Easter doin's

In some ways, I am still trying to get my bearings after Easter Sunday and Holy Week. The worship committee and a few helpers hosted (I guess that's the word) a Seder drama. It was a lot of coordinating to make sure the various people had what they needed, and I'm thankful it's over. On Good Friday, Jeff preached at our tenebrae service, and I sang part of "Lord of the Dance." (Jeff had me stop at the Good Friday part of the song and not go to the Easter verse.) We had our normal three services on Easter, and I only had to worry about "my" service. I had two handbell ringers at the other two services, but they are pros who were fantastic on their own! After having a lovely Easter lunch at Applebee's, Jeff and I went home to watch some movies and relax.

We first watched Man of the Year (starring Robin Williams). It was ok and somewhat predictable, but a good mindless movie.

The next movie we watched was Fast Food Nation. Now, I have read the book, and when I saw they were making a movie based on it, I couldn't figure out how they would do that with any kind of a plot. I assumed it would be a documentary. Wrong. It was really good. They used all the information that Eric Schlosser included in the book, even showing the kill floor at the meat packaging plant. It had me thinking a lot about this high protein/low carbohydrate lifestyle that Jeff and I have been living for the last three months. Really what it boils down to is that it made me feel guilty. Which sucks because I really have been feeling healthy these last few months with paying attention to what I put in my body and exercising. I really hate feeling guilty.

The final movie we watched was An Inconvenient Truth. I don't really recommend watching the last two movies in the same day. I'm on a bit of a conscience overload. It's really a lot to process. Jeff and I went to the website for An Inconvenient Truth after we watched the movie, and there is a link to a place that you can buy carbon offsets. Unfortunately, we found that we produce more than the average American household in tons of carbon. Really, this surprised me. We drive together to work, we don't really travel all that much (except for trips back to Kansas). Our gas and electric bills were calculated in, and I suppose that if we were a three or four person household that we might not use that much more but that what we use would be divided between more people. But we figured up through the website how much we could pay to offset, and while it isn't as good as not having the output in the first place, it is a start for us while we continue to educate ourselves.

So our Easter was nice and relaxing, but not really what I would call mental "down time." At the same time, maybe in the midst of my winding down from the craziness of Easter, I experienced my own resurrection of conscience that afternoon.