Summer

   My favorite day of the year is the last day of school. I love this time of year. Even though my work hours are exactly the same as they were in the fall, winter and spring, it feels different, more relaxed. Perhaps it is that there are no early morning breakfasts, no rush to the bus stop, no evening homework or PTA meetings. There is still required summer reading and math review, yet the pace is less over wrought. My children are home alone and have to learn to be self directed in order to get the assigned housework, yard work and school work done without the parental unit there to negotiate things. Summer is a good time for children to learn some independence.

   At church the pace slows as well. So many children are away at camp or the beach or on vacation that each week Sunday school time is much quieter. To mark the change we have summer Sunday school. All of the elementary age children are together in one big class. It is louder and more chaotic. No one stays in their seats because this is the perfect opportunity for the big fifth and sixth grade students to help the little kindergarten and first grade and students.

   I assign each fifth and sixth grader to a first grader or kindergartener as Bible buddies. The big Bible buddy helps the little Bible buddy find the verse in Proverbs. The big ones do the writing or the stapling that little hands can’t do. Big Bible buddies portion out the snacks and serve them; little Bible buddies collect the empty cups and throw them out. Everyone talks a lot.

   Through the jumble of glue sticks and construction paper is the experience that there are many ways to learn about and feel God’s love. They feel the growth of being the one to help and the glow of having your own personal helper. The children learn to connect to each other without an adult hovering and directing. During the academic year Sunday school is more structured and during the summer it is a different sort of flow, less structure more experiential. It is a good change, at least for awhile.

   The flow of summer will sustain itself for only a short time. The novelty of combining the ages and assigning Bible buddies will wear off as the summer wears on. By the end of summer everyone will be ready for a more focused approach. And that is when my second favorite day of the year arrives, the first day of school.

Have a relaxed and refreshing summer.

Michelle

Easter - Bunny, Eggs and All

My friend refers to the annual Easter egg hunt and visit from the Easter bunny, that I organize, as the pagan ritual. She may have a point. There are no colored eggs or white rabbits involved in the telling of the resurrection in the gospels. Christian authors and greeting card writers try their best to tie the miracle of Easter to the egg and bunny traditions; it is a stretch.

While other ladies of the church are placing Easter lilies in the sanctuary and changing the altar cloths to white, I am hiding 800 plastic eggs filled with candy and making sure we have enough sidewalk chalk. Last night, Good Friday, as I stood with my hands in a hot, soapy bleach water scrubbing the fake, white fur of the bunny costume, I considered the pagan comment. I wondered if Jesus is displeased with our tradition, is it sacrilegious?

I don’t want to be the one to lead our children astray, but I don’t think the games of the Easter party will hurt them or lead them away from the beauty of the resurrection.  Jesus wants us to build community with one another and he didn’t prescribe exactly how or how not to do it. Just being together seems to build community in incremental steps and the egg hunt is one of the many steps in that process.The activity isn’t the point. The point is the love and fellowship we can share at the activity.

Running around grabbing up eggs full of candy does not make a child a pagan any more than putting a cross around their neck makes them a Christian. It is the life we lead and the faith we nurture before, during and after the egg hunt that will lead our children to the fulfillment of following the resurrected Lord. We are fulfilling our duty to our children when we show them the love of Jesus and the peace of a life with him, whether it is at church or home or a party or at dinner around the Easter ham, which I am pretty sure isn’t in the bible either.


Michelle