Easter Monday thoughts and More on Easter Eggs

Our friend and Easter lunch guest Marie said that I should title this blog "Night Thoughts," as I usually blog around midnight or later. This habit continues again today.

Today was actually a relaxing and enjoyable holiday. I intentionally pushed hard last Friday in order to not leave anything work related that would need to be done today, since lundi de Pâques (Easter Monday) is a work holiday in France.

Today was spent with the family. I was able to hold my older daughter in my lap while watching cartoons this morning without feeling that I needed to rush off to my computer. My wife made blueberry and chocolate muffins with our oldest two kids for breakfast. We had long afternoon naps. We then went to the Buttes-Chaumont park where the kids rode on swings and merry-go-rounds and fished for plastic balls. Afterwards we had our favorite family meal (Pizza Hut). Hopefully I'll have time to post some photos of this soon.

My wife often gets on me for not taking off the holidays. I tend toward workaholism, especially since I enjoy my work and am energized by it. So, even though I manage my own schedule, I'm not likely to underwork. But it's important to find a healthy balance, especially since I now have 3 young kids who need this modeled. I don't think that one needs to be a strict letter of the law person who doesn't do anything "work-related" on every holiday. It's important to "do good," whether this is on the Sabbath or not. Sometimes doing good doesn't come at convenient times in one's work week. However, it's not God's best when one feels driven to do ministry stuff all the time, especially when this comes out of a people pleasing mindset.

As I type, I'm listening to Delirious' song "Did You Feel the Oceans Tremble?" It was 10 years ago that I discovered Delirious while attending a conference of Anglican Renewal Ministries, then visiting Liverpool, York, Newcastle, Aberdeen, Glasglow, St. Andrews, Edinboro, and other places northern England and Scotland. Lot's happened in my life in 1996, including my meeting my wife on a church retreat at a Catholic convent on All Saints Day (November 1). But that's for another blog.

The Delirious song exhorts us to "prepare the way of the Risen Lord," an appropriate theme for Easter Monday. Also about "All the saints join in one song. All the streams flow into one river, washing away our brokenness." During the past 10 years, I've become more convinced about how the Church needs all the streams of the Church in order to be complete and heal Her brokenness. "A time of jubilee is coming when young and old return to Jesus." "Open up the doors and let the music play. Let the streets resound with singing. Songs that bring your hope and songs that bring your joy. Dancers who dance upon injustice." May the arts in and outside of the Church become increasingly prophetic and powerful.

Concerning Easter egg traditions, I got two e-mails today about brown and white eggs and what to do with them.

Beth, an Episcopalian pastor in Massachusetts, writes: "One more thing to throw in the mix: Most places I've lived in the USA (South, Midwest, Midatlantic) had white eggs, but here in New England brown eggs are by far the majority. The white ones are available, but are commonly considered lower quality. I even recall a New England TV ad from a few years back denigrating white eggs."

Andy and Lydia, Anglican friends in York, England whom I met during in Operation Mobilization project in Paris in 1989 and last saw at our wedding ceremony in Paris in 1997, write: "Here we follow European trends with brown eggs. This however does not stop Lydia's family tradition of drawing fun faces on our boiled eggs on Easter morning."