Knowing many churches give short shrift to Pentecost, I asked Jonathan if they had done anything special for Pentecost in his church. "No," he replied. "Do you know what Pentecost is?" "Yes, I do! We saw a movie about it. I remember the part about the paper clips...." Hmmm. That part of the coming of the Holy Spirit had apparently escaped me. Later, Heather cleared up the mystery by remembering that they had seen a movie about the Holocaust. Not quite the same thing, but you can see the confusion. I still wonder about the paper clips, though.
On the way home from church we stopped by Lowe's and did our part to stimulate the economy—of the U.S. and, unfortunately, of China too. Nothing against the Chinese people, but I'm not happy with their government, their cavalier attitude towards health and safety, their blatant disregard for patents and copyrights, and the fact that it's so difficult to find items that are made anywhere else but in China.
It wasn't completely an impulse purchase—I believe Porter had been ruminating on the idea for quite a while—but nearly so: Porter had to go home (fortunately only about 2.5 miles away) to exchange our smaller car for the one that could carry...A PORCH SWING!
I love porch swings, and I remember many happy hours reading, napping, or just daydreaming on my grandfather's porch swing, which turned into our porch swing when he moved in with us. Sadly, when it was my father's time to move to a place too small to accommodate the swing, it had deteriorated too much to make it worth moving 1000 miles south. Nonetheless, that swing remained the gold standard for porch swings in my mind, and though we've looked at swings off and on over the years, I've never found one that really excited me.
Until yesterday. That's why I was able to overlook the "Made in China" label, and the fact that Lowe's was rather disorganized and we had to wait quite a while before they actually found a swing we coudl take home. Porter spent the afternoon assembling the swing (no small task—it might have been worth the $10 assembly fee, except that an installer wouldn't have done such a careful job), and there it is on our porch, looking very much like the picture, except without the sunshade, which we don't need.
Quite a Mother's Day present, huh? It's as much like my grandfather's swing as makes no difference, perfect for naps, meditations, sitting side-by-side with my sweetheart in the evening, and reading aloud with grandchildren snuggling on either side. What's more, it opens out into a bed; I foresee a "rite of passage" for the grandkids, marked by being old enough to sleep on Grandma and Dad-o's swing. (Age is important because of the proximity of the pool. No sleepwalkers need apply.)
Of course the very best Mother's Day presents were the cards and calls from our children and grandchildren! No, scratch that. The VERY best Mother's Day present is having such children and grandchildren as we do.The movie we saw was called Paper Clips. It was a documentary about middle school students in the Southern US who did a project on the Holocaust, collecting a paper clip for every person who died. They ended up collecting several million more than they needed, and getting an actual cattle car from Germany which they turned into a memorial museum.
From that point of view 2008 was a bad year: Ascension on May 1st and Pentecost on Mothers' day. (Is is Mother's Day or Mothers' Day?) But even on regular years we get both Ascension and the Monday after Pentecost off and don't really know what to do with the days - we've used them for hikes this year, but that's hardly a tradition that reinforces remembrance of what is being celebrated...
I had originally spelled it "Mothers' Day" then got to thinking...we each only have one mother, not counting things like mothers-in-law and Mother Church...so I looked it up, and the preferred spelling seems to be "Mother's." But I see the point for either.
There was a conflict with Ascension here, too -- why someone chose to make the National Day of Prayer conflict with Ascension I don't know, unless they figured, well, as long as you're going to be in church anyway.... Other than that May 1 has little meaning here. Pardon my parochial ignorance, but what is the significance of May 1 in Switzerland? My vague high-school-history memories associate May 1 with big celebrations in Communist countries, with parades of missiles in Red Square and all, but that doesn't quite sound like Switzerland to me.
I say celebrate the Christian holiday with all due festivities in church, then use the secular vacation day as you see fit. Hiking sounds great to me, though a discussion of the Holy Spirit while hiking sounds even better :).
I do find it amusing (and in an odd way, encouraging) that oh-so-secular Europe has no trouble not only celebrating Christian holidays but even calling them by their true names, while here we go into conniptions if someone says "Christmas vacation" instead of "winter break." Names do have power, and if you grow up knowing the name of the event there's a better chance you'll eventually discover the history and meaning, I think.
May 1 is still labor day in a vaguely communist sense. One problem with May 1 and Ascension coinciding was that Salvation Army members from across Europe apparently get together every Ascension in Zurich for whatever a group of Salvation Soldiers do, but they cancelled it this year because every May 1 a bunch of rowdy leftists (Schwarzer Block) march through Zurich and apply the force of their arguments on shop windows and cars.
I believe the National Day of Prayer is always the first Thursday in May.
Ah, that makes sense. Since the church and secular calendars aren't in sync, these conflicts are bound to happen now and then.
