Easta

Easta is an odd holiday to me.

It creates a strange feeling within me. From Good Friday to Bunny Sunday.

This feeling may have originated from the fact that when I was a kid I always wanted something dramatic to happen at 3:00 p.m. on Good Friday.

Somehow I got it in my head that that was when Jesus died on the cross, and apparently there is enough info in the Bible to substantiate that.

A biblical, crucifixion time-line, if you will.

According to Matthew 27:51-52, when the man died: "At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life."

That is what I wanted to happen at 3 on Good Friday. Still do.

So far my desire runs unrequited.

Watching TV last night, caught a news blurb which said that over a billion dollars was spent on Easter this year. It was something like $1.5 billion or something like that.

Billion.

On Easter?

I get the food, the Easter finery, eggs, chocolate. I don't get the rest. It's not like Christmas. Most people don't show up at your house with armfuls of presents.

I am fascinated with our obsession to flip a religious occasion into child's play.

We take the birth of Christ and turn it into this shallow, stressful,  thing that is all about shopping and all about bling, making it difficult to at least enjoy family company, even if you want to skip the religious aspect of the day.

Some fat guy flying all over the world in one night in a reindeer powered sleigh, squeezing down chimneys, leaving gifts and enjoying cookies and the missus (if he is lucky) before wriggling back up to the roof.

12/25 is a birthday. Albeit, a birthday as a result of immaculate conception, which is pretty cool, but still it is only a birthday.

Easter is much more incomprehensible to me.

We take Christ's resurrection and twist it into the Easter Bunny, hopping and bopping around,with some kind of egg connection.

Does he visit every home? Does he leave presents wherever he goes? I don't know.

A guy rises from the dead and we turn him into the Easter Bunny. What the hell is that?

The guy was crucified, hung around in a cave dead for three days, and then comes back from the dead and ascends to heaven.

If that isn't heavy duty I don't know what is.

I wonder if we are so afraid of this thing called religion and life and death that we turn away from it and create comic book characters.

Or could the commercialization of these holidays illustrate the insidious, far reaching, logic warping reach of capitalism? Topic for another discussion.

If we are going to go this route, why not commercialize Good Friday?

We could set up temporary crucifixion centers in malls and town parks.

Strap people up on crosses to simulate the effect. $25 for 15 minutes, $40 for half an hour and, the real bargain for the discerning shopper, 1 hour for $45.

You could have photos transformed into masks so you could crucify your own boss. Pay a friend to wear the mask and strap in so you could pummel him with plastic rocks or torment him with vinyl spears.

Vendors could sell plastic thorny crowns, and nails with fake blood on them.

Mock earth shaking and rock splitting, and zombie types staggering out of graves. Zombies who fall to their knees expressing gratitude at a second chance, and cautioning people that it is not too late to move the needle from evil to good.

I enjoy living in quiet servitude and abject poverty and hold no plans to copyright and profit from these ideas.

Do with them what you will.