Go Fly a Kite

There’s an often-repeated statistic that Bermuda has more churches per square mile than anywhere else in the world. I’m not wholly convinced that it’s true—after all, that’s a pretty hard fact to prove—but I do know that there are quite a few houses of worship here on the island. Literally, hundreds of churches in all denominations. That’s why today is a fairly big deal here in Bermuda. It’s Good Friday, a holiday observed by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. So what do believers in Bermuda do today? We fly a kite! Legend has it a local teacher was trying to demonstrate Christ’s ascension to heaven to her students, so she made a kite with a wooden frame in the shape of a cross and painted Jesus’ image on it. As it took off into the blue Bermuda sky, it symbolized his ascension—I’m sure a much easier concept for those young kids to grasp: Where did he go when he died? He went up. So from that day on, devout families island-wide started gathering at Horseshoe Bay Beach with kites of their own, flying them high to symbolize the sacrifice that Jesus made (so the story goes). As the Bermudian gentleman says about 2:51 through the above video, which was filmed at Horseshoe Beach on Good Friday in 2007, “Kite day is all about families in Bermuda. We all get together and have a good time on the beach and fly our kites and eat hot cross buns.” Sounds like a good time to me. I have a feeling I know where I’ll be today.