An Ode to Easter Monday

Happy Easter Monday

In many parts of the world people will be celebrating by taking the day off and enjoying the the beauty of early spring

I, like most people in the US, will be going to work and sending my kids to school.

Our culture is so divorced from tradition. I question whether we can call it a culture at all. The vision of multiculturalism hasn’t been realized. Instead of embracing many different traditions, recognizing and celebrating each, we are left with a profit driven consumer culture, void of meaning.

Even the Christian faith — supposedly the heritage of the US — only gets lip service from politicians to win elections. Holy Week, relegated to the weekend, gets little attention.

The old pagan symbols of Eostre, rabbits and eggs are plentiful in supermarkets sold as candy and decorations. Easier to market than ancient torture devices and empty graves.

A whole swath of statistics and anecdotes point to the dwindling significance of all religions in the US, not just Christianity.

In this environment celebrating meaningful religious tradition is a subversive act. Practicing anything besides easy pagan capitalism requires conscious intentional choice.

If we are to hold onto any meaningful traditions we cannot rely on society at large. We must start with our families. And to start with our families we must start with ourselves. For many of us this means rediscovering old traditions that have been lost to us. This can start as simple as having a nice picnic on the grass on Easter Monday.

So go ahead. Get out and enjoy spring today (or fall for my southern hemisphere readers 🙂).