Bits of Easter going and coming

So a few weeks ago, the family went to an easter egg hunt. It was a nice day on the whole, and the hunt was located in an expansive yard to the side of some acquaintances from church. The host and hostess fenced in large squares of grass, and placed multicolored eggs throughout. Kara and L. went to join the other little girls, bucket in hand. Caleb and I moseyed over to the babies square. I set Caleb down right beside a big orange egg, and adjusted his hat. Beautiful area, really. Standing, I looked up at the surrounding green hills. The lawn was long and flat, curing up toward the base of the nearest hill and falling away into a steep brook. I looked up at the clear sky, thinking about the dark clouds and the tornado that had screamed through this very landscape only a few days before. Caleb had discovered the egg. He lifted and turned it, trying to nibble on first its narrow and then its fat ends. "Is that egg tasty?" I asked him, crouching. He put it down in frustration, and glanced around. A purple egg was just a few feet away. He was on the move. Ah, another Dad. I stood. We talked about work. He told me all about working 150 feet up on cable towers and we talked about a group of American Indians that builds all the skyscrapers in New York. Caleb was munching. "Is that grass tasty?" I said, indulgent. He ignored me, hands lifted as if to say "there's so much to munch here, who can choose?" The Dad and I kept talking, this time about the tornado. It was on everyone's mind. No, he didn't know anyone who had been hurt. Caleb leaned out to grab a yellow egg, and then sat back hard against my foot. He studied it, looking for any strategic weakness. A few clouds had drifted above us. The Dad and I were making a joke about heights. His baby girl was losing patience from her shoulder perch. I looked down. Caleb had given up on the yellow egg. Instead a little bit of green grass went in and out as he sucked, uncaring, and pulled at the lawn. "Let me get that for you," I said, "It's a little disgusting." I grabbed the bit of grass and pulled, and out came an ENTIRE DANDELION!! He'd been sucking on the whole thing, from yellow flower to green stem.

L. and I sat down with our rector today, and we are joining an Episcopal church in Nashville. Many, I’m sure, believe we've lost our minds--or worse--but I couldn’t be happier about it. If the news media are to be believed, the Episcopal Church in the United States is as corrupted and lost as they come, and, frankly, that is probably true. Nevertheless, our new home confesses Christ as Lord and displays a fidelity to Scripture and a love for neighbor that is unmistakably orthodox. The preaching is straight from the text, its service is evident and the liturgy stays true to Cranmer’s prayer book without innovation. it is also aligned openly with the Anglican Communion Network, a reform movement within the Anglican communion.

Still, explaining this seemingly-from-nowhere change is difficult. I wish I had the thinking done on the matter; I'm wrestling with the draft of a personal statement to explain it as much to myself as to others. In the meantime, here's a story:

Palm Sunday. We faithful file out of our chairs and line up in the sunny open air, where we are given real palm fronds (not sheets of construction paper cut into leaves). Then, the rector and the other leaders file everyone in, all of us singing a hymn together. As we go, Kara looks up at L. and I and asks, "What's going on?" and I smiled an inner, ecstatic, wickedly wonderful smile. And, as I reminded her about Jesus' triumphal entry, I thought to myself: "What's going on? Why, catechesis, my dear, catechesis."