An Easter Shrine

For our God-time this Sabbath, my son and I built an Easter shrine - or at least started it off. (I "stole" the idea from Jen Lemen and Rachelle, but I don't think they'll mind.)

We first spent some time going over the Easter story - I asked my son to tell it to me and added in where he forgot or didn't know bits of it. At the end he was amazed that he'd told the entire thing! After that we spent some time sitting with our eyes closed, thinking about parts of the story, gathering our thoughts. Then we split up for 10 minutes and headed out the yard in different directions to find things for our shrine.

We found:
* Two half-burned sheets of music (God creates beauty from ashes, life from apparent death)
* A hollowed-out knot of wood that looked exactly like an empty tomb
* A rough piece of wood reminding us that the cross wasn't nice and smooth or easy to carry
* A small piece of rope, like those used to tie His hands
* A twist of silver wire that looks like a whip - wrapped handle, whip threads and all!
* An old nail
* A huge double thorn
* A rounded rock, a little like the "traditional" image of the hill on which the crosses stood.

We then hauled out the colouring box, made a picture for the base of our shrine, and added images to the sheets of music. We stuck it all in a half-opened box (base, back and half-sides), added a silver cross on a chain that I had, and the rough wooden cross with barbed-wire crown of thorns we made for last Easter, 2 candles (for me and my son), and put it up in a prominent place on top of the piano.

Now some of my friends and colleagues might consider this completely pagan (which is why I haven't told them about it)! But it's helped us focus completely on the upcoming Easter celebration. It's in such a visible place, it's easy to see wherever we are in the house. Comments keep coming up about some of the elements from my son, and we're giving thought to what we can add next.

As I prayed this weekend, I lit the candles in our little shrine and found it focused my prayers beautifully.

I like it, a lot!

(an image may follow, if I ever get a hold of that digital camera I'm after....)