Wednesday, April 20, 2011

The Easter Rant

Lord knows I don’t want to be the Easter Pooper or the Bunny Humbug, but I simply cannot hold my tongue (go ahead, get your snorts and eye rolls over with).

Everyone complains that Christmas has gone commercial and that the holidays have lost the plot, but folks must be so worn out from their wintertime soap boxing, that they don’t have any wind and energy left for Easter.

I mean, have you been in a drugstore lately?  A gal has to wade through oceans of candy bunnies and chicks of all different makes and models, plastic eggs and that damned plastic grass that gets everywhere just to get to her allergy meds.  Don’t get me wrong, I flat love some Easter candy:  Cadbury Eggs, Peeps and those hollow chocolate bunnies with the candy eyes...yummmm...

Nonetheless, one hears even less about Jesus at Easter than one does at Christmas.  Pardon me, but do you think that Jesus would prefer a little more appreciation for his sacrifice and crucifixion over the day of his birth?  Just sayin’...

There’s also the issue of “Amateur Hour:”  Folks who don’t set foot in church all year except for Easter Day.  Really?  What exactly are they trying to achieve and who do they think they’re fooling?  The only thing they accomplish by showing up is to make it more crowded and unbearable for the rest of us that actually remember where the front door to the sanctuary is. 

The Easter crowds at our church have gotten completely out of hand.  You have to show up about an hour and a half early to even get a seat (good or bad...you take what you can get).  One year, the Culbreths were “running late” for Easter service (read that as thirty minutes before the start time) and we had to sit up in the choir loft.  Nothing good ever comes out of Ashley in the choir loft.  Need proof?  Okay:

  1. Case in Point One:  I was in the hand bell choir when I was in sixth or seventh grade.  We somehow managed to get all of our bells mixed up upon the transfer to their loft.  We sounded like some sort of abstract performance art.

  1. Case in Point Two:  Several of us were running late to a funeral service for a friend’s father.  We were so late that there weren’t any seats, but the usher did offer us some chairs with the choir.  Being the good little Catholics and Episcopalians that we are, we assumed that the choir was tucked away in a loft in the back of the sanctuary, so we said okay.  Imagine our surprise and mortification when he marched us up to the front of the church and sat us slap on stage.  God, we looked like dumbasses.

  1. See the earlier blog titled Easter Squirms.

Getting back to the point:

Those once-a-year parishioners take what is already a very long Easter service and make it completely interminable.  Communion alone takes an hour.  So—yes—I had a bit of a personal epiphany one Easter as I knelt sweatily and numb-kneed with a growl in my stomach that a Communion wafer and one sip of wine couldn’t quell:  This is nucking futs.

Deep, I know, but I’ve told you before that my waters run shallow in parts.

I love God and I love Jesus and I am immeasurably thankful for His sacrifice.  I furthermore know that I can never be thankful enough, but I choose to show my love, respect and appreciation by honoring Him in my daily actions as a Christian woman, not sandwiched next to some schlub who had to use a GPS to get to church.

Accordingly, you will find me this Easter where you normally find me every Easter:  Among the loving family that God blessed me with paying tribute to Him and His Son in the beautiful nature that He created.

Amen and see you Tuesday.

4 comments:

  1. It's called being a Chreaster. It's the minimum requirement for staying out of hell. :)

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  2. Ahhh...now I have a name to spit at someone while I judge them harshly.

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  3. I so miss the Easter's at Bald Head. I haven't been back in a good 15 years. Jealous of you!

    And did I really see that St. James had a real live donkey last Sunday? Uh, what the what?

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  4. Live donkey. Yep, you saw that right. Buttercup apparently did the Palm Sunday gig last year, but we were blessedly absent. The kids hold palm fronds and walk around the block with the donkey to represent Jesus coming to town...or something like that.

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