Searching for Easter

When I was young my parents would send us on a Bible verse scavenger hunt on Easter. We’ve continued this tradition with our kids. Each egg holds a verse which leads them to the next. (a verse about the tree of life for example makes the kids think to look at their favorite tree climbing spot) At the end of the hunt there is a basket with something for their spiritual growth and a chocolate bunny of course. This year they got their very own big boy Bibles. I remember the magic of those hunts and am thankful that they enjoy them as much as I did. Sometime during the day we always read some favorite picturebooks relating the resurrection story. The part of our Easter celebration not pictured here is sunrise service and breakfast on the beach, and then a fresh fish and veggie dinner in the evening. Even though I try not to make this day about candy, we felt compelled to scatter a few eggs filled with jelly beans for the baby so we could watch him freak out over them.

Easter seems to come at the end of a long season of holidays and birthdays for us and more than any other traditional celebration I don’t want it to be about material possessions and consumption. I love the idea of a scavenger hunt because without preaching at the kids, I think it suggests to them the idea of searching, hunting for the prize of knowing God. Looking for gifts freely given – freely given but nonetheless revealed only in the searching. When my husband and I were young our parents didn’t have a lot of money so we remember our moms being creative and crafting many special gifts and moments by hand. I think I went through a period of reacting against that as I grew up. I wanted to be the same as other people, to feel like a success, to stop searching and making and scraping things together. I looked for control and satisfaction in stores. I wanted the easy solution, a purchase. The more I bought what the world told me to, the more I was actually losing control and the more I lost touch with the gifts that only He can give and that can never be purchased by our human systems. I’m thankful we didn’t fall too far into this trap. As a parent it gets exhausting to try and keep up with each day on which is deemed that we should buy something to provide the correct childhood experience for our little loved ones. Each festive season recently we have edited back and think we have found a place of focusing on what is truly important. The next season we find there is even more editing to be done. Not in the getting rid of everything and living in a van way (although that has been discussed), but in learning to buy things that are real, and accepting and treasuring the free gifts given in blooming flowers, tree branches spreading, a sunset’s brilliance or our joy together. We are under no delusion that we know enough to perfectly consume with zero harm to others or that all of our energy can be focused on this. However we are waking up to the fact that what we do with our dollars today shapes the future our children will live in. Every penny spent on fairly produced goods and real and healthful food is a silent but powerful vote.

My husband was trying to explain to my son why rare stones and metal sell for so much money. “People really enjoy owning what other people can’t have”

I know our hearts are far from free consumerism and materialism, but we are trying to learn how to help our children value the free gift given that all can enjoy – in nature, in eachother’s love, in His grace.

3-31-13 . 35mm . VSCO1 Fuji160C+ . pictures of me taken by Jesse