I am not a big fan of Easter. As a secular holiday, it leaves much to be desired. Many other holidays are easy to secularize but Easter, despite fluffy bunnies and chocolate eggs aplenty, Easter is for the Christians.
Growing up Easter was a time to get together with family, usually my mom, my brother, myself and my maternal grandparents. Easter meant a big family dinner where we were allowed to have ham instead of turkey. Since my mother was a lackluster cook, turkey meant choking down dry meat with gravy on the first day and increasingly inedible leftovers for the week. Ham, on the other hand, was hard to screw up and I delighted in its salty goodness at Easter.
Church-going at Easter was something I dreaded. Christmas was about goodness, innocent babes in mangers, angels on high, togetherness and gifts and love and hope. Easter was all about crucifiction, sin, evilness, separation, and death. Easter sermons often made me cry. One of the fathers of a boy in our youth group was enthusiastic in his descriptions of the suffering of the crucified. Perhaps Mel Gibson heard him speak. Oh sure, Jesus rose again and still loved us, but that part of it was always tacked on to the end after a long sermon about the suffering Jesus endured at human hands (my hands). If not for the fact that we were (I was) so irredemably sinful, the precious son of God would not have had to buy back our chance at Heaven through his own blood and pain and suffering...a debt man (I) could never possibly repay.
Well indoctrinated into this philosophy as a child, even now I still feel the shadow of guilt and sickness of spirit pass over me as Easter ticks across my calendar. Meanwhile, my sweet girl remains uninitiated and struggles to understand why Easter is about bunnies and eggs. I long for the day when she's old enough to listen with me to the late, lamented comic genuis of Bill Hicks:
Growing up Easter was a time to get together with family, usually my mom, my brother, myself and my maternal grandparents. Easter meant a big family dinner where we were allowed to have ham instead of turkey. Since my mother was a lackluster cook, turkey meant choking down dry meat with gravy on the first day and increasingly inedible leftovers for the week. Ham, on the other hand, was hard to screw up and I delighted in its salty goodness at Easter.
Church-going at Easter was something I dreaded. Christmas was about goodness, innocent babes in mangers, angels on high, togetherness and gifts and love and hope. Easter was all about crucifiction, sin, evilness, separation, and death. Easter sermons often made me cry. One of the fathers of a boy in our youth group was enthusiastic in his descriptions of the suffering of the crucified. Perhaps Mel Gibson heard him speak. Oh sure, Jesus rose again and still loved us, but that part of it was always tacked on to the end after a long sermon about the suffering Jesus endured at human hands (my hands). If not for the fact that we were (I was) so irredemably sinful, the precious son of God would not have had to buy back our chance at Heaven through his own blood and pain and suffering...a debt man (I) could never possibly repay.
Well indoctrinated into this philosophy as a child, even now I still feel the shadow of guilt and sickness of spirit pass over me as Easter ticks across my calendar. Meanwhile, my sweet girl remains uninitiated and struggles to understand why Easter is about bunnies and eggs. I long for the day when she's old enough to listen with me to the late, lamented comic genuis of Bill Hicks:
I was over in Australia during Easter, which was interesting. Interesting to note they celebrate Easter the same way we do: commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus.. by telling our children a giant bunny rabbit left chocolate eggs in the night. Now, I wonder why we're fucked up as a race. Anybody got any clues out there? Where do you get this shit from? Why those two things? Why not goldfish left Lincoln logs in your sock drawer? As long as we're makin' shit up, go hogwild, you know? At least a goldfish with a Lincoln log on its back going across your floor to your sock drawer has a miraculous connotation to it. "Mummy, I woke up today and there was a Lincoln log in me sock drawer!"... "That's the story of Jesus!" Who comes up with this shit? I've read the Bible, I can't find the word 'bunny' or 'chocolate' anywhere in that fuckin' book.
Miranda's first year at Sunday school included an Easter Week lesson about Jesus's crucifixion... to be followed up a week later with a lesson about his resurrection. Miranda certainly suffered for a week and the joyful message wasn't much consolation at the end of that time. Mary was put off the idea of Sunday school for her until such time as they had a different set of teachers and/or curricula.
Heh.
You should know that even though I'm not commenting, I'm reading (and loving) your weblog regularly! :)
Was shopping yesterday and saw some discounted Easter chocolate. If a tenuous connection (fertility symbols, spring festivals) can be made linking the crucifixion and ressurection with chocolate eggs and rabbits, exactly what Easter message do chocolate Spider-Man and (I'm not kidding) Hula Hippos transmit about the Passion?
Spike (who was also the Anonymous of the Sunday school message above)