&: Happy Easter!

Happy Easter from Europe! If there's one holiday that Europeans know how to celebrate (other than Christmas, which is amazingly over the top here), it's Easter. Easter markets, special Easter breads and chocolates and confections, flowers and ribbons and decorations everywhere. I love it. And of course, I love all of the choral concerts that have been held at numerous churches over the past few weeks.

I'll admit that I once was rather cynical about Easter, in part because I abhor the commercialism that has come to accompany the holiday and as a child, I saw the Easter bunny as a glorified version of Santa Claus: "Why is the Easter Bunny bringing us chocolate versions of himself? And how does searching for plastic eggs have anything to do with Jesus?" Frankly, adults dressed as giant bunnies weirded me out. I should also note that when I was in third grade, the nuns at my Catholic elementary school thought it a good idea to show the movie Jesus of Nazareth, in which Jesus gets crucified rather graphically. I think I lost it and ran to the bathroom crying when the Roman centurions began pounding giant nails into Jesus' hands. That seriously scarred me.

But over time, I've come to re-appreciate the symbolism and the meaning of Easter. I missed Trinity and my choir friends today, but J and I had a lovely time celebrating Easter this morning at Faith Baptist Church with a dear friend whose husband is J's friend from his Iraq deployment and is currently deployed. The service was followed by a church dinner at which we ran into another of J's friends and coworkers who had just returned from his own deployment a few weeks prior, so it was a wonderful time of both celebration and catching up. Hope y'all are enjoying a lovely Easter--much love to everyone on this joyous day!