My Easter break was wonderful. I love taking those three days to really spend a good chunk of time taking inventory, figuring out what should change, what's going well, etc. It's a very peaceful time for me and as long as I work, I will take Good Friday off. I've had a few Good Friday's where the weather is just beautiful and I would rather be outside washing windows or hand-washing my car to make good use of the 75 degree-and-sunny weather.
Anyway, THIS Friday brought cold, driving rain, and it fit the mood of the feast well. I attended the service at our new parish and relished the wonderful music and insightful meditations. Thunder appropriately crashed throughout the readings. I finally started to relax and as I looked up, I caught the eye of one of my colleagues (one of whom I have been picking her departments apart to increase operational efficiency). Then, later in the service, I saw two of my employees. It was just…strange. I've always been the one looking up to others in their faith and it was bizarre to be the boss and be "caught" at church. I hope it sent the message that Good Friday services are a good enough reason to take PTO. It occurred to me that we're all just plodding along in this life, trying to do our best.
A very uplifting realization.
And I have one more story to share from the 'churchy side' of Easter. Our pastor is just amazing and we cracked up when he started walking through the congregation for the Easter Vigil homily. He dropped what looked like a wooden stick. Jack leaned over and said, "was that a wand?" I giggled, sure he wasn't going to discuss HP.
A few minutes later, he launched into a Harry Potter story. It *was* a wand. You have to admit that's cool. Don't get carried away, he wasn't up there telling us magic existed!
Anyway, remember in book 3, where Harry and the gang had to fight the bogarts? A bogart is a ghost-like object that takes the shape of your deepest fear. Some fear the dentist, spiders, or even a scary professor. The spell that Harry learns, "Ridiculous!," is to make the fear funny. Once you laugh at a fear, it no longer has its fear over you. So laugh in the face of that fear and it will lose its grip on you. He then took the metaphor a step further…as Christians, our biggest fear is death. The empty tomb laughed in the face of death, losing its grip on us. So we never have to be fearful again.
The whole sermon reminded me of Monsters, Inc. The monsters first tried scaring everyone. Then the monsters figured out that it was more fun and more efficient to get everyone laughing, for laughing generated far more power. This is the same phenomenon…hell and brimstone is one way to scare people in believing, but to make it uplifting and positive, the words go much further to inspire.
So what's your bogart? And how are you going to start laughing at it?
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