ramblings from an arkansas farm girl
Arkansas Churches
Keiser; Helena; Fayetteville;
Eureka Springs; Etowah; Eureka Springs;
Wilson; Piggott; Helena
more Arkansas Churches
Fort Smith; Berryville; Fayetteville
When we’ve been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun.
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’ve first begun.
(Amazing Grace)
Grace Grits and Gardening
“Easter is never deserved.” ― Jan Karon
Musical Pairing:
Royal Choral Society: Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah
Way before parents spent too much time trying to create magical memories for their children, my Momma (the BAT) made holidays special by just being herself and keeping life simple. Halloween involved homemade costumes, birthdays included handmade invitations, and 4th of July meant driving over the tracks to buy Roman candles we set off across the cotton field. Christmas was pure-dee-lightful from the moment the Sears Wish Book arrived in the mailbox to the dreaded morning we returned to school in January.
via morgueFile
And Easter? Easter was fun too. There was the all important Brinkley Chapel part with Brother Brown’s resurrection sermon, and although Daddy never once attended Easter service with us, he seemed to be in an okay mood (except the Easter Sunday our house was robbed but that’s a different story).
During the week leading up to Good Friday, our house smelled of Easter—white vinegar and PAAS dye. Easter egg dyeing was an important part of our tradition.
But my first spring semester in college, for whatever reason, I wasn’t planning to drive home to Arkansas for Easter break. Not enough time? I don’t recall. But I do remember thinking what about Easter eggs? We’d always dyed eggs together. Oh well, things were bound to change eventually…
Not really.
Momma and Aunt Lavern loaded up the Cadillac and brought Easter to Baylor University complete with THREE dozen hard-boiled eggs. My sister, cousin and I dyed those eggs while staying at the Best Western across from campus.
That, my friends, is the definition of a fun Momma.
And yes, I’m wearing a tube top.
Grace Grits and Gardening
Musical Pairing:
The Power of Love, Huey Lewis
Tell me a story. With
heavy
eyes, the boy
grew more quiet with each breath. I’ll tell you a
real story, the
Easter story
about a man who was
tortured and beaten,
even
spit upon and
treated like the
lowest of criminals. Is this a scary story, the child asked. No, quite the
opposite. This is a reassuring,
valiant story of the greatest love…
eventually you’ll understand.
Oh, he said, what happened next? The
Father was
accused of crimes, crowned with thorns and nailed to a wooden cross. He sacrificed
life to save the
lives of His children. The boy slept.
Grace Grits and Gardening
Musical Pairing:
The Greatest Love of All, Whitney Houston
This was written especially for Write Tribe 100 Words on Saturday Prompt The Greatest Love Of All. I wrote an acrostic. If you are reading via mobile device, the acrostic may not line up correctly…
