It's Good Friday in Arkansas. We time Spring Break to coincide, here in the Rusty Bit of the Bible Belt, with Easter weekend, so that none of them Secular Humanists will whine about giving chilrun the day off from school to spend the day in church, watching DVDs of the Passion, you know, like God wants'em to.
I taught the New Testament right before break -- and I was right, BTW, most of my students missed all the quiz questions on the Sermon on the Mount, including the one on where Jesus wants us to pray -- and clued my students into where the word "Easter" comes from (from Eastre, an Old English goddess of the Spring, a fertility goddess, more or less), and asked them why they thought they had all those chicks and bunnies and eggs in their baskets, then, if not to celebrate fertility?
That always dismays about half of them and delights the other half.
But I have noticed that lately, here in the Wal-Mart, we are getting, along with the bright yellow marshmellow chicks and chocolate eggs, white chocolate crosses (no bleeding Jesuses on them, yet), and little eggs that hatch out tiny replicas of Bibles: to remind Your Child of the True Meaning of Easter.
And, up in Fayetteville, in the Target, you can buy, instead of an Easter basket? For your little boy? An actual Combat Hummer! Complete with detachable rocket launchers to fire at enemy soldiers! You put the candy inside, see, and after he's eaten the candy, he can fire the rocket launchers at the enemy! Onward Christian Soldiers!
The True Meaning of Christianity!
Arkansas. You can't make this state up.
3 hours ago
4 comments:
The other true meaning of "new life" at Easter has always been selling baby bunnies, most of which are soon after abandoned and dumped, after which they are generally killed by roaming dogs and vicious children, unless they get lucky and last long enough to starve to death. Chicks don't do much better.
The candies, when you think about it, really aren't any different from hot cross buns (which I can't find anymore--they are delicious)--just tackier.
On the way home from Robots last night, I noticed all the egg lights people had. These are people who usually have a nativity scene at Christmas. Why, I asked my husband, don't they have crosses with Jesus on them, maybe with light-up eyes or something?
ooo, I *like* the idea of a light-up Jesus-on-the-cross display for Easter! With light-up bleeding wounds! And light-up-eyes that blink on and off!
If only I was in marketing! We could make a bundle!
Okay, I have a new grandson who has no easter basket so yesterday, I went to the store to find him something that will last. Since I use the same basket every year and then I saw these really great plastic buckets and my practical side said they are sturdier and can be used for other things after easter like, all those little tiny toys so I bought two. I filled them with strawberries, apples, fruit rollups, beefjerky, and toothbrushes and paste. Yes, I know, but that is what my six year old wanted. No candy for him except the fruit rollups. He is his Nana's boy, fruit all the way. Anyway, I put writing tablets, drawing tablets, paint, and other creative things inside the basket as well and new books and videos and things like that. No guns, no cars, no plastic parachutes. His mother wanted him to have toys and I said no. Every holiday the kids get more toys than they can ever play with. It's time to work on their artistic side. So there. I did it my way.
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