[Esther Leisher has shared ways in which she celebrated many seasonal and religious festivals with her children when they were growing up. Here she describes how she created a religious mood in the home during the days before Easter.]
Keeping Good Friday with the Family
by Esther Leisher
The days before Easter are each a part of a whole. Good Friday is followed by Holy Saturday, a busy day of preparation that expresses confidence that Easter Sunday will bring rebirth, happiness, sunrise. Many resources offer suggestions for celebrating Easter, but few consider the days before, the days of Holy Week, which are part of the process. I wanted the somber Good Friday mood to enrich our family celebrations, enhancing the meaning of Easter Sunday. "Sorrow may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."
At our house at noon on Good Friday the children and I stripped the house. Pictures were taken down, anything of beauty put away. A black table cloth was put on the table. A barren, desolate feeling pervaded the house for a few hours. The weather often turned moody with clouds in the western sky. When the Earth's somber mood was most pronounced, I would say something like: "The Earth remembers. Each year on Good Friday she remembers the time when Christ experienced the suffering that human beings experience."
In the evening, the supper table had at each place a white plate and on the plate a stalk of celery and some almonds. The table was otherwise bare, stark -- an artistic expression of the Good Friday mood. However, once the symbolic celery and almonds were eaten (or not eaten), a regular meal was served, macaroni and cheese, maybe -- nothing special.
Sometime during the day, before or during the three somber hours from 12 o'clock to 3 o'clock, I would read the Ludwig Bechstein story, "The Wandering Staff," a story which focuses on the sufferings of the world. The little boy in the story, whose mother keeps an inn, steals the walking staff of an old man who comes to the inn each year just before Easter. The boy hides the staff in the grandfather clock case, but each Good Friday it comes out and forces the boy to walk the world, seeing all the sorrow and suffering. Year after year the boy suffers, until at last when he is so weak and ill that he can hardly walk one mile in one day, the old man returns and takes the staff back.
I left the story unexplained, honoring the mood more than the content. I knew that if I read it (or told it) with feeling, in the night it would speak its truth inwardly. Rituals and festivals have a language that is truer than any explanation we can give to our children. What we do and how we do it have their own language. If words seemed necessary--and sometimes they really were- I used words that speak to feelings and insights. I discovered that children about five years old and up appreciate words that speak of feelings and ideals. It gives the soul words to express its thoughts. If the children were younger I might answer direct questions with a few words that give a picture more than a thought or simply leave it open by saying something like "I wonder about that, too."
Saturday of Easter Week became the day of waiting and preparing for the joy that is sure to come. The children and I were busy all day with cleaning, decorating, baking, dying eggs, preparing the materials for the dreamy, sunrise water color painting we would do the next day. Many of our Saturday activities were family traditions, but always there was something new--a new way of decorating eggs, a new decoration, a special food we had not tried before.
The Easter box held the things we brought out each year. For example, the small, gaily painted wooden spring scenes, simple folk art -- a little bird on a wheelbarrow, flowers, a small birdhouse. We also had symbols of transformation in various styles -- butterflies made with gauze or painted wood or tissue paper. One Easter I got a babysitter for a couple of days in the week before and made a wall-sized sunrise scene out of pastel tissue paper, a surprise that magically appeared on the dining room wall during the night (with my help, of course) and was there in its glory on Easter morning. Another year we discovered the book The Easter Egg Artists by Adrienne Adams and pored over the illustrations for ideas for Easter eggs.
Children need meaning, of course, as well as activities. Thoughtful preparation creates the mood in you, a mood that tends to permeate the space around you, passing from one person to another. Finding a way to spend some meditative time alone in the days before can enrich their lives, and your own. Reading, contemplating, talking with another adult brings thoughts that activate heart forces, forces that can then subtly enhance family rituals. So little time is actually required, but it always took an effort on my part to find that time. There is so much else to do.
Children may not act thoughtful or reverent or even seem interested in what is going on, but the inner things still make an impression. It may be late in their life (or never) when what lies in the depths wells up, but still, it is there. Regardless of the approach they take to Spirit, to the inwardness of things, what you offer may have a later value.
The week that leads up to Easter has a quality all its own. Year by year you can discover in yourself the depth of feeling and the anticipation that lead from Good Friday to Easter.
The story "The Wandering Staff" is from The Fairy Tales of Ludwig Bechstein (recommended by Steiner), copyright 1966. This is an old book that I discovered at a second hand sale. You are not likely to find it. I could make some copies of the story for anyone who wants me to send them one. eleisher@aol.com
The Easter Egg Artists is by Adrienne Adams and can be found at most libraries in the seasonal section.
Waldorf sources have many verses, stories, and songs for celebrating both Spring and Easter. Occasionally you will also find something about the days before Easter. –Esther Leisher
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