Fish. It's a Christian thing, apparently.Now then, secular Easters are a bit problematic for me. I could see the point of a Christian one, although the notion of fasting and penance and then the great rejoicing at the resurrection seemed a bit odd; after all, we knew how the story was going to end.
Mind you, we were a bit restrained in our church anyway. Anglican, you know. But they did give us Cadbury's Cream Eggs at Sunday School, and explained that the egg symbolised Christ in the cave; the brown chocolate is the rock, the white gloop is the shroud, and the yellow bit in the middle is Jesus.
Quite apart from the appalling sweetness of cream eggs, where the sugar is practically crystallising out on your teeth, this story was enough to make eating them seem somehow cannibalistic and necrophiliac.
Having shrugged off that side of things, along, apparently, with most of the population, I seem to be left with the Feast of Chocolate. Families have Easter egg hunts, apparently, and the supernatural agent is the Easter Bunny.
I'm a bit bewildered.
Easter Sunday: young K says, "What are we going to do for Easter?"
Me: "We could go to church if you like...."
K: *makes rude noises indicating disgust at notion*
So it goes. She attends a Unitarian church when not with me. It sounds a bit like cheese and wine christianity. Spirituality is elsewhere.
So we go on a bike ride, in search of spring.
I've never felt the need of a religion to help me celebrate living and surely Spring is the great re-awakening after the winter sleep?
ReplyDeleteI agree. But I also like the use of ritual to mark arrivals and passings. If I use a Christian frame for that sometimes, it's because I was brought up in that tradition and I'm nodding back at that sense of wonder I had back then. And I like old architecture, which might be a theologically suspect motive but works for me. This, from R S Thomas, strikes a chord:
ReplyDeleteReligion is over,
And what will emerge from the body of the new moon,
no one can say,
But a voice sounds in my ear: Why so fast mortal?
These very seas are baptised.
The parish has a saints name time cannot unfrock.
In cities that have outgrown their promise
People are becoming pilgrims again,
If not to this place,
Then to the recreation of it in their own spirits.
You must remain kneeling.
I like to make my own rituals... though I have felt the power of some Christian ones... one of the most powerful was a friend's baby's baptisim but then next one I went to was so lacking in anything it clearly isn't always present.
ReplyDeleteFunny things rituals!
Yes, you get out of them what you put into them, I suppose. One of my favourites was an anglo-saxon wart charming I performed on a senior engineer chap, a few years ago.I put lots of headology into it; he got quite worried; "Nothing bad's going to happen?" he asked....
ReplyDelete