Tag Archives: easter

Kindly Read Your Bible

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There are a great many ignorant people who call themselves Christians and like to spout off about how other people behave and call out folks for supposedly persecuting them and whatever else. As a Christian myself, I’d like to remind y’all to actually read your Bibles front to back at least once, and preferably two or three times, before you open your mouths again (or type out your religious opinions on Twitter or wherever).

One of my twitterfolk just posted today that he blocked someone for stupidly chastising him that Jesus was the only person ever crucified.

Really?

Only person?

Even if the ignoramus in question didn’t know history, and the fact that Romans routinely crucified people to send a really harsh message about what they were capable of doing to dissidents, you should know from reading the damn Bible that two other people (thieves) were being crucified right next to Jesus!

Christians who can’t be bothered to actually read their Bibles or pay attention in church are, in my opinion, not allowed to comment on their own religion, criticize others’ practice of it, judge anyone (and if you read your Bible you’d know you aren’t supposed to judge), correct anyone on spiritual matters, etc.

It’s bad enough to read the Bible and misunderstand it…or take the symbolic parts literally…or not consider context…or anything else that leads to ignorant attitudes. But when you can’t even get the facts straight on something as basic as crucifixion, you simply need to go into a corner and leave the rest of us alone.

Oh, and may you have a blessed Easter season if you recognize it as a spiritual time and/or a holiday celebration.

Easter vs. Greaster

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So, this post is going to be pretty irreverent in a moment, so let me start with the reverence. I celebrate Easter, and do so with more than simply the big bunny and a basket of treats for Little Girl Blue. I may be a bleeding heart liberal, slightly kinky, foul-mouthed Christian, but I am Christian all the same, and as far as I’m concerned, Jesus died and took all sins past and future onto himself to be our guide and to be the bridge between humans and the divine (though, interestingly to some of you, perhaps, I don’t think he’s going to make worship of him a prerequisite for admittance). I don’t take the entire Lenten season all that seriously, though I try to use it as a time for more spiritual reflection and Christ-oriented contemplation.

However, while I take Easter seriously as well as calorically, I also figure that after more than 2,000 years Jesus is well over any post-traumatic shock from his crucifixion. Plus, I figure God has a pretty wicked sense of humor. And thus I hope I will be able to skate by the rest of this post without thunderbolts crashing through the roof and turning me into a crispy critter.

You see, one of my online pals…one of my tweeps…is one Rebecca Moi aka @bexmith on Twitter. And she decided to forgo any Lenten celebrations this year and decided to celebrate Kent instead. Well, it occurred to me today that Kent needs to be codified, much like Festivus was in “Seinfeld,” and so I will set forth an initial primer in this post. (If you are not familiar with Lent and Easter celebrations, particularly by Catholics, you might not appreciate the humor…that is, if it’s actually funny to begin with…if the Pope chastises me I’ll know that it was hilarious to everyone else outside the Vatican)

The Season of Kent and Celebration of Greaster

The weeks leading up to Greaster Sunday are known as Kent. It is unclear whether this is recognition of the combination of quiet banality and hapless nerdiness that is Clark Kent, secret identity of Superman (as the season is a celebration of things both human and superhuman) or simply that the fact that the founders of Kent and Greaster got their good weed from a guy named Kent Rawlings. In any case, during Kent you are encouraged to pledge to give something up for the entire Kenten season until Greaster is over, but to cave in within six days and double the usage of whatever it was you gave up to begin with.

Alternately, you may choose to simply skip the giving up of anything and pick up a new vice to indulge in during the entirety of Kent.

There are some notable days during Kent, the most important and final of which is, of course, Greaster.

Rash Wednesday

The celebration of Rash Wednesday, which happens early in the Kenten season, typically involves the temporary reddening of one’s forehead to simulate a rash, but more importantly is a day during which we reflect on all the rash decisions we made since the previous Kenten season and then pick out the most humorous or disastrous one and repeat it before midnight.

