Easter celebrations

This is a little too late if you celebrated Easter a few days ago, but for those in the Orthodox church there's plenty of time to get prepared.


We usually go camping at the Easter public holiday time as part of a community of about 150 campers all camped higgledy piggledly all over a cow paddock. How do we bring Easter to this setting?

We take a tea light candle in a holder and we light it at meal times on our little camp table. On Good Friday and Easter Saturday it sits on the table unlit, but on Easter Sunday at breakfast time it glows and flickers in the breeze because Jesus, the light of the world is alive.

We eat hot cross buns only on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Hot cross buns are special Easter food, that are not so special if you've been eating them everyday for the last 6 weeks. Even better is if you make your own hot cross buns so you can be part of the preparation for this special day.

We attempted this when we had a three week old baby. I like seeing the photos of the older two sitting in the bench in their pyjamas, piping crosses on buns. The buns themselves were inedible solid rocks, but the memory of the participation lingers on! I think we'll try it again this year, especially since there won't be hot cross buns in the shops by the time Orthodox Easter comes around.

And we have an Easter egg hunt. As my son pointed out today, I should get hollow eggs, because they represent the empty tomb, and the hunt is like Mary and Jesus' friends coming to find the tomb empty.

We had bacon and eggs and tomato for breakfast on Western Easter a few days ago. My middle daughter told us why we have this for breakfast at Easter (we've never done it before though). The yellow yolk is the son of God risen, the halved tomato is heaven opened up for us through Jesus' resurrection. I don't know about the bacon. I'm sure she could come up with something!

Another cool idea is to take a teacup or goblet. I found some fancy ones at the op shop. Fill it with soil from the garden and plant a candle in the middle. On Easter Thursday soak some wheat grains in warm water. On Good Friday, scatter the seeds on top of the soil, or just underneath. Keep it watered, and well lit and by Easter Sunday the wheat will have sprouted into new life. Light the candle on Easter Sunday because Jesus is alive. If you keep the cup on the dinner table you can watch the wheat grow at each meal.

As part of our kindergarten celebrations, we take two large gumtree sticks from the garden and tie them into a cross. Then we tie autumn leaves and native flowers and foliage we have collected all over them. We take our crosses and go for a walk singing Easter songs all the while, God's not dead, He died upon the cross etc. Then the decorated cross can be 'planted' in the garden. My daughter did this quite naturally without suggestion from me a few years back while we were camping. This year we had big kids join us for our little procession and they loved it too.

And of course for our Easter celebrations we will get dressed in 'special Easter clothes' whatever the kids decide that is, and go to church to light candles and share the bread and wine which is Jesus body broken for us.

Camping

We went camping in the Great Australian Bush with a young family from church and friends of friends of friends who realised they'd met at some other place once before.
It was fabulous to be outside, to let the kids get dirty, to challenge ourselves with climbing a mountain (we didn't quite make it to the top, despite the stories of the little red engine), to get to know people, to share food and recipes.
I think it's good for our kids to live with other people, even if just for a few days. They dragged others into games of cricket, helped people light fires, dragged people off to see the island in the stream and it's secret entrance, and continued on with their less-than-perfect behaviour that makes them kids, and us the parent's whose job it is to teach them.
I think it takes a certain amount of letting go on our part to just let the kids work out for themselves how to relate to people, how to behave, how to solve conflicts and ask for help. Camping is a great time for this. As parents we're busy talking to people and preparing food, and the kids are free in a wide open space where they can feel they're off by themselves doing whatever they want, like back in the good ole days when kids had to be back home by dinner time.

On Sunday morning we made damper. We built the fire in that quiet time of morning before people are really awake, made the mixture while the kids hovered around watching, and others woke up and had pancakes for breakfast. The kids ground the coffee beans we'd roasted for hours the night before.

We set up the icons in a quiet corner of the camp ground, right at the bottom of the slope of the mountain. We planned our little service as the damper cooked in the coals of the fire and everybody else quietly glanced over every now and then. Our poor old priest (that's just a saying btw) was sick and unable to serve at a liturgy. So we chanted some hymns, and read from Ascending the Heights. Then we asked God to bless our food and shared the damper we had made.

It was a great time to get away from it all, to live simply if just for a weekend. We'd love to do it at the start of every lent and maybe advent too. It was a fabulous way to share with our friends.

Birthday Presents

We had our youngest daughters sixth birthday party on Saturday. Now that she is finally interested in reading she insisted that I point to each word as I read her invitation. I can't skip words anymore!
So when I read the part, "Please don't buy me a present but you might like to make me one, like some nice biccies or a picture," she said, "No, Mummy. I like presents from the shop."
We compromised with "home made/kid made presents welcome."

She did get some little tea cup biscuits and some drawings, and a tiny God's eye made with cotton and toothpicks, which was lovely. She also got a doll and laugh's when you press it's tummy, a beading kit and a "make a stain glass window" kit. She thinks it's all great, except that we haven't been able to make the stain glass window since it needs to be baked, and I am not turning the oven on when it's 39 C.

