Simple: Story

"Stories have to be told or they die, and they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here." - Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

This week I will tell my children stories.

This morning we made matzo, the bread hastily baked by the Israelites when Pharoh finally freed them from Egypt, after the terrible plagues, after the terrible deaths of so many first borns, after the lamb's blood on the Israelites' doors so that the Angel of Death would pass over. 

I whisked flour and water and oil and salt together and baked it in a hot oven so my children could feel and see and reenact the story with me--the joy, excitement, and haste of freedom; the dashing away from 430 years of enslavement.

When the bread was baked we stuffed it in scarves and ran out of the house into the yard, freed from Egypt, looking eagerly for deliverance at the Red Sea and finally to the Promised Land. For good measure we skipped 40 years (or so) and marched around Jericho --the fire pit at the back of the yard-- so that those walls could go ahead and come a'tumblin' down.

It was Bible time turned cooking class turned theatrical improv and musical performance with bells and tambourines. It was the story read, embodied,and reenacted.

Tonight we will tell a slightly different story, but still the same. The one where Jesus celebrates this same holiday, remembers the same story, and He too retells it, and then makes the bold claim to embody it and reenact it. 

He becomes both the first born to die and the lamb's blood; the slave and the deliverer.

At Easter, I tell my kids, the stories all come true.

We will tell stories all weekend, stories about the saddest night on earth, runaway friends, scared followers, and a troubled government. We'll talk about a tomb and a big stone and angels and women and the Deliverer who came back from death.

Stories, stories, stories. Stories all weekend and more stories after.

I've written before that I feel a little disoriented about Easter this year. So many of the normal trappings of the holiday are gone-- family gatherings, church services, even just normal shopping. But I come back to these simple stories and grasp them a little more tightly this year.

When the other things are gone, the stories remain. And they turn out be what I need most of all.