How to Celebrate Easter - Please Call Easter Something Else

I cannot call the celebration Easter for myself, because in my childhood, the event was more horrible than the three funerals I attended before my 5th birthday. The very word "Easter" nearly creates a post traumatic stress symptom set in my behaviors. The only positive aspect of the ordeal was the lovely color of dyed eggs and the aroma of vinegar employed to set the dye.

As an adult, the associated trauma was cured when I chose my own church, which uses the term Resurrection Day. That's something to to look forward to! It's not "buried alive in the ground day."

We have happy music and even use some of the same faith-filled songs on both Christmas and Resurrection Day. These upbeat numbers in particular include He's Alive, The Hallelujah Chorus, You Can't Keep a Good Man Down, some old hymns, and some new songs our Bible College musicians have written. On "Good Friday", the celebration is such that attendees feel as if they were in another world. Many where prayer shawls and skull caps - incuding some women - and blow shofars amid a party atmosphere. If you don't have a shofar, bring a whistle. Not all of the music or the message is up tempo, but people leave the service feeling encouraged, rather than hopeless.

But in the bad old days of the dark corners of "Easter"...

When I was a child, there were no religious practices in my home. There was a Bible in the far corner on a dusty table in the living room, but I was not permitted to open it. It was "for show" because "people expected it." Thus, I never knew what was in it.

However, we were taught about the Christian religious holidays in public school until that practice was banned.

At Easter, we used to purchase cottage cheese in containers printed with the Easter Bunny and colored eggs. We'd find some pink or green plastic celophane "grass" and stuff the little baskets and take them to school to receive some jellybeans and a chocolate rabbit. There was more emphasis placed upon the secular celebration than the story of Jesus, but some of the candy eggs showed a cross on their foil wrappers. It was confusing.

At Chirstmas in my house, there was a nativity scene, but it had Santa and 8 reindeer on the roof. Very confusing. Especially so, since from the time I was 1 year old, I had watched the news, where reporters talked about Santa's Helpers and how the "Santas" adorning rooftops were made of cardboard. Why, one reporter even showed how to put one together on the air.

All in all, I didn't much like Santa, because I thought he was a fake from the beginning. To me, so was the Easter Bunny. And I knew there was no Tooth Fairy early on. Fortunately, I learned about an overarching Spirit of Christmas that has nothing to do with the secular Santa figure - except in the sense of giving. And that is good. The film The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe used Santa as a harbinger of Jesus Christ, and I rather liked that - giving to one another because God gave everything to us.  

In fact, I think the secular and the faithful celebrations can exist side-by-side for many holidays. I don't care about the aspects of faith holidays coming from other belief sets or even non-beliefs, because people can make their own traditions and make customs mean anything they like in their own lives. Where children are concerned, I think parents must simply be careful what they present and make sure the kids understand what is going on, whether it is a wedding, a funeral, or a high holiday.

Because of the public school education of me about holidays ("D@#n, they cost money!"), I also received a yearly Easter Basket at home for about 5 years. I did not miss they when they stopped appearing, however.

It was fun to color eggs, though, and I learned Ukrainian Egg decorating (pysanky) in experimental Russian classes at the end of elementary school. I still like to color eggs - from those coloring kits in the supermarket to the pysanky, even to 100-year Japanese tea eggs. It's all fun and I can think about the egg as a symbol for new birth. It gives hope every time a new egg is laid or a new chick hatches, or a new child is born. There is always hope as long as life continues. Resurrection is about hope just as much as is the legend of the Phoenix rising from the ashes.

The spring that the Easter Baskets disappeared, I was taken to a large, dark, melancholy church on Good Friday. I was taken out of school half a day early to attend. My parents did not tell me why they were taking me out of school or where we were going beforehand. My first reaction was that this was a funeral.

It was.

I'd never been in a church service before, and it was sickening. The huge pipe organ sounded out of tune in its dirges, the air was thick with dust and smelled bad, the altar was draped in black, and the minister read somberly from the Bible, from which I had never heard before - about death and descending into Hell. My mother actually started to get sick.

The service lasted less than an hour and Jesus was left in the tomb and in Hell. We did not return on Sunday, but I was forced to attend two more of these yearly Friday horror productions.

I decided I'd find out about it all on my own as an adult. However, I had dreams and visions of being buried alive for a month that summer, before the horror passed away. I still loved the eggs and the vinegar aroma.

The first thing I did after I left home to work and attend college was to go to church the first Sunday. It was a much different service than the old Good Friday horror show, but rather empty of meaning. The music was better, though.

After trying out several churches over a decade, I chose a nondenominational church that uses happy music and sermons that are practical and ring true. Sometimes the words are not what people want to hear, but it is sometimes what they need to hear, to shake them from complacency and irrational fears. They are neither always happy words nor always words of warning, but a combination that is representative of real life and sincere hopes to provide guidance and Hope. Further, I also watch Joel Osteen on the air and his message is Hope all the way, for anyone and everyone. His message is a good addition to the local church.

We have Bible College students of all ages up through the 80s and from dozens of countries around the world. Native Americans from the West have come to our Bible College and taken back spirit and knowledge to deal with the troubles on the reservations that sometimes arise. I am overwhelmingly joyful about this and it makes me dance!

We have helped in Sudan and were some of the the first truckloads of help at Hurricane Katrina, our members starting out in semis as soon as the hurricane looked definitely to be headed for New Orleans. We help run Endtime Joseph Feed the Hungry, which sends a large freighter ship to other nations -in South America and Africa - with hundreds of tons of food a year and people that teach the starving to farm. Some devices are avaiable now that draw fresh water out of the air in countries that have no water. This is resurrection.

And Resurrection Day is a time of Hope. It's just as good a hope as the hope for the future that followers of Gene Roddenberry have said that he gave to peope via his Star Trek® franchise. That IS hope and while I enjoy the space opera franchise, Resurrection Day can still include my favorite eggs and the resurrection of starving people and nations.

My father was allergic to chicken and eggs; I have always loved them.