When I was growing up, Easter was all about getting a new dress with a puff skirt, and black patent leather shoes, and a new Easter bonnet. My mother would make pastel colored eggs, and there was a big TO DO over the Easter basket. As a spoiled-rotten kid, although I had to hunt for the basket, and my mother was pretty good at hiding it in places so obvious as to be overlooked, once I discovered the large basket, wrapped with colored cellophane, there would be enough jelly beans, marshmallow chicks, and chocolate bunnies to last until the 4th of July.
There was a greater significance to the holiday, though. Easter marked the end of a penitential time during which we “gave up something” for Lent, and ate no meat, only fish, in honor of Christ’s suffering and death on the cross. The altar at church was draped with the Color Purple, a color that I always now associate with penitence, and mourning for one’s own transgressions.
For Christians, Easter is a more important holiday than Christmas because it symbolizes man’s own chance at immortality, i.e. “everlasting life.”
One time, my late brother Steve and I were talking and he got onto his favorite subject of religion. He asked me various questions such as if I thought Jesus rose from the dead, performed miracles, and walked on water? His main question for me was “How Big is Your God?” He told me, “My God can do anything. He can do everything! How Big is Your God?”
I respect the rights of people to have their own personal beliefs. My own Austrian great-grandmother was Jewish. Today, other family members are Jewish. I am not. We each have to choose our own spiritual path, even if that means not following any particular religion, but having deep seated beliefs, nonetheless. Having faith is slightly different than having religion, although sometimes the two states co-exist.
This afternoon, I have recorded a Christian song, “Were You There?”
For those of you who are Christians, Happy Easter! For those of you who have some other belief system, God Bless You. Indeed, may God in His infinite wisdom and mercy, bless us all.
Patricia
