“We must speak, we must take sides. For neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.”
These are the words of Holocaust survivor and renowned activist Elie Wiesel, who has died aged 87.
Seeing all the posts about the recent violence, a post with this quote by Elie Wiesel struck me the most. So I did not want to be silent, but didn't know what to say. (In an effort not to be looking at a screen instead of my children, I had only seen headlines until later tonight, so I didn't even really know what was going on.)
Regardless of the specifics of each case, it is clear that we have a racism problem. And I want to be part of the solution. But I no longer have faith in our government at all. I don't trust them any farther than I can throw them. So I don't believe I can do much to change things through official channels. So,what can I do at home to make a difference?...

"A little yellow acorn fell to the ground and lay there patiently without a sound..." (From Edward Gibbs's Little Acorn Grows Up, one of our favorite books.) We have quite a few books about acorns growing into big strong Oaks. And with a 2 year old and 4 year old, we play the "why" game a lot.

What is this?... Where did it come from?...Why did it come from the tree?...And then it grows into a tree?...Why?
And I often think about how many acorns do not grow into trees.

I've been so torn lately over holding on to traditions I grew up with. My favorite holiday is coming up - May Day. I know there are many other holidays before May Day, but I enjoy it so much I'm already anticipating and planning how we will celebrate. May Day lands on a Sunday this year, and I was thinking about throwing a May Day Fesitival, with a May pole and everything! While I don't exactly remember the origin of the holiday, I know it was pagan. As the pagan holidays revolved around the seasons, it is half-way between the spring equinox and the summer equinox. Again, while I don't remember the traditions or reasoning behind them, I know this is another holiday that Christians adopted and came up with their own symbolism for. In some cases, like Christmas and Easter, I think this was done in an effort to convert pagans. They were already celebrating, so the church would use these rituals to turn them towards the church. But I wonder if in some cases, (and perhaps truly in all) this was actually just a way to let Christians join in on the fun. I've been trying to decide if that's ok or not.

Recently Acorn's most requested book has been "Ten Apples Up On Top." Half way through the book they declare, "Eight! Eight! And we can skate. Look now! We can skate with eight!" Thus began Acorn's obsession with roller skates. Over and over he would tell us, "I would like to skate." So I started looked for a pair of adjustable, over-the-shoe skates. When I found them on a resale site he wouldn't stop bugging me about when we were going to go get them. None of my explanations about waiting for a response from the seller mattered. But when I sympathized that it can be really hard to wait, I remembered the children's sermon from a couple of weeks ago in which the pastor talked about Lent and how it could be hard to control ourselves when there's something we really want.
I've been trying to figure out whether or not we were going to do Easter baskets. I'm still not totally sold on the idea. I still want to look up the origin of the tradition, but I definitely have some ideas of what I would put in an Easter basket. So for now, here's my plan.