Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Drive By Hope
Passover and Easter don’t always overlap. It just seems like they do. That seems right since both put so many people in a reflective, rebirth mode. Spring is the start of something. A new chance, new energy, new freedom. I am stronger because it is spring. I feel it. That it is Passover and Easter puts a stamp on it.
I was raised a Methodist but fell down on the story of the Resurrection. This being the linchpin of Christianity put me on the sidelines. I didn’t understand Christianity’s central tenet of Christ dying for our sins. I kept this a secret though since admitting it seemed heretical. It was a given. That I didn’t understand the given seemed more a reflection on me than on the truth. I was one person who didn’t get it amidst millions who did. I wondered how they knew.
As a child, I loved Easter for its cheer. Especially coming after Good Friday, that time between noon and three when the lights went out and we all spoke softly and grieved for the crucifixion. It was thick and heavy, almost as if it was happening now somewhere close by. Once when I was a kid, I heard of someone going to a movie on Good Friday afternoon and I was astonished beyond words. Who would do that?
Easter meant an Easter basket and dressing in new clothes. It meant walking to church wearing black patent leather shoes and lacy anklets. At church, everyone was dressed to the nines. There were lilies on the altar and soaring music. Even if I didn’t understand the Resurrection, I understood hope and possibility. I still do and, in my own way, thank God for both.
In comparison to Easter, Passover is almost cerebral. It requires less of a leap of faith for me to understand the deep symbolism of the Jews leaving Egypt to become free people and to apply that long travail to that suffered by oppressed people now. Each year when we follow the Haggadah, eat the ritual foods, and say the blessings, I feel as at home as I have ever felt. I dip the parsley in salt water and I feel the burst of green in my mouth. It is hope and possibility.
So when we were out driving today and my husband saw the cross and the Star of David, we made a U-turn to take a picture. I thought at first that a church had put the cross and flag out as a show of peace and goodwill but, after I got out of the car to take the picture, I saw that there was a house way far back from the road. This was someone’s statement to the world, their own reality. Who are they, I wondered.
We could be friends.
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Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
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“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
Actually, Passover and Easter always overlap. They have to. The last supper was a Seder, so they calculate Easter using a Lunar calendar, Jewish-style.
Garry’s Lutheran. I’m Jewish. There are an awful lot of mixed couples like us. We sort of celebrate whatever we feel like celebrating. This year, it’s Easter because my son is cooking and he and his partner do Easter. I used to do a whole Seder but it got to be more work than i was up for and half my family doesn’t get along with the other half, there being a divorce in the middle of the rift, so I can’t even invite everyone to an event. i just go elsewhere. It’s easier and i don’t have to cook.
But yeah, Easter and Passover. It’s a thing.
The First Council of Nicaea in 325 determined Easter should always fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. Thus Easter remained without a fixed date but proximate to the full moon, which coincided with the start of Passover on the 15th of the Hebrew month Nissan.”
Yes. Easter and Passover usually overlap but not always. It’s one of those weird mysteries of calendars and religions.
The non overlapping is because of the weirdness of the lunar calendar which is missing somewhere between 5 and 7 days each year, so every few years they have to throw in an extra month to make up the difference. Otherwise, they intersect.
I know. I’ve been married to a Jewish man for 34 years and have 3 Jewish kids. 🙂
Reblogged this on Red's Wrap.
A great post to make me think about my reaction to spring, which I would gladly skip over for the dead heat of summer. Odd, I guess, that it’s spring I’m still trying to figure out, having come to rest with my own rejection of the salvation meaning of Christianity. I do love Easter and wish you a happy one.
Basically I just believe in God and all the beautiful expressions of the Creator’s love for us. I think I, also, could be friends with that person.
Easter for me was all about the Hats. We always had new hats with the elastic under the chin that hurt but held your hat on. A picture of the then three daughters out in front of the house then off to church. By the time we had daughter number four, Vatican changes had happened and hats were out. Also Mrs Paul’s Fish sticks. My mother bless her was not the greatest cook, on Fridays she and dad went out with my Aunt Mary and a Uncle Jack, leaving us fish sticks and frozen French fries. But as a special treat, potato chips from a can and root beers. Wonder why my sisters and I are always on a diet?
Lovely post.
Boy, can I relate. Happy Easter and Passover, Jan!
Thank you! Same to you!
My kid has come out neutral. He is sort of Jewishly non-denominational. My granddaughter is completely non-denominational.