A Powerful and Personal Easter Memory

Salvador Dali's
Crucifixion

For many of us who are agnostic, atheist, or just not particularly religious, Easter weekend can be a curious and ambiguous time. It's not that we feel left out or alienated, and it's not that we don't still enjoy some of the traditions surrounding the holiday, it's just that we feel kind of...weird.

Maybe, this is because the scriptural subject matter related to the holiday, the text about which we are inherently skeptical, is so incredibly grave and serious.

After all, this isn't just a celebration of any old biblical miracle, we are talking about the Crucifixion and Resurrection.

Maybe we feel strange because, unlike Christmas, the Easter holiday lacks the plethora of accompanying social and cultural trappings that can entice anyone, Christian or otherwise, to get caught up in the spirit of things. Maybe Easter is simply less commercialized and so manages to maintain a more purely religious aura than its Yuletide cousin.

Regardless of the root causes of my Easter discombobulation, here I sit, reflecting on the meaning and memory of Easters past, thinking about childhood baskets and chocolate bunnies, middle-aged mimosa-fueled Easter parties, and Jesus.

I imagine that my childhood memories of the Easter season are not too different from those of most Americans who grew up in a Catholic household. I remember the forty days of Lent - complete with ashes on my forehead, fish dinner Fridays, and frightening shopping trips, steering myself as far away as possible from the terrifying, wild-eyed, man-sized bunny who sat in the middle of the mall.

And then there were Easter Sunday mornings. Waking up early to eagerly search for a not-so-well-hidden basket of goodies, attending Easter Sunday mass in my finest button-down shirt and maybe a clip-on tie, and then joining aunts, uncles, and cousins for delicious ham and potato salad, and a warm springtime afternoon spent searching for hidden eggs in my Aunt Millie's manicured backyard.

Whether in traditional celebration with family or in slightly less than wholesome revelry with friends, I hold dear a variety of pleasant and gratifying Easter memories, but the most powerful of these memories...is about Jesus.