Romans Taboo

Daddy made these cards tonight for a game of "Romans Taboo."  These are just a few of the cards - it's easy enough to make up the words, so I came up with quite a few Bible characters (and associated words you cannot say in the game), and quite easily, we came with a version of the classic game "Taboo" that had a Biblical slant, and perhaps more of a "Romans" slant as well.  There were plenty of kids tonight in the various classrooms attempting this game, and by all accounts, it seemed to go well.  It's a simple idea for an activity - one of our volunteers started with this idea, and we went from there with it!

So it's Wednesday, and we had the small groups tonight, and it was a fairly busy day today with lots of writing in different directions.  And meetings.  One direction may be shifting for KidPak, so we'll see how that pans out.  But everything works out, and we're not too stressed.  This is despite the fact that I've been up late working on this new series, writing, writing and writing... it might be that all this work was not for next month, but instead for something coming in August instead.

Yes, we had this meeting today about Easter, and we know the general look of things - they're wanting to do a helicopter egg drop, which is something we've seen other churches and communities do, but not yet here at our church.  Only recently did we start the egg hunts again, which we stopped doing some time ago because they were these massive enterprises that involved thousands of eggs... and were all gone in less than a few minutes.

But we're starting that up again lately, and the hope is that by adding other activities, there'll be more to actually do at one of these events.  We've done the last few years.  We had a place where kids, families and awkward adults could pose with the Easter Bunny.  We've had food trucks.  There are other activities planned, hence the meeting today, but the one topic of conversation kept coming back to this helicopter dropping eggs from the sky to the earth below, where kids would rush afterwards to gather said eggs.

I'm not entirely sure where this fits in with the whole mythology of Easter.  Growing up, we have had the bunny, baskets with chocolate rabbits and green plastic grass, and then finding hidden eggs.  All that is odd enough, of course, and has nothing to do with the actual story of Jesus' resurrection.

But now there's this growing business of dropping eggs from a helicopter to add to the mix.  It's very popular, and in fact some might argue the main purpose of helicopters in the first place, along with scenic tours of Gatlinburg.

I imagine there are helicopter pilots out there that raise their fees around Easter time because they know there will be a higher demand on their services, because some church or community wants to hire you to drop eggs from your helicopter.

I'm sure there are all kinds of requirements from some sort of Helicopter Egg Drop Organization (HEDO).  For example:  How high is the helicopter from the ground when the eggs drop?  Because this might result in broken eggs if the height is too much.  At this meeting, we were hearing eight feet, which isn't exactly super high.  Looking at other egg drops, these seem to look like they're higher up than that.

No matter the specific requirements, here's the imagery:  a helicopter flies up, and somebody dumps a whole lot of Easter eggs out of either some buckets or plastic bags, and all these colorful eggs plummet down onto the grass below.  When everything is safe, the kids race out there and battle for the eggs, and everyone trusts everyone else not too collect too many, because we want everyone to get the same amount of eggs, and we're all here sharing this wonderful experience, and ... hey, that kid has twenty-five eggs!  Get him!

Amazingly, a quick search of the internet reveals that this phenomenon of helicopter egg drops has spread throughout the country.  Go ahead.   Look it up.  I dare you.  Helicopters are everywhere at Easter, dropping eggs.  It's like an infestation.  

So now, this next generation will have something else to think about at Easter time.

Q:  What is Easter to you?
A:  Bunnies, baskets, eggs, and helicopters.

Somewhere along the line, there was one guy who owned a helicopter, and he thought he'd be really creative and drop eggs from a helicopter and be done with it.  He knows he's the first one to do this.  Does he know what he started?  Does he know how much of a big deal this has turned into?  Is he quietly snickering, thinking, "I thought that one up."  Or is he lamenting the fact that it has gotten so overblown?  Or... is he thinking, "Yes!  I've done something positive for our helicopter piloting community?"

Either way, someone else saw what he did, and thought it would be fun to do as well.  And now it has spread like an airborne virus, helicopters with eggs.

I do not doubt for a second that there are people online advertising specifically for this sort of thing, should you be interested in having helicopters drop eggs for your event.  And again, I have no idea why people are so fascinated by this.  Wouldn't a hot air balloon be more visually friendly?

Anyway, this helicopter thing just keeps going on and on, and I'm afraid it's happened so much that it's become just as much a tradition as bunnies, eggs, and baskets.  As you can tell, to me, it's so incredibly... odd.  I mean, none of those things (eggs, bunnies, baskets) have anything to do with each other... or, even the Bible.

Unless of course there's some scripture in Revelation similar to: "And lo, the flying beast hovered high above, raining down upon the earth many eggs of every color, and behold!  Each one was filled with treasures of varying kinds for children therein."

So yeah.  It's odd.  But now I guess it is somewhat expected.  And that's the point of this quasi-rant:  helicopters are dropping eggs so much that it is expected, and now a weird tradition.  And weird traditions go on and on and you wonder where they came from to begin with, while at the same time you do them anyway because they're weird traditions.

Still, we're in the planning stages for this weird tradition.  Unfortunately, our campus is not entirely equipped for this sort of thing.  The recommendations I've seen online for an event like this are:

1.  A helicopter.
2.  A large field.

I think we can get one of those things to our main campus.  That's right, the large field is a challenge.  Because we don't have one.  But... we're a bunch of smart people in a room, and surely we can think up something to get a helicopter to do, right?

There's not much time until Easter!  Look here for pictures of helicopters and Easter eggs at our church.  It'll be one weird tradition you won't want to miss.  Madison hasn't seen this before, and in fact, neither have Mommy or Daddy.  That said, we're all rather looking forward to it, in a sort of "wow, not every day you see thousands of eggs drop out of a helicopter" sort of way.

Completely changing the subject, Madison is doing insanely good in school lately.  Her lowest average is a 93, and that's in science.  She's got a few 95's and a few 100 averages for those classes like PE and Health.  She's doing really good, getting better and better, and filled with confidence.  It's great to see.

We talked for a while on the phone today, mainly because Daddy couldn't come home today.  We saw each other this morning, but the day was so busy that we missed out on each other at home this afternoon.  But she's doing fine, still practicing her piano and still doing homework here or there.  She has a "rewards day" coming up on Friday, which is the last day of the quarter, and she's going to that because of her good behavior and grades - she's looking forward to it.  The rain might keep her indoors, but it's still going to be fun.  Also at the school:  a play.  We're going to see the school play, "Seuss Jr.," but we're actually going to go see it at the high school, because they have a better theater than there is at the middle school.  So we'll get a peek at North Forsyth High School.  That'll be a fun event, and Madison is looking forward to seeing her friends on the stage.

In the meantime, Daddy is writing for Madison's part on the stage.  This Sunday promises to be a really busy day, and there's a lot of work to be done.  We'll get going on that now, in fact.  I think I've written enough for the day, but it's been a good one.  A busy one, but a good one.