Make-Up Monday

Yeah, we've all heard about Throw Back Thursdays. Well, I decided I'd have a couple of "make-up Mondays" to share pictures I took without ever writing the blog post.
Today's Make-Up Monday reports on Easter weekend, April 18-20.
Good Friday began with visits from workmen. One was repairing the hallway and ceiling damaged by

the ice dam in February. Another was here to deal with the big, black ants we'd been finding on the dining room window sill every day for a week or two. The hallway workman didn't get the job finished yet. The exterminator spread lethal chemicals inside and outside all around the house, handed us a bill (a fairly big bill) and left offering us long-term protection for $100 per quarter if we were interested. I don't think we are.
That evening we ate dinner at Raja India with our new neighbors John and Nina Creech, a delightful couple. When we took a coffee cake down to welcome them to the neighborhood, we discovered they had lived in Clifton and they love Indian. So we suggested we enjoy it together. I hope we get to spend time with them again.
Saturday was typically full of errands and grocery shopping. That evening we watched a video from Redbox, Philomena, and we were really glad we did. A gripping story, great acting, lots to talk about.

 Sunday, Easter Sunday, we went to the 12:00 service. It was the fourth service of the morning, and the church asked regulars to attend late to make room for the crowds at the earlier services. We met Terry and Shirley and Brandon Wuske there, and they came to our place for Easter dinner afterwards.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, and we took a walk to the park after dinner before dessert, and then ate our Easter angel food cake on the deck. Shirley brought the dessert, specially decorated for the day! 

The Day Before Easter Is a Good Day for a Funeral

The flower beds around our church building
are filled with tulips and phlox in full bloom.

If one must go to a funeral, let it be the funeral of a fellow-Christian on the day before Easter.
That was my thought this afternoon after we went to say, "We're so sorry" to Bethany Bellamy at the visitation for her husband, Tim, who died in his sleep one week ago. Tim and Bethany are young (at least a lot younger than Evelyn and me!). He's usually on the platform playing keyboards for one or more of our worship services, and we had worked with Bethany in more than one Christmas pageant in the past. They attended a short-term small group I led this fall, and all of us were shocked at Tim's sudden, unexpected death.
But we Christians say Christ's resurrection gives us hope in the face of death. We believe Christ's resurrection gives the promise that all of us will live again. And tomorrow we will celebrate the life we find only in him while we remember that this life is not the end and this world is not our home.
It was a beautiful day today, above 70 degrees, bright sunshine, brilliant blue sky. After the winter comes the spring. After death comes life as surprisingly beautiful as the green lawns and multicolored tulips and blindingly white pear trees in full bloom everywhere this weekend.
As wonderful as spring's new life is to see and smell, it happens in a world where Satan still brings disappointment and dysfunction and disease and death. We can only imagine how wonderful the next life will be without any of the devil's influence and in the eternal presence of the Author of Life.

On the Evening after Easter

After our company left yesterday, we looked around the kitchen and said, "We have a lot of food left

These tulips, growing in a pot
from Kroger's, brightened our
Easter weekend and look like
they'll stay with us for several
more days.

over!" So we invited Cindi and Dan Cooper to come over and help us eat it. They arrived tonight a little after six, and we had a nice time finishing off most of the ham, asparagus, Yummy Potatoes, applesauce Jello, pickled eggs, and rolls. The coup de grace, of course, was homemade strawberry pie (and there's still a little of that left over for one more treat!).
I felt as though today was productive at work--putting finishing touches on the May issue, reading the Mother's Day issue proof for The Lookout, approving the cover for the June issue, and starting the June editing. In between was correspondence related to NACC Networking Breakfasts, an NACC video project that may or may not happen, and a couple of other unrelated matters.
The day was sunny, but chilly, and by nighttime when I was taking out the trash (two cans full of rose bush branches!), I was shivering as I scurried up and down the driveway.

A Fine Easter

We had a nice Easter dinner at about 5:00 with Bill and Verna, Donovan, Jocelyn, and Ruby and Nora Weber. They came about 3:30 and left around 7:00, and we had a fine time together. Evelyn had prepared way more food than we ate, so we called Dan and Cindi Cooper and invited them to come for supper tomorrow night to help us eat leftovers!

Evelyn and I went to church at 9:00 this morning--a packed house for one of six services at CCM. It was an excellently produced, very moving service with compelling use of video and a great sermon. 

We ate brunch at Panera's after that and then spent the rest of the afternoon finishing up preparations for company.

We were able to talk with Jennifer awhile after our company had left and all the dishes were done. Its been a good day.

 Evelyn saw the above idea on Shannon Penrod's Pinterest page:  Robin's egg "nests" made of Chinese noodles coated with melted butterscotch bits. We decorated the table with them; each person got one beside his dinner plate. Ruby and Nora opened Easter baskets from Grandma and Papa. Nora demonstrated her ability to make herself comfortable in a variety of positions on just about any piece of furniture. :-)

Keester's Coming!

