On Easter Bunnies and the Resurrection

So it’s Easter, pagan celebration of the Goddess Ostara, spring renewal and fertility (already a few weeks in), Christian celebration of the resurrection of Christ. Family celebration of eggs, that, if you’re like my family, are sometimes hidden so well that the bleary eyed, mom-bunny who got carried away at the wee hour of stupid o’clock can’t relocate them and we just have to wait until one of us is guided by a beacon of light, or the pervasive smell of sulphur and rot emanating from a houseplant one unexpectedly sunny afternoon. But also chocolate. And I want to pause now to give thanks to modern North America on this one, because we hold on tight to our reasons to buy and eat copious amounts of Cadbury’s and Callebaut. It’s a bunny. It’s an egg filled with things. It’s heart shaped and cupid sent. It’s delivered by Santa to celebrate the birth of the King. Or maybe it’s spear-headed by J himself, and supported by Saint Valentine. Point is, chocolate is important. Possibly even a sacred offering (ummm I am not calling myself a Goddess or anything but I actually AM one and I definitely give extra blessings when I find Cadbury eggs on my altar).

When I was a child my Mom introduced religion to me thus: Some people believe in God, some don’t, it’s totally up to you. I mean that was great and all, very progressive for having been raised a Presbyterian small town church goer, but it didn’t save me (accidental pun, I can only say sorry so many times). In seventh grade the nice propagators of propaganda paid a visit to the school and handed out small red shiny bibles to everyone. I was pretty impressed with my bible, not gonna lie. There were times when I walked home from a friend’s neighbouring courtyard in our subsidized housing complex and had no choice but to ask God to protect me from whatever evil might be lurking in the shrubbery; rapists, werewolves —my range of fear at age ten was impressive, and looking up to the night sky for a buddy helped me stave off the tears of impending doom.

The pages of my bible were shiny and see-through thin. The writing was small enough to be cute, like tiny things are to young girls, but I’ve definitely outgrown that now. Unless you investigate my snack collection. Or my pinterest animals. Or you have met me. Most things are better tiny. Anyhow, I gave that thing a serious try. Genesis. Friends, it was very hard to keep track of who begot whom. I wasn’t entirely schooled on “begetting” in the first place, what that entailed. But I really wanted to be good. I believed in kindness. I cried myself to sleep at night in secret after seeing an old man with holey gloves in the street. I fantasized about having him over for warm soup and presenting him with new gloves, to the chagrin and dismay of my young mom. And then there was Tracy M. Well back in the day you could buy pets without a parent present, and somehow Tracy and I convinced one another to buy a hamster, and take turns hiding it at each other’s houses. Tracy’s dad was a minister, and over the secrecy of keeping a cageless nocturnal rodent in her bedroom closet I learned about the Beast, the number 666, and that if I used the expression “Oh my God”, even in the quiet space of my thoughts, I was going to hell, which I had already done on numerous occasions, so really I was Satan’s child. I am going to give you a guess as to who’s mom bought a cage and some supplies and let her keep the hamster —which was the least she could do for me, since my SOUL had been condemned to eternal fiery punishment and she had epically FAILED TO STOP IT. Maybe a little don’t fuck over God with the whole look both ways before you cross, would have been nice.

I took the red shiny talisman of salvation with me during The Year I Was Away From Mom, ironically, and slept with it under my pillow, along with my first boyfriend’s flannel shirt. It did not successfully ward off evil, but definitely gave the bullies something to steal and hide from me and blame on Satan, because what I was needing while away from my mom, country and home, was a little more terrorizing and reasons to cry at night, but alas, that is what bullies do.

So how do we get from bullies to bunnies. Well it goes like this.

Eventually I hit a point in my life where I start asking some questions about my own personal suffering, and the questions went something like “How did I get here—there’s got to be a better way—is there more to this?” AND THERE WAS!!! There was more, and there was a better way. There is a better way, praise the bunny for all the chocolate. I am NOT saying chocolate will solve for God, or that ALL emotions can be better understood by crunching your Smarties fast and saving the red ones for last. I have wrapped the game on both emotion and dessert. But I also got some answers, you know, on the more controversial stuff. Because it turns out that we suppress emotion, but we completely discombobulate over God.

Some of us are pissed, and who can blame us? Some of us are incredulous. Some of us have converted to the metaphysical Universe for a better game plan that at least offers some dineros (see my exposé on attraction and the NEUTRALVERSE). Many of us are on an “as-needed” basis with our holiness.

But it turns out that God is perhaps not the meanie that my tiny shiny bible made her out to be. And by God I mean you know whatever version of a higher power you like, including the higher mind, in respect to my beloved atheists. 

Now I don’t have a personal stake in your belief system. My agenda, is not to convert you to the latest, greatest new age craze, or to have you dress up in puka shells and worship the Goddess of the sea (I mean unless you’re not busy later). My agenda is to ease you out of unnecessary suffering (it’s all eventually unnecessary). And there is a lot of suffering that happens inside the inner workings of our psyches, because our psyches are cycling all kinds of misunderstood and partially rejected ideas of spirituality and religiosity. And deep down in there, we all want something a little nicer, a little better.

So today, I bring you a question and an offering.

What if “J”’s message was really something like this (by J I mean my great buddy Jesus, son of G, subject of much controversy, and like, an oddly high number of modern pop songs:

Hey y’all. What I am trying to say is that you are NOT SINFUL. I don’t want you to SACRIFICE for me, that ‘s dumb, sacrifice is not a peace-love state of mind. What kind of loving Pa or Ma would set that up? “Here’s some things you like, if you give them up you are proving your love for me”. Things that make you go, hmmm.  I don’t want to guilt you into anything. That is so not cool. That shit is toxic. If one more person bows their head in shame because I “died for their sins” I am gonna puke. The reason I keep pushing this whole peace, love and forgiveness agenda is because you are freaking holy. The whole creator thing –you’re like a wee innocent babe to him/her/it/them, or a fuzzy hamster even! You can do no wrong. So please stop attacking each other and then feeling shit about it. I already jumped back into a body to show you that I was totes fine after that whole impaled by nails thing. Body schmody.

I know, it’s a radical idea. But slightly less radical, if you give it some thought than a creator who is like –

Hey you bitches killed my kid, its all your fault NOT just the guys who did it because you’re all evil as F@#, I sent him to reveal your evil and now I have you tormented until eternity, during which time I shall provide you with wants you must overcome in the name of “my will” and multiple traumas that somehow will teach you peace and joy, while I sit back and you suffer, providing the solace that “it’s only what you can handle”, meanwhile you scream and cry your eyes out and wish for death, and occasionally I respond to one of your prayers by saving you from the tragedy of the day, but there is no rhyme or reason to it for you, so you just gotta trust me on this one. Winky emoji.

You may see where I am going with this.

That’s a high price to pay for some higher help.

So I leave you with the above question to chew over with your delicious milky sweet bunny ears, and I offer you today what I offer to everyone. The word LOVING. If we simply insert the word LOVING into whatever concept of HP we have going on, pure or mash up, we will get back on track, and that whole suffering quotient will start to go down.

Would a LOVING God say it?

Would a LOVING HP ask it of you?

Would a LOVING Easter Bunny leave it in your basket?

And a happy, hoppy, holy day to you and yours.

That’s ALL folks!

— Love Erin
 

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