Now on such an auspicious day you might expect me to piss all over the holiday and start reciting facts and figure to disprove the story, or compare it to other religious resurrections stories, but I'm not going to.
Actually I have always quite liked Easter.
I like dying eggs, I like organizing Easter egg hunts, and I like chocolate bunnies.
Much like Christmas, once you remove all of the religious parts it is a pretty nice little holiday. (And of course much like Christmas, the best parts were stolen from the pagans.)
When I was a boy we always spent Easter at my grandmother's and she always had a nice ham, and treats for the kids. Plus, as an added benefit, since it was Easter everybody tried not to yell at us too much.
And earlier that morning my mother would have hidden our baskets and left clues written as a poem on little pieces of paper to guide us to their locations. (We used to love that!)
It was always a nice day to spend with the family, and I have nothing but great memories.
Still worth it, got candy.
My Easters were very church-related, but they were nice as well.
ReplyDeleteLiving in northern Minnesota, I was mostly happy that it was spring; flowers, strawberries, kittens and calves.
You guys were cute. I can see your single mom tried really hard.
Cute photo, cute kids! My Easters were church related also but to me Easter has always meant spring and warm sunny days to come. The religious part was always a downer for me but there is no way to diminish the joy of spring in nature.
ReplyDeleteWe celebrate major Christian holidays by folding in secular (or original pagan) themes. So today is hurray for babies day! This includes kittens, puppies, and Peeps.
ReplyDeleteBut,but.......NOT "dying" is what Easter be all about........(Spelling Police here)........
ReplyDeleteThe dying eggs did make me laugh, though.
DeleteDying, dyeing, Easter means never having to correct for spelling.
DeleteAll I could think was poor, sad little eggs.
DeleteHappy Easter!
ReplyDelete(from another atheist)
And another.
DeleteLinguistically, the word Easter comes to us from the name of an old Germanic goddess of fertility, Oestre. It's also the root of word estrogen. Spring is quite obviously a time of fecund earth bursting with life with flowers and bunnies and eggs! I'm delighted that the rituals celebrating the (ahem) reason for the season are in obvious display on the Dying God's death day.
ReplyDeletePeculiarity of English (a very peculiar language). In other languages the root is pacs or pasq (like Pasqua, Paques, Pascua, etc - relating to passover.
DeletePalm Sunday sucked donkey balls, hour long gospel on your feet, almost equally long sermon of the same rehashed crap. But Easter, party on. New clothes, CHOCOLATE BUNNIES!!!!! and Easter eggs with a huge feast after the egg hunt. Loved it, almost as much as Christmas.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm driving in the Tok, Alaska area yesterday and the radio channels are limited. The only station I could get well was a Christian station. Tok and Glenallen are bastions of conservative fundie Christiandom. Anyway, normally I would just plug in my mp3 player and call it good, but there was a conversation with a minister and a "Doctor" Somebody, about the meaning of Easter. The "Doctor" was evidently a Dr of Christian studies. I was listening to their twisted logic about their strange beliefs and was thinking, "Man, they are way out there." and "I can't believe they are proudly espousing how ignorant they are on the radio, and trying to convert others to their convoluted thinking".
ReplyDeleteSo their basic argument was, Easter is the most important day of the christian year, because God sacrificed his only son for our sins, then brought him back to life to rule by God's side, which means we can all live in heaven if only we accept that "fact".
The first problem I had with their thinking, was, "How was it a sacrifice if Jesus rose from the dead to rule heaven with God"? God didn't lose anything. It would have been a real sacrifice if Jesus had stayed dead. Seriously, where is the sacrifice? I guess this is why I'm not cut out to be a Christian. I can't unquestioningly accept the BS people pass off to try to control my life.
You have to really turn your brain off to be a Christian.
So I'm thinking...... "Ho
Those were the kinds of questions that got me in trouble in catechism classes. It always seemed to me that they were trying to invoke emotions and make human comparison to God. Kind of like they rile up emotions about the abortion crap. As a child, it seemed to me that giving God human emotions belittled the God that they are trying to tell me is all powerful.
DeleteWhen I was about 9 or 10 (50+ years ago), I was in Sunday school in the weeks leading up to Easter. The young teacher had left his schedule book open on the table, and when I glanced at it I saw upcoming Easter Sunday highlighted with a note by it: "Like man, it's Easter." That changed everything for me. If my teacher could describe the big day in a slang phrase, nothing seemed sacred to me anymore. I loved that awakening.
Delete"You really have to turn your brain off to be a Christian."
