I'm sorry this is so long.
And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt:
Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: "God, I thank you that I am not like other men -- robers, evildoers, adulterers -- or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get."
But the tax collect stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner."
I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. -- Luke 18:9-14
I keep thinking I should write something about my weekend. It's one of the more important weekends of the year for me. I mean, it's a big deal with all our family getting together and everything -- and not just my relatives and blood family, but the whole communal family of our church.
A lot of it feels too personal, though, especially right now. I upset people before when they thought I was telling them how or what to write in their journals, but the truth is that there are just some things I don't write, and that's how they stay.
But the other stuff, I can talk about.
Like, how Les is afraid of grass stains (who'd have thought) and she sleeps in late on Easter morning because she's up all night at the Vigil. (I guess that's just a Catholic sleep schedule.)
This morning I woke up real early, got dressed, and headed over to church with mom, and Kara, too. (I thought at first that she was going to regret it. We were just decorating some of the class rooms at first, but then we went out to the back to hide eggs and she really seemed to start having fun.)
Yeah, so we do an egg hunt for the kids during the service, and this year I was helping mom with that. (I've done it with her the past few many years.) And afterward there's some candy, too, but not much because we can't be sure how much parents want their kid to eat. Mostly it's just a few Hershey kisses and then we split the kids up into groups and we sit outside and talk about our faith.
I talked to them a bit about how the egg hunt is symbolic of what happens every Easter, how Christians all over the world have to go looking for their faith again. Sometimes it's tricky (I'm getting pretty good at hiding, okay) and sometimes it's real easy, because maybe the egg's especially bright and it sticks out in the grass or against the brick wall. And then there are people who don't bother looking, and then after a little time, you start to notice the smell that comes with faith left to go rotten.
The kids think that part's funny.
Then everybody trades off eggs with each other until they're all happy and we go inside to eat them with some juice, and then mom talks to them about how faith is like an egg because you've got to crack it. She talks about baby chicks busting out of the shell, and she actually brought this cute little stuffed one that one little boy almost ripped the head off of, he was so excited.
It's funny, I guess, because when I was about ten or eleven I didn't want to do the egg hunt anymore. That was back when I was still looking for them, and I started thinking I was just too big, you know? So I'd stay inside and listen to the grown up service, because it made me feel so smart and special. Like maybe I thought the adults got to hear a super secret lesson about God that would make me so much smarter and more spiritual than all my friends, you know, and it would be like my soul had aged five years in one day.
But mostly, I got bored. (Yeah, at eleven, even I got bored in church sometimes.) For the next few years I tried it, just still staying when the kids left to go playing their little kid games, but I didn't like Easter as much as I used to, and I knew I didn't like it as much as I was supposed to. So then, when I was about fourteen, my mom asks me to hide the eggs with her, and...
You know, people are right about how those kids running around on Easter morning don't really get what they're celebrating yet. They don't understand how important the day is and how much Jesus suffered for them, but today I was helping around this little boy who'd only just learned to walk about a month ago, and you should've seen the look on his face when he found an egg all by himself. (It was yellow and sparkly and stuck on a wooden step, but it was still impressive detecting, I think.)
So I understand how this whole weekend's about Jesus and His sacrifice, but it's just as much about what He was sacrificing for, and just trust me, I saw that in that kid's smile today. He had dimples.
And I swear, this isn't me passing judgment on anyone, so don't anyone get offended.
Also, the marshmallow jelly beans are definitely better than the cherry.
Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: "God, I thank you that I am not like other men -- robers, evildoers, adulterers -- or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get."
But the tax collect stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner."
I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. -- Luke 18:9-14
I keep thinking I should write something about my weekend. It's one of the more important weekends of the year for me. I mean, it's a big deal with all our family getting together and everything -- and not just my relatives and blood family, but the whole communal family of our church.
A lot of it feels too personal, though, especially right now. I upset people before when they thought I was telling them how or what to write in their journals, but the truth is that there are just some things I don't write, and that's how they stay.
But the other stuff, I can talk about.
Like, how Les is afraid of grass stains (who'd have thought) and she sleeps in late on Easter morning because she's up all night at the Vigil. (I guess that's just a Catholic sleep schedule.)
This morning I woke up real early, got dressed, and headed over to church with mom, and Kara, too. (I thought at first that she was going to regret it. We were just decorating some of the class rooms at first, but then we went out to the back to hide eggs and she really seemed to start having fun.)
Yeah, so we do an egg hunt for the kids during the service, and this year I was helping mom with that. (I've done it with her the past few many years.) And afterward there's some candy, too, but not much because we can't be sure how much parents want their kid to eat. Mostly it's just a few Hershey kisses and then we split the kids up into groups and we sit outside and talk about our faith.
I talked to them a bit about how the egg hunt is symbolic of what happens every Easter, how Christians all over the world have to go looking for their faith again. Sometimes it's tricky (I'm getting pretty good at hiding, okay) and sometimes it's real easy, because maybe the egg's especially bright and it sticks out in the grass or against the brick wall. And then there are people who don't bother looking, and then after a little time, you start to notice the smell that comes with faith left to go rotten.
The kids think that part's funny.
Then everybody trades off eggs with each other until they're all happy and we go inside to eat them with some juice, and then mom talks to them about how faith is like an egg because you've got to crack it. She talks about baby chicks busting out of the shell, and she actually brought this cute little stuffed one that one little boy almost ripped the head off of, he was so excited.
It's funny, I guess, because when I was about ten or eleven I didn't want to do the egg hunt anymore. That was back when I was still looking for them, and I started thinking I was just too big, you know? So I'd stay inside and listen to the grown up service, because it made me feel so smart and special. Like maybe I thought the adults got to hear a super secret lesson about God that would make me so much smarter and more spiritual than all my friends, you know, and it would be like my soul had aged five years in one day.
But mostly, I got bored. (Yeah, at eleven, even I got bored in church sometimes.) For the next few years I tried it, just still staying when the kids left to go playing their little kid games, but I didn't like Easter as much as I used to, and I knew I didn't like it as much as I was supposed to. So then, when I was about fourteen, my mom asks me to hide the eggs with her, and...
You know, people are right about how those kids running around on Easter morning don't really get what they're celebrating yet. They don't understand how important the day is and how much Jesus suffered for them, but today I was helping around this little boy who'd only just learned to walk about a month ago, and you should've seen the look on his face when he found an egg all by himself. (It was yellow and sparkly and stuck on a wooden step, but it was still impressive detecting, I think.)
So I understand how this whole weekend's about Jesus and His sacrifice, but it's just as much about what He was sacrificing for, and just trust me, I saw that in that kid's smile today. He had dimples.
And I swear, this isn't me passing judgment on anyone, so don't anyone get offended.
Also, the marshmallow jelly beans are definitely better than the cherry.