On this day before Easter, I should write something inspirational in keeping with so many posts sprinkled across Facebook today.
Actually, it HAS been inspirational to see the Scripture quotes, graphic designs of Easter messages, and invitations to Easter services tomorrow across the land. It's a warm thought to realize so many of my Facebook friends are working to glorify the risen Christ tomorrow. And several started with Easter services this afternoon. "He is risen" will be repeated a million times tomorrow--it's wonderful!
But so is this picture, don't you agree? Laughter is good, and this one made me laugh out loud when I found it posted on a friend's Facebook page this evening.
Today has been one of those rare and delightful days when I haven't left the house (except to go out in the yard), didn't even start the car--a day all day at home.
Evelyn and I read the paper and ate breakfast this morning. I paid bills, wrote checks for all our monthly donations, and we Skyped with Wendy for about an hour. (They'll be saying "He is risen" in Tanzania tomorrow, too, but Wendy is a bit homesick for all the trappings of our American holiday.)
Evelyn and I worked in the yard this afternoon. She cut the grass. (Here we go: grass cutting number 1 for this season.) And I dug up three rose bushes that need to go and chopped around on three more. I filled both garbage cans with the thorn-laden branches and left one of the dug-up bushes by the side of the house to put out for the garbage Monday night. (I hope those guys wear gloves.)
We were both tired after our first real Saturday yard-work workout. I took a shower and thought about taking a rest, but instead I wrote a draft of the editorial for the issue we send to the printer Wednesday. Susan Aulen called, and we both got to talk with her. And then we ate wonderful leftovers from last night's dinner for dinner tonight.
I think we'll watch a movie on Netflix via our Roku box to relax before bedtime.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Easter

Once in awhile I go with a friend to the Honeybaked Ham store for lunch. They have great sandwiches and soup, and they're just five minutes from the office. But once or twice a year I go there to get a ham for a company dinner, and those two occasions are usually Christmas and Easter.
This year's no different. I stopped by on my way home from work today to get the meat for our Easter dinner. We're hosting Bill and Verna and Donovan and Jocelyn and Ruby and Nora Weber Sunday afternoon, and we're looking forward to the get-together.
I'm looking forward to a three-day weekend. I had a coupon for two free muffins from Mimi's, and I stopped there too, to snag a treat for our breakfast.
Today was a typical day-before-vacation day: a long list of tasks to accomplish. I achieved the most significant of them: read the proof for the May issue of Christian Standard, including checking a bunch of names among the 344 churches listed in that issue--it's our annual statistics issue. I had to write some late copy and change some copy for it as a part of the process. Also had an art-selection meeting with Scott Ryan and handled correspondence about Christian Standard-related activities at this summer's NACC.
I got there about 7:30 this morning and didn't leave till 5:30, and I was READY to depart by then!

Easter Bunnies and Eternity

I was standing in the produce aisle at Kroger's today, and a woman wearing bunny ears and with whiskers painted on her face hurried by and said to me, "Do you know anything about asparagus?"
I saw she was wearing a Kroger's nametag and figured out later (when she checked out my groceries!) she was a customer service clerk.
"Uh, I always try to buy the thin stems," I said. (A rule of life: If someone asks you a question, your great tendency is to assume you know the answer. This tendency should often be resisted.)
"That sounds good," she said and grabbed a bunch before hopping, I mean hurrying, away.
The store was crowded today. Lots of pre-Easter shopping going on. A woman in the candy aisle was on her cell phone asking someone (her daughter? her neighbor?) what kind of sweets to buy for the Easter baskets. I came upon this display and couldn't resist snapping it.
As I navigated my cart through the crowded aisles, I thought about the PBS special we had recorded and got around to watching this week. Part of the American Experience series, it was a two-hour documentary on the Amish. Part of their rationale for staying separate from the "Gentiles" is their effort to focus on God and not get too attached to this world. Their goal is to escape American consumerism, a thought that too seldom occurs to too few of us--me included.
One young Amish father said he asked a group of tourists (millions visit Amish sites every year), "How many of you have a television in your house?" Every hand went up. "How many of you worry that the television isn't good for you family?" Slowly, a majority answered this one yes too. "How many of you will get rid of your television to protect your family?" Not one hand went up.
"But we would do anything to protect our families," he said. "We would remove anything that threatened our family."
Another Amish man was pondering life and death and life's difficulties. "Our lives are just a speck of sand in the vast expanse of eternity," he said.
"Most of us don't think that way," my friend Bill Weber said when we visited yesterday.
"Most Americans certainly don't," I agreed. "Including many American Christians." Including, too often, me.
Hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to grasp the wonder of the fact that the God of eternity and the Creator of the universe was willing to inhabit one of those specks of sand, just so the rest of us could know him.
Ah, tomorrow we'll enjoy some Easter ham and Easter candy and, who knows, maybe even some asparagus. But hopefully we'll also glimpse at least a glimmer of eternity. That promise is the reason we celebrate.