DeleteYEP!
I have a Tok.story. When I was heading back outside in'87 , my rig broke down about 20 miles"East' of Tok. I sat there saying many many finely tuned expletives as I figured out what was wrong and the light waned. I saw a raggity truck coming down the road, and a young man and his wife offered me a tow back to Tok. Of course I accepted. Upon arrival, I offered to pay for their time and gas, but they said no, but offered me come Christian literature. I took it and they were off. Not much good radio there, but in true Alaska tradition, there was help for a stranded motorist.
DeleteI kept it as fire starter in case of another break down. I'm sure "Gawd" would have been cool with that.
VernD
You kids are darling in that photo! Enjoy your chocolate bunny, IM! Happy Day!
ReplyDeleteI was raised Roman Catholic, so we did the traditional Easter thing as kids with church, ham dinner and jelly bean hunts (instead of eggs...if you miss any they don't smell in a couple of months!).
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother, however, was Ukrainian Catholic so, since that Easter is almost always on a later Sunday, we got to have a repeat. We only did the scary women-crawling-on-their-knees-to-the-altar thing in a Brooklyn church when I was REALLY little, but I remember going to the church basement where all the baskets of food were waiting to be blessed. Kielbasa, babka, eggs, and salt were nestled in baskets lined with the most beautiful embroidered cloths. When the basement doors opened, the smell of yeasty bread and garlic from the kielbasa nearly knocked you over!
Then we got to go home to dinner of holuptsi (stuffed cabbage), pirohi, and the kielbasa we'd been drooling over all morning. Although I have long since left the practice of any religion, in honor of my Ukrainian roots, my Easter dinner tonight will consist of pirohi and kielbasi - and some holuptsi if I have any left in the freezer down in the basement!
What a sweet picture! I'm glad to hear you had good memories, G. too. I think we all have a reservoir of good in between the bad; one thing, most parents did the best they could with what they knew how to do it with. We are all, in some way, broken toys.
ReplyDeleteThis is why the Resurrection has such a beautiful story. It's a spiritual renewal story which gives millions hope that there is more to this sorry temporal life. Doesn't anyone get a little excitement reading fantasy, for instance, like Tolkien's "Grey Havens", a portal to heaven, where it's pure and lacking in evil and sickness and pain and grief and loss......
A plan. One did all the work, took the sin of the world, and for that, everyone can know it's not just a fantasy.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA Sheep will believe anything.
DeleteI'm not a broken toy.
DeleteWhat a strange thing to say.
Somebody should write a BOOK about it! With a pretty Easter basket on the front cover full of colored eggs in it, with a chocolate bunny in the middle of them!
ReplyDeleteHappy Zombie Day Gryphen!
ReplyDeleteEaster is the renewal...spring coming, flowers & babies. You can drag the religious fantasies into every holiday....let them knock themselves out. It is just fun for kids!
ReplyDeleteMy Dad always made sure we went to Sunday school on Easter, not just church, because they gave away tomato plants. (He never went to church). We were to get our plants, bring them home and give them to him so he could plant them in the garden.
ReplyDeleteI didn't really love the egg hunt as I wasn't wild about hard boiled eggs. (Until I grew up and learned to make pesto deviled eggs.) But I did like the basket with the chocolate bunny, peeps and jelly beans. I also liked getting a new dress and shoes each year. Easter was when I could start wearing white shoes. Then I had to switch to black on Labor Day. Yes, my Mom was one of those.
I'm just in it for the chocolate. I think Jesus was (or would be) too.
ReplyDeletePretty snazzy photo! I think my granny had a similar lamp! Yeah, I was first generation Italian Roman Catholic, lots of great memories. They would line up for procession, the women were barefoot, and walk through the neighborhood pinning money on a statue of the Madonna, while the women showed their blistered bloody feet and yelled "Guarda!" ("Look!") while pointing down. Then they all sped home to feast as a family. It was always Lasagana or pasta and Ham, Lamb, Sweet Potato, etc. and the same stories and jokes year after year. Good memories. The only thing I don't miss is "Catholic Aerobics". Sit stand kneel line up, kneel sit stand etc etc etc....
ReplyDeleteEven as a kid I have never liked Easter. It just always was the one holiday I'd prefer to forget. I don't like the pastels, I don't like the jumble of symbology. I wasn't "churched" so there was never a coherent idea of what the day was supposed to be for. It always hopped around on the calendar, the Easter bunny never had a strong mythos like Santa Claus. And then there are baby ducks for some reason.
ReplyDelete