Reflections on the meaning of Easter
Lady Easter Bunny’s broken heart
Excuse me while I put the finishing touches on the last Easter egg. [Several moments pass. . . Sound of dye splashing on smock. Muffled curses. Eggs hitting the driveway pavement.] There! That takes care of that. Uh huh. The Easter Bunny short a few eggs this year? Short one former friend. He and I are through. You’ll be celebrating the holiday how? By tearing down all my Easter Bunny posters. That all? No. Giving away the diamond earrings he gave me, the cashmere bathrobe and the scented bunny rabbit slippers. What about the silver cigarette case? I saw you pull out an Alfred Dunhill the other day. I’m keeping it. That and the Napoleon brandy. You need comforting. Yes. It’s not every day that a girl breaks up with the Easter Bunny. It’s so. . . so . . . (sob!) I can’t go on.
I’ll come back later. No. It makes me feel better to have you around. Really? I’m so glad! I feel so. . . rejected and worthless. Inferior. And I look at you and, well, it’s so reassuring. . . To have a friend? To know that someone else is even more worthless. Which reminds me. Would you hold this mop while I take the stage and accept my Oscar? What do I do with the mop? What do you think? Mop the floor, and when you’re done wag your tail and go fetch.
[Sound of Napoleon brandy popped open as the former Lady Easter Bunny swishes offstage. Cigarette lighter click, first puff. Sipping. Exhaling. Loud belch. Snoring.]
Princess Guinevere’s prince charming
You’re not in the mood for serious today? I’ve been thinking. When were you not? Reflections on the meaning of Christmas and Easter. It is Easter, you know. The Resurrection. Nothing to say about that? Sure! But it could require extra effort to make sense of what I have to say. Why? Jesus’ story had resonance in my family of origin. I grew up with it. As of six years ago I hadn’t noticed any resonance in yours. Maybe you grew up with it but it didn’t seem like it.
- For my mother and her mother Jesus’ story anchored what otherwise might have been lives lost to meaning and awareness. It was like a beacon in the darkness, and they held fast to it. To the compelling idea of character at the heart of it. Grandma personified it for me. She was its exemplar, a pillar of honesty and strength, until Jesus himself took over.
- My brother was attracted to the tribal aspects of the story. Its externals — church and ‘scriptures’. Centerpieces of ‘Christianity’ that some among us want to be the national tie that binds. He made an effort, but in the end personality and genetics got in the way. He seemed to miss the point of it.
- My Dad and older sister were so firmly fixed on their own stories that they could sit in church pews forever and the story of Jesus would blow right by them.
- For me it was the seed of character that grew from a vague impression into an oak. An object of respect and affection, sturdy and relatable, whose ultimate gift to me was a friend. Relatable, loving, and dependable.
Throughout the distinction to be made was between ‘Guide’ and ‘savior’. They aren’t the same. And over the years I came to realize that Jesus as ‘savior’ was a manipulation. That it had no relevance to me and my story but it seemed to satisfy the bulk of ‘Christianity’. That bought into the larger manipulation that all of humanity is a character in a melodrama of wrongdoing. Treachery and betrayal of our own doing, and our only recourse is to shrink into shame and guilt and hope to be rescued by magic. By a compassionate prince charming who will rescue us from eternal damnation. Carry Princess Guinevere off into an enchanted fairyland where all is forgiven and she can putter around the house all day without a care in the world.
Arrogance
You don’t think much of Church doctrine. No. And if you’ve absorbed it in the myth of the resurrection you won’t think much of my perspective either. My family is OK with the pleasantries of religion. Cultural markers. Sources of entertainment, but not much thought goes into it. Up go the symbolisms and down, and we move on. Like most of us, I suppose. Moving on from one marker to the next in a roundabout. You’d rather not go in circles? I will until I get what they’re telling us, that may take several revolutions. Then it’s time to move on.
Where to? To understanding the mentality behind the manipulations. Which is? The idea that impossibilities are possible. Not only that but real. The only possible reality, and if we don’t accept it we deserve eternal damnation. For what? For contradicting contradiction. For questioning authority that must never be questioned. Why? To prevent its being exposed to the truth. That it’s an impossibility. What is? Unquestioned authority. The idea that the way things are is the big picture. One big answer. Static. No movement, and therefore knowable. By its make-believer, a know-it-all. Beyond questioning. Arbitrary denial of movement and questioning. Arrogance.
