Feast For The Living

How I ask myself, did every single holiday (Holy Day) in the calendar become an opportunity for corporations to make more money? I don't go shopping much but even I can see the cycles of shopping, we lurch from one manufactured celebration to the next, Valentine's, Independence Day, Halloween, you name it, secular, religious, mythical the Hallmark brigade manages to debase it in the name of commerce in a perpetual cycle. Now it's Easter's turn.The Citizen had a full page devoted to advertising Easter Gluttony rituals and I read the ads with awe. Wedged in between the small print ads for actual religious services, the chain restaurants competed with local eateries for the discerning Easter Feast dollar. How a bunny rabbit became part of the American celebration of easter is a bizarre enough story as it originated in the Franco-German province of Alsace.
I had Easter eggs as a child in Europe but the Spring Fertility of rabbits and hares was not a subject for discussion. I was taught that Easter is the most sacred holiday in the Christian calendar as everyone gets born (Christmas) but getting resurrected is a rather more exclusive club. Yet as easter bears down upon us I find myself wondering how people allow the message of this most holy day to get polluted by the concept of stuffing your face on Sunday. 80 percent of people in the US claim religious affiliation and most of them are Christians they tell us (I'm in the other twenty percent who wonder how anyone can believe any of this). Resurrection is best celebrated thusly apparently: Early Christians did a bang up job of appropriating pre-Christian feast days, days when people ate meat to celebrate because the rest of the time they supped on gruel, so we now celebrate Christmas during the darkest time of the year, even though the Romans never held census counts in mid winter, we celebrate Spring Fertility with the Resurrection preceded by Lenten self denial. Self denial is over baby, time to stuff the face.I loved the next ad I found in the paper. No one wants to be left out. The Orthodox crowd can't bring themselves to join reality so they plunge on through the centuries mis-counting the days by forgetting to add a quarter day each year and their holidays slip further and further behind everyone else's. The Orthodox are currently about two weeks behind the rest of us but they are not going to be left out of this weekend's extravaganza.
If the prospect of resurrection isn't enough there is a chance for a free lunch. It's nice to see Glad Tidings which has done so much for the poor of the community stepping up. Naturally they got lots of grief for helping the dispossessed, encouraging the bums and so forth so the focus is now on families. My wife was bummed this week, when Passover and Easter came close together (the Jews follow an altogether bizarre calendar that seems more whimsical to an outsider than mathematical) and she didn't get around to organizing a Passover Seder for her goy friends. Blame the Florida standardized school tests, the FCATs, which have every teacher massively stressed this time of year. I wish I were a Jew but I'm not. They don't advertise, they don't seek to convert people and they just do their thing without fanfare or apology, centered on family and friends (and Elijah!) and far from the halls of commerce. They have their quirks too, as my wife is not allowed into their conservative synagogue, the oldest in Florida, even if she wanted to join, because she committed the cardinal sin of marrying outside the tribe. It's hard for me to believe that any God worth their salt would dream up so many pettifogging rules to be a member of the club. And don't forget at three o'clock this afternoon a moment of silence to mark the time when, it is said God died. Ignoring the iPhone for two minutes will be trial enough for most, no doubt, in our only nominally religious world.