Saturday, March 22, 2008

Happy Easter


Happy Easter. I always think of sunrises with Easter. For me there is always hope in a new day. The sarcastic part of me wants to say, "Yeh, well, you are slow in getting it aren't you?" The "good" part of me looks outside and sees the creation and feels like it is a gift each day, just being able to see it, smell it, touch it.

Fasting on day 6 from comparing myself with others - why wasn't I born financially comfortable in a family that loved education and each other and their children, why can't I run like the wind? In high school it was "Why do I have to be so tall and have curly hair?"

I'm a realist most of the time and know that people don't walk around without their own burdens that they live with everyday. Burdens we don't ask for. So mine are not so hard despite of how I "feel" sometimes. It is interesting as well that these daily reminders have made my mind alert enough to take control and stop the negative thoughts more quickly each time they come. Having spent more than a few years in the counseling field, I'm interested in watching this process proceed. I don't think negative thinking will just disappear, no......but rather that life will become easier to live free of fear and poisonous thought darts as this 40 day "fast" proceeds.

Tomorrow I'll probably take the boy to church, probably stop and make sure he gets a nice meal. I'm not cooking - daughter here will eat candy, and "H" will continue on with the sausages and I would eventually end up throwing it away and I can't stand waste. Then boy can do his backyard Easter Egg hunt. For him, competing with 100's of wildly excited children for eggs at a traditional hunt is not his thing. Today there is no ballgame - they are fun - but this will be a nice respite.

In relation to day 6 - I look back when the graduating grandson was a baby, "H" and I were both in school, and we were all poor together - both families - and we would go to Barnhills (ugh- but Barnhills is very affordable) for Easter buffet after we got out of church. I miss it. Things move on. Nothing stays much the same in life - our expectancies and what we really live with will change. I learn another thing to day - don't compare with the "good ol' days." Take the sweet thought of nostalgia as the gift it is, but don't compare. That is life. That is sunrise and sunset.

The uniqueness in this Christian holiday - is that the Christian God came as human as well as God, and then after death, rose from death showing that the followers of Christ will also have this eternal life. Take it as truth or myth - but what have we to lose? Again, the comparisons get us - we look at what other people who represent themselves as Christians do or have done, and let ourselves miss out because of them.

Well, if you celebrate Easter, I hope your celebrations are sweet as well as fun and you arrive at Monday rested in heart, spirit, and body.

I have dragged out my old bread making machine and also hope to fill the house with the smell of fresh baking bread tomorrow.

10 comments:

FOUR DINNERS said...

I got a choccie egg. I am happy. I love choccie eggs. Happy Easter babe x

Heidi Grether said...

I love how you are cronicaling the ThinkingFast. You do have a lot of arrows flying your way, don't you? Hard to fight the interior war when the exterior one never rests.

Because HE LIVES, we CAN face tomorrow!!

* (asterisk) said...

Hope you have a great Easter, G. Remember, though, chocolate is the dieter's nemesis!

Gardenia said...

I have made it through (so far - there are many candy leftovers) without raiding the boy's chocolate. I did eat a hefty square of Key Lime Pie......yoiks.

Milla said...

Oh the gods Gardenia, why can't all Christians be like you? You are a Christian with a capital C.

"That is life. That is sunrise and sunset.": beautifully put!

Gardenia said...

milla, I fall so short sometimes I could cry.

Candy Minx said...

Happy Easter Gardenia. It is a very special season all around the world, Ching Ming in China, Holi in India, Passover and Easter for Judeo-Christians...

Hope Monday is nice and restful and warm outside for you (It snowed here ha!)

Wandering Coyote said...

A sunrise would have been nice, here, but we had a dump of snow instead. Gr. Br.

I like this idea of negative thought fasting. It's great - and a great challenge, too.

**Ya Think** said...

That picture is knock dead gorgeous. I hope you had a good Easter. Mine was awesome. I spent it with Helen and had a gourmet dinner at her families.

Milla said...

"milla, I fall so short sometimes I could cry."

You see? You KNOW you fall short, and that is already a sign that you are a Christian with a capital C. Most of the christians I know, whatever the denomination, don't see themselves with such humble eyes, and that's why I can't stand them.