mark 14 we read about the arrest of Jesus. As Jesus is being arrested, he looks upon the people arresting him and says "have you com out with swords and clubs to arrest me as though I were a bandit? Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not arrest me. But let the scripture be fulfilled"

But let the scripture be fulfilled. 

It has been prophesied over and over again that the son of God will come to the earth and will be arrested, crucified and resurrected. Jesus has finally surrendered to his fate. He knows that this is what must happen in order to save the people of God, in order to show to his people his whole heart, his pure love and what it ultimately means to surrender to the will of God. To allow God to take on your hardships, to let God be with you even in the toughest of times and to allow the very spirit of God to be upon you every day no matter how much you fight it or don't want to believe it to be possible. 

I encourage you all to surrender this lent. To allow God into your lives in a way maybe you never have. To give your worry and anxiety to God and when it seems to overwhelm you and consume you go to God in prayer and trust that no matter how hard it is God is with you through all of it because that is the very promise God made to us from the very beginning of time and the promise God continues to make with us every single day.

Blessings to all of you