Happy Easter!

Yesterday Christians around the world celebrated the single most important day in the Christian calendar: the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God. His death on the cross on Good Friday served as the payment for the sins of the whole world who would believe in Him, and His return to life the following Sunday, Easter, grants eternal life to those same believers. Since this day was THE pivotal day in human history, I am more passionately against the commercialization of this holy day than I am against the commercialization of the birth of this same Lord, which is celebrated on Christmas. Christmas is a very important day to Christians, to be sure, but it's rightful place is #2, not number one. So why do we treat Christmas with so much more... joy and preparation? Granted, Advent is a much more fun season of preparation than Lent is, to be sure. But it is still a travesty that the world thinks that Easter is about celebrating the return of warm weather and of spring, that it's about bunnies and chicks and jelly beans, malted milk balls and pastel colors. Jesus is the reason for this season, too.

Exciting adventures in the past week:
Tuesday I went to the Joslyn Art Museum and to the Old Market in Omaha with friend Liz Makowski. That was a good time. I got to see some really neat art and spend some time having a wonderful, map-less adventure in downtown Omaha with Liz. It was a delight.

Wednesday, my brother, sister-in-law, and I went to the Husker baseball game against Arkansas. The Huskers lost, but it was a great day out, and a great evening in. We spent part of the evening hanging out with friends of theirs from Concordia who had just returned to Seward after their spring break choir tour.

Saturday I went shopping with my sister-in-law, Stephanie. We found almost nothing that we really had to have, that we had to spend our money on. But, again, we got to spend some good, quality time together.

Sunday I played my trumpet with the hymns at church, just as I have every year for the past 9 years (with the exception of Easter 2006 when I was in Mexico). I really enjoy playing for church, but I think that the people at church enjoy it more than I do. That might be the last time that I ever play for the Easter service at St. John's- Cordova. That is a sad thought. One of the church ladies thanked me for playing, and said that she thought that I didn't have my visa yet so that I could play for Easter. I made a joke that on Monday I would receive my visa in the mail. Well, I didn't get my visa in the mail today, so I'm still around for now.