Easter and other like days....

I'm not a religious person. I tried to be at one time in my life. I was born into a Catholic family and have had nearly all the Catholic Blessed Sacraments. I sang in the church choir, served on the liturgical committee and the Human Service committee at my church. I made banners and decorated and kept vigils. I was into it for a while. But then I realized I was into it for the wrong reasons. I wasn't into it because I felt connected to it in any way. I was doing it for my Mom. Now, that in itself might seem like an okay reason but when you're talking about the subject of faith and fervent beliefs, I think there should be more meat to that bone. When I stopped to really meditate and think about it, there was a lot of things that organized religion did and still does that I absolutely cannot agree with. And I saw no way to pull it into the new age so that is when I knew I had to part company and find my own way.

And now it is Easter. Easter is a very special time for all Christians. The resurrection of the Messiah is what they've all been waiting for and this Holy Week, with all it's distinct ceremonies, leads up to the glory of this even nicely. I can appreciate the history and pageantry of it all. But again, I'm left with too many questions to truly believe.

So what do I believe and why do I get into the holidays so much? I mean, most of our celebrated holidays have something to do with Christianity. Christmas, well that's a no brainer...the birth of Jesus. Easter...his death and resurrection. Even Thanksgiving was a celebration to God for getting the Pilgrims through a rough winter. I love the holidays - all of them. And I don't just celebrate them in a secular way either. I find there is meaning in the spirituality of it all. And maybe that's what I believe in. I am a spiritual being. We all are. Whether we define our spirituality with the name of some organized religion or not, we all aspire to a higher being. God? Not sure. For some, God is very real but so is Allah and Krishna and any number of other deities. Certainly, they can't all be wrong. I don't feel the need to identify the higher being. No name needed nor any description or tales of great exploits. This being is within me and everyone I meet. And my prayer is that quiet time I take to just listen to my breathing and the beating of my heart. Each beat, each breath tells me to do good, be calm, take pride, go forward, live, laugh and love. And that is what I do every day but on the holidays it is amplified a hundred fold. The importance of being with those we love, to laugh, to eat, to just be in their presence cannot be stressed enough. It's good for our souls.

So, no matter what you believe or how you celebrate I wish you all a very Happy Easter from the bottom of my heart. I hope your day is filled with new birth and a sweet start to only good things!

Easter aftermath and moving on...

Easter is a strange holiday for we non-believers. It is mostly a day full of food and chocolate which, in itself, is a good thing. Mine was also filled with way more golf than I would have liked but being a non-golfer forced to watch the Master's Tourney I guess that's to be expected. Still, it was a nice break from the norm and, as I said, there was plenty of good food.

So, now it's another Monday. All of the same worries are still here. Still not sure what's happening with my father in law. He's not well and no one can really say why. We tossed about whether or not we needed to board a plane immediately and go to him but there is really nothing we can do so we wait. And wait. It's maddening. I think it's a very good thing that he is Sweden though. If he were here, he would have been released from the hospital far too soon and his crisis would have escalated and continued in a very bad way. As it is, there is comfort knowing he is being well taken care of and in a safe place. Yet, we worry every day and hope for the best. We are going to have to go there sometime soon. It's just in figuring out when that's the key.

Back at work and met with the usual suspects at the door at 7:00 this morning. So it goes. There's comfort in knowing somethings never change but it's also that unchanging routine that makes me long to get away. I have a vacation request on my desk but I'm not sure if I'm going to turn it in or not. It's there if I need it. I'm feeling like I need it but we'll see.

On the home front, everything is status quo. My mother, who is ailing, is holding her own. She had a good Easter for what that's worth. At least she was with family but she cannot hear and barely speaks so it's difficult to know how much of it she actually enjoyed. Maybe she enjoyed it. She was tired and looked drawn so it's hard to tell. Ah well. Life goes on.

Easter break and Easter past...

I had a three day weekend off from work due to this being Easter weekend. For some reason, our agency is closed on Good Friday which is unusual because most places remain open these days. Whatever...I'll take it. I've been using the time wisely. Doing almost absolutely nothing, getting some well deserved rest and loving it. I spent some time decorating some eggs. I went very minimal this year.


Some of my family attended church on Friday. Again on Saturday and, of course, tomorrow, Easter Sunday. I used to attend church regularly. It was a big part of my life but I realized that it was primarily due to the fact that my mother was the driving force in my religious life. What she said, went. She could shame you in a heart beat if you missed Mass. So, clearly, I was not going for the right reasons. I have my own sense of spirituality. I'm just not sure I believe in a god.