The ultimate source of injustice and outrage in our make-believe world. Arrogance. And yet it’s nothing but a logical necessity. What logical necessity? That in the absence of a static-state big picture everything to be must have a reason for being. Subject to the limits of definition: what it is and what it does. Its function, or else it can’t be. Two-sided. What do you mean? One side definition by what is, the other by what isn’t. To understand make-believe is to understand that it’s one-sided arrogance. But more than that, that it’s mortally afraid of limits. Being make-believe, an impossibility, it has no definition of its own. Knock on its door and you’ll be greeted by not-being, a derivative of being. Forever dependent on the limits of its host. Denied limits of its own, and therefore ‘free’ to be whoever and whatever it wants. Arrogance.
Anchored in Definition
The persons that we are can’t be recognized by who we appear to be alone. We’re recognized by the persons that we aren’t. Ideas. Possibilities that can’t be recognized without pairing off with our opposites. Impossibilities. The idea of Movement. Life and Love, living and growing, loving and relating, evolving and creating, questioning and learning. That’s not its idea in reverse: a no-movement big answer that isn’t being or doing any of these things. An inert static-state. The pretense of ‘peace’ and ‘perfection’. Make-believe. A manipulation of common sense. Not the big picture but the big lie. The source of all the imagery of wrongdoing, death, and destruction that characterizes our world. Including the crucifix. The melodrama. Our ‘savior’ who ‘died for our sins.’
Jesus isn’t our savior? He didn’t die for our sins? Church malarkey. He’s Guidance come to help us do what we need to do for ourselves. Build character and prepare for the role offered to us where it’s not make-believe. Turning ourselves over to a ‘savior’ contradicts the whole idea of character. It reduces us to helpless ninnies who need someone to wipe our noses.
What role? To help administer the limits of Definition in Reality. Where the way things are isn’t going in circles. Where there’s meaning. Movement forward with Creation, and all its participants need Guidance from Definition. Why? Because Movement whether in Reality or make-believe carries its working elements into change. Into uncertainty – the unknown. Our situations hold onto their meaning and us our purpose only for as long as we’re defined by their limits. When things change their limits change, and we have to put our minds to work understanding what’s going on. How? By seeking, accessing, receiving, and aligning with Guidance. That’s anchored in Definition: the way things are.
Erroll Flynn just doing his part
This really does take some thought. The Church’s version of the story of Jesus is in direct contradiction of what it’s really about. Using our time on Earth not only to relate to Guidance but to assume its function. Not on Earth but when we’re free of it. Free of the nature of make-believe: mindless, loveless, and soulless. Predatory animal instinct at home in the wildness and willfulness of hierarchy, where anything goes in the competition for supremacy. In pointless nihilism, including senseless cruelties like crucifixions dressed up to look like gifts from loving kindness. When all they are is manipulations meant to keep us mired in the theatrics of self-destruction. Of make-believe.
You think I should leave Southern California? A simple realignment of ideas will do. A change of perspective. That recognizes the difference between the way things are and make-believe. A feat we’re all capable of. That is, those of us who can differentiate and empathize. Determined to build character, as you are.
Some aren’t? Humanity wants to evolve forward beyond species of ape. But like everything it’s accompanied by its reverse idea: its definition by what it isn’t, and that’s make-believe. Its function is to keep us honest. To provide the pushback that character needs to strengthen itself. So, in our theatre of the absurd some of us get to play do-gooders and others evil-doers. There being no distinction between worthy and unworthy so long as it’s all play-acting. While the idea of make-believe is antithetical to Movement it’s also a necessary concomitant of Movement when there’s no big picture. No big answer, which leaves only the possibility of questioning.
No shame or disgrace in one side or the other when the object is training that requires both. Then Erroll Flynn’s “Wicked, Wicked Ways” weren’t so wicked. Just doing his part. Helping all of us break free of make-believe and its manipulations. To evolve into a state that’s not manipulation. My goal anyway. To be a thorn in the side of anything make-believe.