Sunday, March 27, 2016

The Easter Candle

Happy Easter! Today was a big day. We had to get up early in order to have an Easter egg hunt and still make it to church in plenty of time for the 9:00 service. Getting the kids up wasn't a problem. They were so excited to see if the Easter Bunny had come and to go to church and hear the music and the Easter story. Church was lovely and we came back here and had brunch with friends. By late afternoon when I wanted to light our last candle, everyone was wiped out. Both girls were tired from being up early, they had crashed off all the midday sugar, and Alessia was working on a cold. So, I lit the candles by myself while the kids played near by, and then I read them today's story. Jesus has risen! Death is dead! It was actually a little anticlimactic feeling, but still lovely. We brought the Easter candle to the table with us for dinner and talked about all the pictures on it.

At the beginning of Lent I was a little worried about how to talk about Lent and Easter with my children. Reading the stories together gave us space and time each week to consider the meaning of Easter and Lent. Some stories provoked lots of questions and discussions, others didn't. And that was fine. Some stories provoked immediate discussion and others sat quietly in our minds and came back up later in the week. My hope is to read these stories each year with my kids, and I know our conversations about them will evolve as they grow, and as I grow. I've learned through this experience that the important thing is to teach my kids the stories of our faith, not a particular interpretation or analysis of them. The work of making meaning from those stories is something that we can do together, over time.

I want to thank Kate, our director of children and family ministries at Old South Church, for encouraging me when I said I wanted to observe Lent with my girls and for creating the amazing Holy Week candle holders and story cards that we used this week and will be able to use again and again.

 

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