And they held the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days 

with joy, because the Lord had made them happy, 

 and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them

 to encourage them in the work of the house of God, 

the God of Israel.

Ezra 6:22

When the Easter Bunny counted down from 10 into the megaphone, blew the whistle and shouted, “GO!” a couple hundred multi-sized shrieking children carrying small baskets stampeded toward the field of eggs out behind the Red Owl Supermarket. All the children except one. 

Clutching my jacket around me, I froze to the spot. Nearby grownups urged me on. Nope. Nothing doing. This kid was not having it. Raised my basket over my face like a shield and did not move a muscle. Turned to stone. 

Boy howdy was my dad ever mad. Embarrassed more likely, which automatically translated to next-level mad. It was one of those grab-the-kid-not-by-the-sweet-little-hand-but-around-the-wrist moments and off we went rather speedily in the direction of the parking lot. No punishment, of course; that was not in his DNA. Stone-cold silence and a particular forehead vein usually did the trick in conveying extreme displeasure. 

Thus began and ended my first and last public Easter egg hunt. Just as well. Who needs ‘em. And for the record, whether it started in earnest that day or had already been simmering, let it be noted, group competition and I are not good companions.  I’d actually rather die a thousand deaths. Or stand alone in a field in back of the Red Owl, hair blowing in the wind, a glimmer of Colorado cold-weather snot at the edge of my nostrils, white-knuckling my Easter basket. 

The family, the three of us with an occasional grandma, lived in a ranch-style house facing the Flatirons, those massive sandstone formations at the foot of the Rockies. That little home on Lashley Lane, purchased new for $14,000 in  1956 five years before I was born, had an enormous Christmas-tree size plate glass window in the front with an extraordinary view. The actual structure costs about the same today, but the view attached to it is plus or minus a cool million.  

Growing up in that epitome of mid-century modern, filled with high altitude sunshine, good music and love, there was never any question of warmth, food on the table, devotion from parents and their friends, a grandmother who thought I hung the moon, and the thrill of a big wide world in front of me just waiting to be blessed by my presence.  Mmhmm. Only child. It’s a thing, people.

Weaving a kid, let alone a challenging kid, into academia and the cultural explosion (there’s a mighty fine euphemism) that was Boulder, Colorado in the 60s and 70s, must have been a monumental challenge. Whether it helped or hindered the parents in that endeavor remains to be seen, but it just so happens that “Oblivion” was their kid’s middle name so I neither noticed nor cared how complicated their lives must’ve been. Many young ones with smoothly protected lives are like that – we just assume that our day-to-days are normal and this is what the world is, what it was, and what it forever shall be. May I insert a hearty, “Ha!” right about here. 

Reckonings for kids like this do come eventually. Hard ones. Multiple ones. Maybe that gives you satisfaction to hear, or possibly  you are nodding your head in fellowship and empathy. Whether these reckonings and/or events build character or trample it to pieces depends on as many circumstances as there are grains of sand on the shore. Somehow though, lessons in looking outward must be endured, absorbed, and put into practice. We are not everyone’s total focus on this earth and cannot act like it. Bummer, I know.

Here’s a shining example of an early reckoning I like to remember as “Flower Power Is Not Our Friend:” One evening sometime in the early 70s when we were expecting overnight company, I spent an oblivious hour stretching the outer boundaries of my artistic expertise drawing peace symbols, flower powers, and enormous swirly letterings of “MAKE LOVE NOT WAR” all over my wall-size chalkboard in the basement to extend a hearty welcome.  

Ooookay, was my dad ever red-faced and loudly silent when he discovered the giant masterpiece just in time before company arrived. Erasure has never happened more speedily. This man, my extraordinary dad, who was the very definition of open minded and brilliant and who spent his days as a university administrator in the absolute eye of the storm with student protests, sit-ins in his office complete with bomb sweeps of his car, had a kid blissfully rubbing salt into the wound.  I failed to grasp the overarching issue at the time but the remembrance of the scene helped mold a more outward viewpoint with just a modicum of sensitivity to others. Hmm. Imagine that.

Our merry little band of three  – four with the grandma – would get 15¢ hamburgers from a new phenomenon called McDonalds and go out back of the restaurant on warm evenings to play a round of Putt-Putt. We’d return our gallon-sized glass bottles back through the drive-thru (What? We don’t get out of our car?) at A & W Root Beer to get them refilled. Shakey’s Pizza was also a big deal. It wasn’t long and I wasn’t very old before Mom and Dad started taking me along to the CU Faculty Club on Fridays for supper where I ordered lobster tail without thinking twice. Dessert at Manuel’s Sweet Shoppe (the extra “p” made it fancy) was always a caramel sundae. We ate at home when Gram cooked. In wintertime, not often, but I wrap the few memories around me like a warm blanket, we would make the trek up to Pactolus Lake to do some outdoor ice skating. There was more crashing than skating, but good memories are good memories no matter. Gram stayed in the lodge with a thermos of hot chocolate. And a warm blanket because this is my memory and that’s how I choose it to be.

My dear Gram, Mom’s mother. Her importance and influence cannot be overstated. You’ll find her woven throughout the goodness of my life, sharing her quiet Christ-centered strength with me somewhere deep in my DNA just when I needed it most. Still, to this day. 

