Tag Archives: Easter

Easter at Nana’s House

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This is Nana, the world’s great MIL. We had Easter dinner at her house this year.

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And this is Nana’s daughter, my wife.

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And Logan, the kid, the big kid.

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We had quite the spread. You can tell we are really heavy drinkers.

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And after dinner, while everybody else is working I am snooping around. These are Heather’s cowboy boots from she was just a toddler. Her grandfather had a ranch you see. No matter, if you live in Oklahoma you have cowboy boots even if you hardly know what a horse looks like. Next the boots is a photo of our son Logan on a horse.

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And this is Nana’s mother’s Easter hat. Nana wouldn’t model it for me. When I was a kid, all the women had Easter hats, and gloves, and white shoes. The little girls had little muffs and me and my brother Bob had bow ties.

Alan and Bob

Yep that’s us, rocking the bow ties. Better than muffs but still torture. In case you were wondering, I’m the good looking guy.

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Back to Nana’s mother. These are her Iris’s that Nana transplanted from the family home in western Oklahoma. I love these flowers.

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And this is Nana’s father’s saddle and hat. I love this old family stuff.

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And here is our family photograph. We hope you had a great Easter with family and friends because we sure did.

Easter and a True Confession about the Day

Metro Christian Cross

Almighty God, who through your only‑begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:

Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life‑giving Spirit;

through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Anglican Prayer for Easter Sunday
Book of Common Prayer, 1979 version,
Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA.

Easter - Coyote, New Mexico

Dad, me (the little one), and brother Bob, Coyote Ranger Station, New Mexico, Easter late 1950’s

It is true confessions time today. Easter makes me uncomfortable. I mean really uncomfortable. What a confession for somebody who says they are a Christian isn’t it. It is not the theology that bothers me. What bothers me is my memories of Easter’s past. Some of my earliest memories of church are of a Lutheran Church in Santa Fe, New Mexico. My dad was a Forest Ranger on the Santa Fe National Forest and we lived in the little town of Coyote. Every now and then we would make the long trip to Santa Fe and go to church. In the days before there was good air conditioning it could be hot and stuffy in the church and I would pass out. Not from a state of religious exhilaration but from a lack of air. I would wake up laying down in the grass outside the church. I think it happened twice when I was a preschooler and once again when I was 16 and just visiting.

So, I just quit going to church on Easter for decades. I think that I was in my forties before I went back on Easter again. Now I go to Easter but I do have to subdue a little panic feeling because the building is generally packed and the weather is warm so if I have to get up and go to the lobby for a little cooler air and to get some space between me and others please excuse me.

So I know that Easter is the big day in Christianity, bigger than Christmas, bigger even than the Super Bowl!! But I’ve never really liked it very much personally.

But, Happy Easter to those of you who observe it, and are better Christians than I, and if you don’t observe it, have a good day anyway!