Strolly Thursday

As the day of Greaster looms near in a few days, you need to burn off some calories, so please take several long walks on this day. You are encouraged during these walks to give money to any homeless people you may pass, help the elderly and children to cross the street, and to trip any annoying hipsters or loud teenage douchebags who get too close to you.

Wood Friday

Of course, you should celebrate the glory, lifegiving powers and long-lived solemnity of trees on this day. That is, if you don’t have any knowledge of what “wood” really means in the grand circle of life. If you do, get to making the nasty boot-knocking stuff and whittle away at that wood. If you are a lesbian couple, get out (or purchase) a strap-on surrogate…your wood, of course, will last a lot longer, you lucky bastards…

Greaster Sunday

There is a more commercial side to Greaster that involves the Greaster Bunny, who leaves take-out containers with fried food in them. Curly fries are a common gift left by the Greaster Bunny, but fried mushrooms, hush puppies, mozzarella sticks and Buffalo wings are also popular.

On the more spiritual side, it is a day for meateaters, vegans, lacto-ovo-vegetarians, fruitarians and almost all others (except for macrobiotic nutcases) to come together at a single table and commune over the holiness of all things greasy and fried, from deep-fried Oreos (a traditional starting appetizer) to fried green tomatoes to chicken fried steak to vegetable tempura and egg rolls (and more).

Some of the more carnally oriented celebrants of Greaster whose passions were not slaked by Wood Friday might celebrate other uses of things greasy.

Happy Greaster!

Gone Again by Miz Pink

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So…

Last Sunday, church is packed to the gills (of course) for Easter. I s’pose if we’d gotten there 20 or 30 minutes early we MIGHT have gotten decent seats. And not had to park way down the block in the public  library’s lot.

This past Sunday, the fam and I could toss our coats and sweaters at both ends of the pew and still have plenty of room for all of us to cross our legs if we wanted.

I don’t get it.

It aint like I think people have to go to church every week. I sure don’t. I miss at least one week each month, sometimes two. If there’s a lot of stuff going on, even three Sundays every once in a while.

It’s not even like I think people oughta go every dang month. Heck everyone’s different.

But I don’t understand people who show up on Christmas and Easter and never any other time. I mean 2 Sundays out of 52? Why bother? Church is a few minute’s walk or drive from your house and you can’t be bothered to do a little worship and getting some biblical education and some Christian fellowship more often than twice a year?

Yeah that’s showing God and Jesus some love. If you don’t like church that’s fine. Don’t go. But don’t show up twice a year because you think God will send you to hell for missing those two days too. Do good. Read your bible. Get some religion from somewhere whetehr books or radio or TV.

But dontcha all come out in your Sunday best twice a year just to crowd a place you clearly don’t care to be.

Cuz it just makes me want to skip Easter and Christmas to avoid y’all.

Born Again

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I’ve said it before and I guess I might as well say it again:

I don’t see how all of Jesus’ core people, his apostles and several others in or near the inner circle, would have carried on after his death unless he really rose from the dead.

I’d be pretty demoralized. Or I’d feel betrayed that he died when he professed to be God’s son. I’d certainly be scared shitless that I might be one of the next folks flogged and crucified if I kept Jesus’ cause alive. I’d certainly want to protect my family from harm, as well as my own skin.

And yet 11 men out his 12 carried on. All of his surviving apostles not only continued to preach what he told them to, but preached that he rose from the dead.

This is not sane behavior. And the idea that Jesus had 11 loyal-as-hell devoted people around him that were that crazy and people still followed him in droves makes no human sense. Human behavior hasn’t changed much in 2,000 years.

They carried on because their Lord lived. Despite being crucified and shoved into a tomb, he rose three days later. He walked among them for a while thereafter before rising into Heaven.

So in these last few minutes of Easter Sunday, that’s what I want to leave you with. The reminder that people don’t generally act against their self-interests and survival. Certainly not a group of 11 at the same time and for the remainder of their lives.

The Lord is risen. Jesus lives. And he sits at the right hand of the Father in Heaven.

Hallelujah folks.