Hail thee, festival day

Easter Day, 12th April 2009

The Lord is risen! Yay Jesus!

After a what has seemed like a pretty long fast (46 days) we all woke up this morning cheerful and making silly (but also sincere) comments like 'Jesus lives!' and so on. Daddy raved on about the end of the fast, striding round the house announcing, 'And we can have pepperoni! And steak! And hamburgers! And sausage! And cheese steaks! And hot dogs! And ground-beef casserole! And pork chops! And ham! And gravy! And chicken ala king! And creamed chipped beef on toast! And veal parmigiana! And steak!' --whilst we all giggled hysterically, even Mother and especially JJ.

'You said "steak" again, Daddy!' little Lisa laughed.

'Well we can have it again!'

This is how he is, you know.

We had not got cards for Daddy and Mother and so whilst Lisa and JJ were devouring about half their candy (not really) we coloured cards with crayons on folded paper, making cute childish pictures, you know. Jessy made one for Daddy that showed a cross fallen over and an emaciated-looking Jesus with his unkempt beard waving both arms in the air and cheering like a football fan. All round it she wrote 'Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!' like a wild chant. At this we laughed till had tears in our eyes. That's not such an inappropriate response on this day.

Daddy loved that card and said he would frame it.

I wore a new dress with three-quarter sleeves and an almost-closed neck-- it's a floral pattern of white on a deep shade of peach-pink. It's not quite a Barbie pink- it's a little warmer. Nevertheless little Lisa insisted it was a Barbie colour--

Lisa: 'That looks like Barbie pink.'
Me: 'It's not. Not exactly.'

Five minutes later, while I am still getting dressed--
Lisa: 'Isn't that the Barbie pink?'
Me: 'No, not quite the same pink.'

A few minutes later, while I was putting on makeup--
Lisa: 'That looks like a Barbie dress!'
Me: 'It's not the same pink!
Lisa: (giggles)

In the car on the way to church--
Lisa: 'Janine looks like Barbie!'
Me: 'It's NOT the same pink!'

It really isn't.

Church filled up but we got a whole pew (we need it) and I was on the end with Lisa. Fully half the people in church were not regulars. I don't know if it's too judgemental to say, but I do notice that kind of thing. You can tell the E & C (Easter & Christmas) people because they're more concerned with what they're all wearing and whom they're sitting with than what the liturgy is doing. They miss cues, rarely remember to bow or cross themselves, and sit when we're supposed to kneel-- they're always eager to sit. This is awkward when they're in front of you and you have to kneel against the back of their seat, you know. I whispered something to Jessy once and she leaned over and said, 'At least they're here now.' I suppose she is right. Forgive me, E & C people. I'll see you for Christmas.

Needless to say, someone had to go to the potty before Communion. Fortunately we still had the Prayers of the People to go and I saw my chance. 'Come on,' I whispered to her, and grabbed her hand. Lisa nodded and hurried a little head, nearly dragging me forward in the aisle and over towards the back gallery. I tugged her back to genuflect as we turned at the crossing. The E & C people would need the example, you know. Coming back there were two boys about my age a few pews ahead of us. Both of them stared at me. I met their eyes once and sort of blushed. 'She is not!' one of them whispered, obviously. I didn't know what that meant, but that's what they said about me.

We have a routine for stepping out the pew for Communion. Jessy and I step out first, back up and wait for Daddy, then Daddy steps out, usually with JJ's hand, and Mother steps out with Lisa and they go ahead first. Then Daddy used to want us to go ahead of him, but Jessy and I began sort of insisting that he stay with Mother and we go after them. It's tradition-- the mother always goes first and the parents always stay together. Then, following etiquette, I should follow and then Jessy and the littler ones, though JJ usually needs guidance to go anywhere and Lisa holds hands with either Jessy or me anyway. It can become a mess if the usher has let too many people out into the aisle at once, but they all know us by now and expect it.

Coming back the two E & C boys had returned to their pew first and were looking at me again. Really I think they were just surprised to see girls at church-- so many guys our age are surprised that girls actually attend regularly. They seem to assume that because they don't, the girls who might interest them don't either. (It's another case of perception vs reality.) The truth is that we have always gone regularly-- okay, we miss a few weeks a year. That's a lot different from coming only a few weeks a year. Maybe that's judgemental. But I believe faith is the single most important thing to have in common with someone-- what you believe, how you feel about it, how you apply it your life, including how often you go to church and why you do, and so on. It's the first thing I care about when I meet someone I might possibly date seriously. Anything else is doomed to stay casual, you know.

