Josh and I had an eventful holiday weekend! We spent a couple of days with Mr. and Mrs. Desch in Peachtree City, which was fun. Josh went golfing on Saturday morning and it was pretty chilly, so he decided to golf in ski gloves. I told him that couldn't have been helpful to his score.
I got a kick out of how people described the conditions for this year's Masters Tournament, which just ended yesterday. We watched a lot of coverage on Saturday and then watched the finish last night. I repeatedly heard commentators and news people talking about the "brutal" conditions. The word "brutal" might bring some pretty extreme conditions to some of your minds, like wind chills in the negatives and heavy snow. But here in Augusta, "brutal" means temperatures in the low 50's. That's pretty bad. Come on people, low 50's is NOT cold and it's certainly not BRUTAL. I got a kick out of that. Now to be fair, it was very windy on Saturday and also breezy on Sunday, which I'm sure contributed to the assessment of the conditions. I watched the 11:00 news on Saturday night and the weatherman, in giving the weather forecast for Easter Sunday, said it was going to be another "cold" day with temperatures in the mid 50's. I would like to challenge most Augusta residents to go play golf in Minnesota between December and February. You'll learn real quick that Augusta has never seen weather to justify the assessment of "brutal." But all that aside, Josh and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Masters. It was kind of fun to watch something that's happening just a few miles down the road.
One highlight of the weekend was watching Mrs. Desch become acquainted with our digital camera. She and Mr. Desch are owners of a quite notorious film camera that they got at a yard sale which was to benefit Ugandan orphans. They claim that they paid about 10 cents for this fine piece of machinery. It's actually comical to pose in a Desch family picture, because the picture taker inevitably leaves the shutter closed or proceeds to hit the side of the 10 cent camera to make it take the picture. So you can imagine the leap from the 10 cent camera to a digital camera. This is not a feat for the faint of heart. Mrs. Desch repeatedly took a picture, switched the camera over to review mode to look at it, and pushed the trash can button to delete it. It's true that practice makes perfect, and she was really adhering to that saying. Get in picture taking pose (one leg stuck out a good bit, fingers moved from in front of the shutter), push the button, review the picture, throw it away, repeat. We got a good laugh out of the process. But I think she's now more comfortable with the camera! So it worked.
Last night we watched The Passion of the Christ with our small group from church. This was the first time that either Josh or I had seen it. It was a very powerful movie that left me humbled by my own participation in Jesus' crucifixion and also shocked at the gut-wrenching torture inflicted on him. I found myself really angry with Caiaphas and the other Jewish leaders and then it hit me- I would have done the exact same things had I been alive then. I would have been shouting for his crucifixion along with the crowd. It's nice to think that we don't really need Jesus- we would have been on HIS side. My sins aren't ugly enough to make me do what THEY did. But I realized that Jesus had to die for my sins every bit as much as those of the people shouting for his death. Another thing I contemplated was how even through all of that horrible, horrible suffering, Jesus didn't hate the people who were doing it to him, or the crowds who insisted that he was executed. He still loved them and was still willing to lay down his life to atone for their sins. Even the sins of the people who scourged him and made fun of him and crowned him with a crown of thorns. Can you imagine being tortured like that and not absolutely hating the people who were doing it to you? Revenge and hating people who have wronged you are such common themes in our culture today, prevalent in movies, books, music, etc. Jesus really practiced what he preached: "Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you." Love like that is just beyond my imagination.
So Josh and I had a wonderful Easter celebration, as we hope that you did.
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