Palm Sunday was actually cold and rainy here, which was kind of a bummer. However, we had a wonderful time celebrating with our church, especially with Claire. We go to the early service (8:30) at church and then Sunday School, so we usually drop Claire off in nursery before we head into worship. For Palm Sunday, though, we took her in with us for the first part of the service, because liturgical churches do these really great processions into the sanctuary on Palm Sunday. Typically, everyone starts outside (we started in the foyer this time because of the cold and mist) with actual palm branches that everyone waves while singing and walking into the sanctuary. We did this for the very first time while living in Jackson, and man, it felt weird. And cool. But really strange. A friend of ours who had been at Christ Community for a while told us, "Yeah, it's the Sunday that we let our freak flag fly!" and I gotta say...it kind of felt like it that first year.
However, much like everything else I've come to learn about in liturgical traditions, it's become a really special part of the process for me. My whole life, I've known about Jesus' Triumphal Entry, where the people shouted, "Hosanna!" and waved palm branches for Him. Well, now, my family does the palm branch-waving and hosanna-singing, too. With a sanctuary-ful of other folks, no matter what passers-by may be thinking. We really wanted Claire to participate, and she thoroughly enjoyed it. She knows about "hosanya" because of our Resurrection Eggs and our first Easter craft that we did. We've been talking about and singing and waving "Hosanna" for weeks! Basically, she's been training for Palm Sunday.
Something Blacknall does on Palm Sunday that's really fun is that once you get into the sanctuary with the palm branches, you just drop them wherever you want in the aisles, which leaves it looking like what Jesus probably rode into town on. Brad and I dropped ours, but we let Claire hang onto hers until she left for nursery so that she could flail...I mean, wave...it around during the music. I had to apologize to the folks sitting behind us for the times she pegged them in the heads. Oops. They didn't mind, thankfully.
Little note: in Anglican churches (not yet sure about Presbyterian), the palm branches used for Palm Sunday are burned afterwards, and the ashes then used for the following Ash Wednesday. Isn't that interesting?
On the home front, we're still trucking along with our Resurrection Eggs, and I've really been loving it. I still don't know how much Claire is connecting with the information, but she is doing a fantastic job of remembering what each egg represents and talking about it with us. I'll try to do an update when we finish Lent and let you know what she says about each one as we go through them. I definitely want to record it for posterity because it is just so sweet.
We also finally got started on her Lent scripture memory passage. Spoiler: we won't finish before Easter Sunday. But that's ok. We'll finish it eventually! The goal was to finish up Psalm 23 (what we were working on before Lent) and then move onto her Lent scripture, but we didn't want to move on until she had a firm grip on Psalm 23. Thoroughness was the name of the game. We felt like we accomplished that, so I'm still chalking it up as a victory. However, there's a good chance we'll be working on her "Lent" scriptures into summer.
I have a few crafts/activities planned for this week to help continue building up to Easter. I think she'll really enjoy it, and I'm hoping we can have some good conversations while we work. And, I'm going to be brave and attempt dyeing eggs later in the week. Wish me luck! We'll have church services on Thursday and Friday. The Good Friday service is also called a Tenebrae service, and we're looking forward to seeing how Tenebrae is observed at Blacknall; we're familiar with how Anglican churches do it, and it is really something to be a part of. It's so somber and sad, designed to make you feel the weight of Jesus' sacrifice. It's eerily quiet. Dark. Stripped bare of any finery. You leave with such a sense of sorrow, which I find to be so beneficial in getting my heart and mind in a helpful place leading up to Easter. I find it so helpful to remember that there was SUCH sacrifice and sorrow before the great joy of Easter. I think it's easy to focus on the joy of the resurrection and not feel the intensity of the crucifixion. At least that's the case for me. Because those services are so quiet and contemplative, we'll be putting Claire in nursery, but I'm hoping we can have some good conversations about things at other times during the week.
I usually strongly disapprove of using phones in church, but I NEEDED to get a little shot of Claire with her branch. And also, Brad is giving me the side-eye. Whatever. I love this picture.
One of our "crafts" this week was making a simple lamb garland for our mantle (since she loved the Valentine's Day garland so much). In the Brassart house growing up, Easter always equaled lambs, not bunnies, so we're carrying that over quite a bit in the Boswell house. Jesus: the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
I had a few packs of die-cut sheep that my mom had sent me a while back that I punched holes in. I then showed Claire how to thread yarn through the holes, which she LOVED doing.
Finished product! It's been up for less than 48 hours, and she's already asked to look at/touch/talk about "those lambs" a dozen times. Definitely a good "craft" choice! (Even if our living room looks kind of like a preschool Sunday school classroom...)
I'll be back with more updates about Holy Week and Easter over the next few days. And then, we'll buckle down around here and get ready for this baby!
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