That special time of week when picture and prose become as one.This morning within a 1/2 hour's time I had two different yet very profound experiences dealing with belief, all before the sun climbed over the peaks of the Sierras. It seemed kind of fitting for an Easter morning.
Before I get to those, let me give a little background. Last night I pulled the ol' minivan into the garage and was met with an excited shout of "Daddy" as soon as I opened the door to the house. Usually this is a sign of great things to come, except of course when it's my youngest daughter Avery rushing up to me and excitedly asking me to smell her breath. (If you're a parent, I'm sure you can relate to a young child learning to brush her teeth by herself. Sometimes indulging her desire is the olfactory equivalent of having a face only a mother or father can love.) It wasn't Avery this time. It was Jacie, and she gushed to show me the hole in her mouth where one of her teeth used to live only minute before. For our family this was a first. We found my old homemade, tooth-shaped pillow my mommy had made for me, stuck the tooth in and snugly put it next to her blanket on the bed. With all of that came the requisite admonitions and heedings about the magical Tooth Fairy coming for a visit and being quiet and so on. She went to sleep hopeful for a visit from the tooth fairy. Carla and I closed the door and were hopeful that the room wasn't too dark and that the Tooth Fairy wouldn't slam his size 12 paws into the dresser.
Jacie woke up this morning clutching a pair of shiny quarters that the Tooth Fairy had left. (Perhaps the casual reader of this blog is thinking that 4 bits is quite the paltry amount, especially for a first tooth. Well, obviously the dire recession has hit even the magical realm. Word has it that the Easter Bunny won't be making quite as many eggs available for discovery either. It's a sad state of affairs.) She truly and firmly knew that the Tooth Fairy had come to her room. She believed wholeheartedly. She then proceeded to lose the quarters in a matter of minutes, but safe investing will be a subject for some other post.
It was quite the contrast to the scene I witnessed 25 minutes earlier. I needed to make a quite trip to Winco for some eggs for breakfast. I walked in on this, Easter Sunday morning, and found . . . business as usual. Stacked cardboard boxes were strewn about like toppled dominoes. Stockpersons shelved and shelved items. The place was largely absent of the joy of Easter, minus of course the Peeps and Cadburys. I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting: people singing and dancing as they lined up Chef Boyardee? Gleaming smiles as they straightened melons? I don't know. It just seemed like there should be some indication that this was the day of all days on the calendar, the day to celebrate life and the fact that is has meaning. Today shouldn't be a day like any other, and Winco just seemed to be a microcosm of a world that doesn't believe and subsequently doesn't care about the Risen Savior.
I'm not saying that the Tooth Fairy is a savior and that believing in him or her (that's a huge question in itself: what exactly is the Tooth Fairy's gender?) is saving faith. I just know that to be a Christ follower is to believe in something you cannot see, but you believe in it anyway, and it profoundly affects you in powerful ways. I saw that in my daughter Jacie this morning. I didn't see it at Winco.
I guess I'm glad that Jacie believes in the Tooth Fairy. Last night she was pretty sure as she hoped for a visit, and this morning she was downright certain of the visit, even if she didn't see him/her/it. Sure-hope-certain-see. Sounds like a biblical prescription for faith. It gives me hope that she'll ultimately find true faith in Christ. All thanks to the doctrine of the Tooth Fairy.
No comments:
Post a Comment