Sunday, April 8, 2007

Easter in the Snow

It's Easter Sunday morning, and it doesn't look like we'll be going to church in 30 minutes, since I'm the only one awake! Yesterday morning we awoke to snow covering the trees (which all by now have flowers, and leaves and/or buds), and the daffodils and the newly green grass. It was surreal. The angle of the Sun in the sky gave you all the other visual cues of a Spring day. And yet, the ground was white.

Yesterday we spent the day with my nephew, his wife and daughter. We took in a puppet show-a new interpretation of Red Riding Hood that I thought was a yawn but the 9-yr-olds adored. Then off to the Udvar-Hazy extension of the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. Following that, a round of Balderdash, and finally a long, luxurious dinner at the Melting Pot.

On the drive home, my son shared his opinion that churches should not use electric lighting at night, but rather torches. This, he explained, is because God is ancient, and he had nothing to do with the invention of electricity. It was a good jumping off point, since my come-back was that God had just as much to do with the discovery of how electricity might work as he did with the discovery of how torches might be fashioned. To which he replied that a lot of bad things have occurred on Earth due to modern technology. To which I could reply that people on the Earth had managed to cause quite considerable mayhem to each other for many years with little more than fire at their disposal.

Perhaps not a very rosy conversation for Easter eve. But at least it let us get to a point where we were talking about people doing good things and people doing bad things and God forgiving people if they realize what they've done and seek forgiveness. Good to see that the Sunday school is paying off. Now if I can just get all the adults into the class for a couple months!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When did the God and church thing happen?!? Or have you always exposed the kid to it, despite your own beliefs?

Creatific said...

Since I was pretty much immersed in Catholicism as a kid, but went off in my own non-denominational direction at a very young age, I figured I'd better not assume my child is going to be as free of the need of a faith as I have been. After all, I did just the opposite of what I was trained to do, church-wise. So he gets exposed to a kind of generic happy Christianity thing at our local church. We go quite irregularly, for weeks at a time and then not for months at a time. I figure when he's ready, he'll make his own decision about what he does and doesn't believe.