I know you don't want to hear it, but lately it has been 95 degrees and warmer around our casa. Our clay tile floors feel like they have built-in radiated heat underneath as they warm up with the day. Not that we have a thermometer or anything, but when I sit at my keyboard with sweat running down my fingers I sometimes click on the Tamarindo Tide Chart and check out the weather. Sunny and hot, emphasis on the latter. As much as we have cursed the winds that lifted the roof and rained bug larvae and dirt on the floor, they did keep the air moving. Now, alas, we may have to resort to using that precious commodity, electricity, to move the sweat in different directions.
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So as Easter rolled around it seemed highly improbable that a fur-covered oversized rabbit would be found hopping around delivering, of all things in this heat, chocolate! As usual, it is blissfully easy to remain unaware of holidays, with the blaring lack of commercialism and we might have overlooked the event entirely for the lack of advertising circular reminders if it were not for a few other hints - like church, Spring Break, and the monthly flipping of the calendar. Plus the fact that three of my kids faithfully observed the abstinence of Lent this year and were eagerly awaiting the resurrection of not only Jesus but french fries, chips, and ice cream into their hungry young lives.
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Saturday rolled around and found us cleaning our house after our friends with "their three sons" departed for colder climates, namely California. As I mopped the floor on Easter Eve Bella happened to mention that her friend Katie at school told her that the Easter Bunny does, indeed, come to Costa Rica! We had planned to attend church and have a family dinner with grilled chicken but had not contemplated the possibility of a visit from the big bunny. But Bella was correct! The Easter Bunny did somehow enter our casa and hide a bunch of little chocolate soccer balls as well as some chocolate crunchy eggs and some kind of pastel colored candy eggs that only the hormigas enjoyed. So the kids had their traditional egg hunt before breakfast using plastic bags instead of cute wicker baskets and off to church we went with chocolate on our breath!
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The Beach Community Church is an over-sized, open-air palapa with one sunny yellow wall behind the altar. The parrots fly by with their own squawking chorus and the breezes blow through the surrounding hibiscus and beauganvillia blooming around it in a permanent hug of pink, orange, and red, a lovely alternative arrangement of altar flowers. The service is slightly evangelical in nature but the surfing pastor (see photo) with his bright white infectious smile and entertaining lessons make it very easy to listen to. There is a new mix of talented singers and instrumentalists every week. Everyone wears shorts and flip flops or little dresses and it is the healthiest and most beautiful congregation I have ever admired. I think God himself must be very pleased when he lifts up the edge of that palm roof and peeks in on all the happiness and beauty and warmth worshiping him from under its shelter.
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On Easter Sunday everyone greeted each other warmly with salty kisses - all tropical kisses taste like the salt of the earth and sea in this heat. There is a Costa Rican superstition that cautions against swimming on Good Friday lest you turn into a fish! The beaches around here were packed all Semana Santa and many of the Chipenos frolicking in the sea were apparently eager to risk this transformation instead of heading back to San Jose with their feet still intact. I, myself, water lover that I am, had to think twice about whether or not I might not mind being a fish... Depends what kind, I guess, definitely not a tasty minnow, even though I do like big families. Maybe a stunning rooster fish. The pastor gave a lovely message interspersed with several funny jokes, one of which Andy had been telling all week himself! He reminded us of Jesus' last words as he hung on the cross, "It is finished." Those three simple words hold so much meaning and gave me pause to ponder. So simple, yet so profound. What you might say to yourself, for instance, upon glancing down and discovering you were the proud new owner of both fins and a tail.
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During communion it is the custom of this church to flip flop up the center aisle and take a little square of bread, the body of Christ, and a little cup of grape juice, the blood. Everyone carefully carries these symbolic elements back to their folding chairs while the offertory music concludes. On this Easter morning we were blessed with the beautiful singing voice and keyboard playing of our school's new music teacher to keep the procession moving. She is the Mom of 3 of my kid's fellow students and the wife of a devout Christian locksmith named Darwin. No kidding. I actually thought we were listening to a recording before I stood up and noticed her on the altar, playing and singing so professionally. As her last note echoed around the wooden poles of the palapa and through the palm fronds into the eavesdropping ears of God himself, naturally we were all moved to applaud our appreciation of her talents. This is not a church that is afraid to clap, unlike other more reserved and steeped-in-tradition types I have belonged to which shall remain nameless, where they actually instituted a clapping policy to alleviate the angst and rigidity of the proper shoe-wearing parishioners... But there we sat on this hot and sunny Sunday, sweating with the body and blood of Christ in our hands, unhibited by an overabundance of either cloth or leather and eager to make some noise of our own! And that was when our smiling pastor verbalized what everyone present was suddenly realizing, "It is hard to clap with the blood of Christ in your hand!" Indeed!
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Amen!
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K3
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