Easter in the past used to be one of those fun holidays. I couldn't wait to see what the Easter Bunny brought me each year. There were always eggs, tons of them all hand dyed by me and my siblings. There was candy! Peeps, of course, and those chewy chocolate covered marshmallow eggs that come in the egg box that looks like real eggs. Love those! And the jelly beans. There would always be some kind of toy or game in the basket too - sometimes coloring books, new crayons or maybe bubbles. I love bubbles.

These days, Easter is getting together and eating lots of ham, or lamb, and then sitting around digesting for a couple of hours. We don't hunt eggs or get a basket any more. Sometimes it sucks being a grown up.

Anyway, Happy Easter to everyone!

Glad Påsk, Happy Easter or whatever you all celebrate or call it...

Easter used to be a big deal for me as a kid. Well, isn't it for most kids? I mean, sure, you get dressed up like a monkey and dragged to church but there was all that candy! Baskets full of chocolate, just for me! What's not to love?

Of course, these days in my adult skin, it's not quite so thrilling. I don't dress up and go to church anymore. I had a chance to rethink that whole organized religion thing over the years and, yeah, not so much...
But this year there will be some throw back memories to be had. My sister is having us all over for dinner which in true Patsy's tradition will be enormous! She makes all of her own Easter candy so there will be loads of that too. But the truly fun part is that this year we are having a grown up Easter egg hunt. Hundreds of tiny plastic eggs will be hidden in her yard and they will be filled with....are you ready for this?... JELLO SHOTS!!! w00t!! So if you don't hear much from me on Monday, you now know why.

Happy Easter everyone!

I'll take one Easter bonnet with ear flaps, please.

It's spring right? I mean, the first day of spring was just one day ago, wasn't it? Then why is there a winter snow warning here and why is it a complete white out situation outside and why do we now have 7 inches of snow with a prediction of 15 inches? Aaarghhh!

I had to go out in this stuff this morning to move my car off the street so the plow could get through. It's miserable. It looks more like Christmas than Easter around here right now. Even my chocolate bunny has goose bumps!

Glad Påsk!

So this is Easter weekend. I grew up Catholic but I have recovered from it. This week used to be one of non-stop church going for me. Led by my intrepid mother, she would parade all 6 of us dressed in our finest, complete with hats, to church for four nights running.

Holy Thursday, aka Maundy Thursday, was the kick off. I recall this one not being so bad as it was just the regular length of a normal Sunday mass except at some point a line of old parishioners would process to the front and get their feet washed by the Priest. I always wondered about those old women who got theirs washed right through their pantie hose.

Good Friday, also a short service, was a kind of strangely silent time. No singing of hymns...just silence and LOADS of kneeling and standing over and over again. Then we would all get a Communion wafer and go home quietly. If we dared to whisper to one another we would get a sharp thump on the back of our heads to shut us up and a VERY STERN talking to when we got home. To me, Good Friday services were just an inconvenient break in an otherwise perfect day off from school.

Holy Saturday - I'll refer to this as the marathon of all church services. It started out in the parking lot of the church, in the dark, in the cold, where we would huddle en masse around a Weber grill while the Priest said some incredibly long prayers and burned all the left over palm branches from Palm Sunday. He'd also do something with a giant Easter candle and then we'd all follow him in, still in the dark, and the BAM! lights on and the choir would kick into what was the first of about a zillion hallelujahs. Add enough incense and smoke to choke a horse, 7 Bible readings, more invocations, a Baptism or three and you pretty much get the idea. It was a challenge to stay awake, not pass out or throw up! The service lasted for three hours and it was almost midnight by the time we would all parade home again.

Easter Sunday was back to the regular Mass length and everyone dressed up like they were going to actually meet Jesus. Hence the hats. The hats were always strange, overly ornate works of art with feathers, veils, flowers or all three attached on them somewhere. We have one picture of all of us standing together in these very flat, very modern jobbies my mother picked out one year. We look like some children who wondered into Area 51 and the aliens had landed on our heads.

I tend not to believe in all this so much anymore and, frankly, I go to church maybe once a year just to appease my mother. She's convinced that I am destined to burn because of this. Still, I have to admit that there was some magic in those rituals. If not magic, at least it was good theatre. There's something to be said for the tradition of it all. But, deep down, I don't miss the torture of this week at all. Being dragged to church four nights in a row and threatened with punishment, abandonment or, heaven forbid, the absence of an Easter basket was no fun for a kid. And, honesty, I don't think it would be fun as an adult either.