street art on near on my walk home from the school in Copenhagen

Are you going the way of the hawk or the dove? Give it some thought over at my regular Sunday column for BlogHer:

Your Kindergartener Didn’t Kill Jesus, and Neither Did You.

Thanks for being here!

Sorry, I’m having technical difficulties cross-posting this to Magpie Girl. But you can read it at my regular Sunday column over at BlogHer or listen to it as a fast and dirty podcast below. See you over there!

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Cross-posted at BlogHer.com.

Easter is coming! Have you been meaning to do something, well, meaningful with your children, but haven’t quite got around to it? There’s still time to do a creative project, and you can probably do it with stuff you already have laying around.

A few years ago our soulcare community was searching for away to celebrate the season. Since we consisted of people of all (and no) faiths, we needed something flexible. What we came up with is the Easter Tree. It’s a chance to express gratitude for the Spring; remember the life and teachings of Jesus; and/or to make something pretty that shouts “Next year, Jerusalem!” Here’s how you can do it to:

Supplies
A large vase or bucket.
Several tree branches (if you pick something like a cherry branch, it might bloom!)
Scrap ribbon or yarn
magazines
origami, construction, wrapping paper, etc.
glue sticks
scissors
whatever crafty stuff you have lying about.

Put the branches in your vase or bucket. We’ve sometimes used a galvanized bucket with pebbles for ballast. Add water to encourage blossoming.

Spread out all the supplies on the table and invite people to make an ornament that commemorates whatever aspect of the season they wish to celebrate.

Decorate your tree!

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Because our tradition is primarily Christian, we like to set our tree up at the beginning of Lent. Then throughout the season we look at one ornament each night at dinner. If it represent some story about Jesus, we look it up and read it to the kids. On Good Friday I clear everything off the tree. But Easter morning all the ornaments are back again along with colorful ribbons. The girls have really come to look forward to our Easter Tree, and it’s a welcome family tradition.

When we celebrate with our interfaith community, a lot of the ornaments are expressions of thanksgiving for the Spring. In that case, we go around the dinner table and share what we are thankful for in the new season.

How will you celebrate the rich and vibrant season with your children?

1. make ornaments with the kids for our “Jesus Tree.”
2. listen to Eden play “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” on the piano at church.
3. visit the (former) Berlin Wall and stand in the hope that good things can happen.
4. find a patch of grass for some barefoot yoga to celebrate the Equinox.
5. invite some women over to make Dreamboards for the first full moon of Spring.
6. celebrate Passover with Joel and Robyn.
7. reconnect to my Irish roots by binge-listening to U2, making cornedbeef and cabbage for St. Pat’s day, and remembering my “Black Irish” Grandfather.
8. long for the Easter we danced under Stephen’s amazing sculpture and sang “Rollercoaster” and “Praise You” with Iz on Easter morning.

What *8 Things will you do in the next 40 days?

my faithful prayer beads from Church of the Apostles in Seattle, WA.

This morning we went to church. I know, I know. I never thought I’d be there again either. But there’s a nice International Church here where every week we get to sit in a historic sanctuary and take Communion in a circle while everyone prays the Lord’s Prayer in their mother tongue. (I want to say it in French, just to show off, but I resist and stick with the formal version I learned in catechism.)

I have a dear friend who’s a long term ex pat in Thailand and he says, “Look, if it hasn’t sunk in over the past 20 years of church, I doubt we’ll ever learn it. So at this point in our lives, I think we should just go to a church because we like the community.” I think maybe he’s right. So after the service we go eat cheese with caraway seeds in the kaffe hall, and have conversations with people from all over the world. Last week we met our first Danish acquaintance, Anne-Mette, who wrote down the address of a museum where we could see her grandmother’s doll houses. Today I had tea with Alex, from Armenia, whose uncle happens to live in Seattle. Alex plays the piano, and the organ. When I bemoaned the fact that our children are so much louder than Danish kids, he says, directly to Eden, “This is good, that you have passion! This will make you a marvelous musician when you master the piano.” That’s pretty good stuff, right, to have someone affirm your nine year old like that? I think this one might be worth it.

Still, today as I sat in front of the huge gold crucifix with its weighty, anguished Christ, I had second thoughts about bringing my children to this place. You see, I believe you have to use art to preach. I believe that for a post-modern generation image is often, maybe always, more powerful than words. And this art, this occupied cross, is screaming “YOU stuck me up here and I’m never EVER coming down.”

I don’t want to indoctrinate my children with that kind of passive aggressive Jesus. I don’t want them to bear the incessant guilt, to always see an image of pain crowning their holy space. I don’t think the good news of Christ is that we get to soak in scenes from a Mel Gibson movie for the rest of our lives. I’m pretty sure Jesus never said the good news was, “I’m going to die on the cross and you get to look at that for the rest of your lives.” I’m pretty sure what he said was, “Woo Hoo! The kingdom of God is at hand!”

Somehow we didn’t keep up with that reality. We got stuck in the pain, in the bleeding. Here, my children will never see the cross bare. They will never get a visual celebration of new life, of new chances–of resurrection. Not even for a season, not even for one Easter day. He’s always up there, suffering. And while the potato the children are growing in the pot on the church steps is a lovely illustration of emerging life, somehow it doesn’t have the same impact of a life-size statue ripped full of wounds and shining in the winter sunlight.

Can you combat this golden year-round image with a few well-timed words? Can you redirect your children’s malleable minds to the potato? Can you help them focus on the shared loaf; the ring of candles ignited from one common light; the cup that never runs out? Or will they primarily remember the bleeding cross and the man who will never climb down?

Oh how I wish this congregation of nations could gather in the chancel, not just to pass around bread and wine, but also to share the task of taking Christ down from the cross. If only our many hands could lower him with ropes and pulleys; carry his weight away from that place of torture. If only we could leave the beams bare, clean-scrubbed and oiled. If only it could shine there on Easter day, and empty, carry us into the forgiven reality of Eastertide.

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