I made her a little doll. I also gave her three beeswax candles and a little packet of decorating wax, which she loved using, and a tiny tree puzzle.

Lent's started already?

Lent has started and I feel totally unprepared. I payed no attention to the signposts the church gives, Meatfare Sunday, the time to give up meat, Sunday of the prodigal son, always told as lent approaches.

I haven't been shopping for a while, so I've run out and got a chicken one night, and cocktail frankfurts the next. Frankfurts of all things! I don't think I've ever bought those little red-skinned-filled-with-who-knows-what hot dogs in my whole life, and now I buy them at the start of lent, when I'm wanting to give up meat.

The kids loved them. They set the table with candles and wine glasses and flowers and matching plates. Then I served them up baked potato, corn and mini bread rolls with mini hot dogs. They thought it was great. I did mean to ask the kids what they wanted to do for lent. I got as far as, "well kids, tonight is the first night of lent," and then who knows what happened. Hopefully soon we'll have our little list of customised spiritual disciplines for each child up on the fridge.

We have been reading evening prayers together. It's something I would like to continue each night of lent. Last night all the kids hopped into bed together and by the pale purple light of an electric candle left over from carols by candlelight, I read the prayers. "Yay! These prayers." said my middle one. The kids joined in where ever they could. I was quite surprised at how much they knew.

There's a fascinating article on wikipedia about fasting. It lists the goal of fasting for different Christian denominations, and in my experience seems to be correct. The little summary about fasting in the Orthodox church reminds me of what is most important to remember during fasting;

The idea is not to suffer, but to use the experience to come closer to God, to realize one's excesses, and to engage in almsgiving. Fasting without increased prayer and almsgiving (donating to a lo Tcal charity, or directly to the poor, depending on circumstances) is considered useless or even spiritually harmful by many Orthodox Christians.

as does this from Saint John "the golden mouthed" Chrysostom

Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works.
If you see a poor man, take pity on him.
If you see a friend being honoured, do not envy him.
Do not let only your mouth fast, but also the eye and the ear and the feet and the hands and all the members of our bodies.
Let the hands fast, by being free of avarice.
Let the feet fast, by ceasing to run after sin.
Let the eyes fast, by disciplining them not to glare at that which is sinful.
Let the ear fast, by not listening to evil talk and gossip.
Let the mouth fast from foul words and unjust criticism.
For what good is it if we abstain from birds and fishes, but bite and devour our brothers?
May He who came to the world to save sinners strengthen us to complete the fast with
humility, have mercy on us and save us.

and this, paraphrased for me, from the story of the prodigal or wayward son.

But while she was still a long way off, her father in heaven saw her and felt compassion and ran and embraced and kissed her.

The God candle

I chatted with some mums, sans kids, in a noisy Greek restaurant surrounded by 40 bikers who included our husbands. We made a little holy huddle, shouting to be heard about our desire for our kids to live as Christians, dedicated to Christ.

My middle child is very good at making connections between her prayers and God's actions. She remembers what she has asked God for, and tells me when she sees God answer. She has a little round carpet that she calls her prayer mat. She will take it off to a quiet corner and decorate the space with icons, candles, tinsel, a gold goblet, stones and anything that helps her tell a bible story. She has a prayer journal that she places there too.

She has moments where she cannot believe that God loves her because she feels so bad. She knows she does not do the good things she wants to do. She has moments when she is overwhelmed at how sinful the world is, and moments when she is filled with complete joy at the wonderful way God has made things. It is very easy to know your child is developing a relationship with God when they come out with things like this. It's a little harder when they show no interest in prayer, or church, or at 5 or 7 0r 13 just say, "God is dead."

One thing we all did in situations like these, was never give up. We continued to say bedtime prayers with our non participating children, or said grace, or continued to take them to church.

Sometimes we have crazy ideas, like a Saturday night family worship night where the family sits around and sings songs and reads the bible and has little talks about God. I say crazy because despite all those American books that recommend the idea, every person I've met who has suggested it to their partner has not been greeted with enthusiasm. Possibly because it is so contrived. (Feel free to comment if you have found a way to make it work for you. Everyone is open to ideas that work. )

What has worked for us, is little everyday rituals that slip into family life. My all time favourite easy-to-start-with God ritual is what we call, "The God candle." We found a little triangular plate that we sit a big fat candle on. It sits on the dinner table and each night at dinner we light the God candle to remind us that God is always with us, and that He is the light, who chases away the fear we have in the darkness. We have a candle snuffer, and whoever snuffs out the candle says a short prayer.

At night time when the kids are scared of the dark, we pray, we sing, "Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal , Have mercy on us," we ask God to lock up the scary things and send them away ande I leave the God candle flickering away on a cleared, high shelf.