After the service there was the long reception line saying hello to our rector and his wife, and people were given flowers and greeting cards and there were all sorts of delays. Naturally Daddy had more than a few words with our rector. Jessy and I stepped outside, with Lisa in tow, all of us closing our nice white cotton sweaters against the crisp cool air and the bracing breeze. The two E & C boys, with no sport coats and their ties fluttering, lingered nearby, urgently whispering to each other about, I think, Sarah and her sister ahead of us. They're cuter than we are and a little younger. The two boys were probably better ages for them. I don't think they were more than about 16 and 15 and already they assumed themselves to be the most desirable male creatures in sight.

We said hello to Sarah, and her sister, and stepped aside to allow other people out of the building. A little boy, looking cute in his blue suit and red tie, came up to us and said politely, 'You girls are so pretty.'

I smiled and bent down a little to him. 'That is such a sweet thing to say!' I said. He blushed a little. I put out my hand and we shook and said 'Happy Easter' to each other. Then he went off, blushing.

The two E & C boys watched the whole thing. Jessy leaned in and said to me, 'I think you've gained another admirer.'

I made a wry face. 'I think you've gained two,' I teased, indicating the two guys by pressing on her side with my finger. Jessy squirmed, inadvertently. The two boys soaked that up like syrup. Jessy blushed.

Sarah suggested we all ride down to Lynnhaven later in the week and see the Hannah Montana movie. I did not demur and in fact we all stood and discussed the previews and reported plot of the store, speaking of Miley Cyrus as though we knew her personally and not caring what the two teenaged boys would have thought of us for discussing a movie aimed at 11-year-olds. Still they stood over there gazing at us. But they never did make any motion to say hullo or even to greet us as Christians should with 'The Lord is risen' or anything similar. Soon they went off-- with their mother, it looked like.

When we got back to the house I got out of the good dress, saving it for later when Gran got here. Gran must have left straight after church with our uncle in southern New Jersey because it was 2.00 when we got a shaky phone call from her. Going past the 175 intersection for Chincoteague-- like 15 miles from our house-- someone made an illegal left onto 13 and pulled out in front of her, scraping up the side of her car that the front left wing panel was in on the tyre. Daddy calmed her down on the phone and went straight out in his car to go get her. The police had a lift truck there but he made sure to ring his car-restoring partner in Delaware and insisted he would pay only for a short move off the highway. This is how he is. He and Gran, with Gran's luggage (and the pie she made for us), arrived at just before 4.00. And all will be well. Jessy and I are scheduled to see a show in Philadelphia this week and Gran was only going to drive up on our about the same day anyway. So Roger will drive all of us home. And Daddy's friend will repair Gran's car and Daddy can drive it up to her by week's end.

So there is an easy solution, and none of this upset our lovely Easter dinner at Terncote. I helped Mother with the ham and mashed the potatoes and tossed the salad, and she and I took off our aprons and seated ourselves and Daddy said Grace. 'The Lord is good,' he said. Over dinner he told us of hearing from an old high-school friend who is pastor of a Protestant church up in New Jersey whose email made the point that we have the ONLY world religion that is represented to God's people by God Himself-- in the person of Jesus Christ. All others have only prophets, for for US God came down to the world, lived and suffered and died as a man, and saved us as only God Himself can do.

How often we hear that expression, 'Jesus died for the sins of the whole world.' But what that means is that He took upon us the penalty for our own sins. What he endured, suffering in agony on the cross, was what WE deserved. WE deserved to be hung there and bled or suffocated to death, not Him. WE are the ones with all the sins we should be punished and condemned for. And that's a hard thing for most people to accept. But as my lovely stepmother once explained to me, we always have at least one or two things to confess that we're not happy admitting. She says that when you confess your sins, even in secret to only God, you should confess till it hurts. 'If you're not weeping, you haven't confessed enough,' she says. I never have any trouble weeping. I am proud, arrogant, conceited, judgemental, selfish, thoughtless, rude, and stingy. And so when I go to the Altar I always remember what my stepmother taught me, what her mother taught her, and I recite to myself, 'Lord, regard not my sins, nor my good deeds, for by neither am I to be counted worthy.' I am not worthy-- I deserve none of this-- I deserve to be crucified. And so in all my confessing I am grateful to God who accepts me in my sin and forgives me, because He does for me what I do not deserve. Without Him I am nothing.

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