When I was very young, and my dad’s mother was still living, Saturdays would often find our whole troop driving up Boulder Canyon to a picnic area along the creek with two grandmas, lots of food and those colorful aluminum drinking cups that go for big bucks these days on eBay. Often there were church friends or out-of-town visiting relatives in tow. All adults. Ladies in dresses and aprons. Men in button-down shirts and slacks. Me, the solitary kid splashing in the shallows of the rushing water, constructing teetering rock dams entirely unaware that other kids at other picnic sites had other kids around. I loved my little alone life. 

If I needed clothes and shoes Mom would take me downtown to Neusteter’s Department Store and the Buster Brown shop. We’d go to Campbell’s Cafe for hot roast beef sandwiches afterward . . . white packy bread covered in slices of savory roast beef, all drowned in brown gravy. My pre-adolescent hips must’ve been clapping their scrawny little hands just waiting for years to pass so they could catch me unaware and pack on some surprises.  

Eventually during elementary school, I started noticing other girls’ fashion choices, prompting a new resistance to shopping at  Neusteter’s and Buster Brown’s  in favor of Woolco clothes and Kinney’s shoes. The traditional struggle between mother and daughter over clothes began in earnest, though the odds, as they say, were not in my favor. She invariably won — except on one fateful day during a back-to-school shopping trip. A day which shall live in infamy. We were in the Girls’ Department at Neusteter’s.

Emblazoned in my brain is the exact location just over my right shoulder where the rack of dressy winter coats hung all in a row as soldiers poised for war, by which I, the Rock of Gibralter, remained perfectly still, absolutely refusing to try on the heavy camel coat my adversary held in front of me. I wanted a slick puffy colorful coat with a zipper and a hood just like all the other girls at school – most definitely not a scratchy double-breasted camel coat with large stylish buttons.  My strong-minded mother just could not fathom my words or my actions. Not sure if my kid Rock-of-G arms were folded across my chest but in my heart and soul they most certainly were. I stood my ground, heart pounding nearly outside my rib cage, nausea approaching the back of my throat.  Maybe it was indeed my thumping heart or the deafening tick-tocking of the Neusteader’s clock on the wall above the coat soldiers, but onward we two, mother and daughter, continued our struggle through the mighty din.  Time and I stood still. 

Wonder of wonders next thing I knew, my little legs were doing double time trying to keep up with Mother’s exceedingly straight back marching in front of me as we exited the store. She never even looked back to see if I got lost or if a stranger snatched me. 

Ha! Chalk one up for the kids everywhere.

In the mix during those golden kid years there was also a healthy dose of Shakespeare, especially when my dad was Dean of the Summer Session, the outdoor “Willy the Shake” festival landing squarely on his shoulders. (Dad,  you have to understand, had nicknames ranging from respectful to comedic to blush-inducing for much of the world’s contents. Thus, Shakespeare morphed into Willy the Shake) 

I sat between my parents on those cold concrete amphitheater benches during warm summer evenings and dutifully  absorbed culture.  Sadly, Dad learned another embarrassing parenting lesson one night,  however, when he realized I had actually listened to him when he sat me down earlier at home on the traditional Shakespeare instructional footstool and gave me a synopsis of Othello before the performance. At a particularly tense and quiet portion of Act 4 Scene 3 I stated loudly, “Here’s where  Emelia gets it!” 

Sorry again. Heh.

It was a fine fine life. A lovely existence. Undeserved perfection. 

Except for one thing.

Somewhere in the mix we left the church.

That statement comes bearing utmost respect, honor, and love for my parents. No criticism is intended whatsoever because I was the kid, not the decision maker.  I wasn’t an adult in the room where these issues arose.  I can only conjecture that my father was on the fast track at the university, a golden boy, a rising academic star. Along with that reputation came mighty expectations, obviously  a driving factor in their life planning.  And my intelligent, perceptive mother was highly aware of those academia undercurrents, subtle messages, raised eyebrows from faculty and administration when Joe and Dera’s association with a small evangelical denomination became known. These were the 60s for pity’s sake – campuses were ablaze with the Protest of the Day. Church was small potatoes in those circles. Mockery fodder.

We did not speak of it much throughout my growing up, the leaving that is, even when I went off the rails as a teenager who grew up without the church, without a church family, and without an understanding of my deep need.  The struggle for wholeness, purpose, and a Savior could not be pinpointed in my own mind, but almost every poor decision that surfaced over the years spoke directly into that lack in my existence. Even when the pendulum swung back a decade and a half later when the three of us landed with desperate expectation in Nazarene pews, feeling for all the world like home to me, we did not speak of the Leaving. 

The sixth chapter of Ezra in the Old Testament of the Bible speaks to the completion of the new temple and the celebration of Passover by the people as their worship life is restored. It marks the end of the “first stage – a generation long – of Israel’s rehabilitation” (Kidner). Joy returned. Encouragement came. Hands were strengthened in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel (v.22).  These ancient portions of scripture were compiled, it is generally thought, in the 5th century B.C., long before the coming of the Christ Child and the formation of the New Testament church as we understand it now. These same words ring true today in our modern situations of families, churches, denominations even, leaving their worship roots. But friends, scripture like this from Ezra, ancient scripture, shows there is and always has been hope. There is possible reconciliation. Joy is available.

God is God.

Still.

Always. 

Without any unnecessary drama folded into my own personal scene – just telling it like it is – it can be stated that at about age five or six, a brand new factory-fresh tumbleweed began to become loosened ever so slightly from its moorings. It was not aware of this loosening at the time. Not until much later. 

What had been well watered began to dry, to blow ever so imperceptibly with the wind.