Last Easter was an opportunity to reflect for me. I was In lockdown and thought about how my Easter’s growing up had been. I was raised in a fishing where both grandfathers were Presbyterian ministers so the Christian stories of sacrifice and resurrection played quite a role on how we grew up.
Having social traditions and shared stories is important to me and having ones that extend through time attempting to pass on wisdom and teaching both interest me and inform my thinking about the world. Easter provides me an opportunity to reflect on these stories and traditions.
As I grow older, I have been finding more meaning in symbolic days like Easter, both because of the personal history and tradition it marks for my family but also, I think, because the fundamental stories I grew up with are good ones.
That’s one part of Easter for me.
I am also a sucker for the more commercialised. northern hemisphere spring equinox celebrations we imported into the country where we all go out our and buy chocolate eggs and chocolate bunnies presumably as some kind of commercial reflection of a pagan holiday.
The historical tradition that is reflected here is interesting to me – it shows that the ideas that have influenced our society remain in some small and anachronistic way.
In both cases the messages of the past are still heard today, even if at a social level they are only heard through a mandated holiday and chocolate based mediums.
The important thing, I find about Easter is how I personally engage with it.
Last year, my wife and I decided it would be nice to build out own traditions into symbolic days like Easter and decided to do a roast meal as something we do. This year, we are down with my family and are repeating that experience.
This is a small way of me marking the day and paying homage to the stories and events I find it symbolises and have meaning.
I want to stress again how individualised this approach is though, I engage with these stories as an individual and build small traditions and memories as a family.
The stories themselves are largely of individuals coming together and forming those traditions and symbols voluntarily as well.
Here’s where I segue into the political – but I find it affronting every year given my experience of Easter that the State mandates trading halts for people over this period.
I’m under no illusion that my views of Easter are foddering from many people who find religious meaning in it. They will certainly be different from people who did not grow up in a Christian family or society.
But we tell people who are otherwise willing to work, trade and provide opportunities for people who may want to spend their day out of their home (or who just want to go to the supermarket) that they can’t. I find this mind bogglingly archaic.
A much better idea, I tend to think, would be to give people the days in annual leave and allow them to spend those days the way they choose to. If they have another religious day that has more meaning to them, let them chose it. If they have no such days but have days of particular family importance, let them choose that. Or if they just want an extra day off in summer or any other season, we should our faith in people to decide what suits the and their own personal circumstances.
Stopping people from earning a buck and forcing them into a stay at home day because we mandate a day reflecting either a Christian or pagan holiday seems to reflect a rare and uncomfortable anachronism if when the state was more myopic in its religious views.
Easter is an important time for me. But it’s a time that’s important because it the particular inputs that made me who I am. My traditions are not the same as others (though feel free to join me, I do love a group BBQ). But I find the idea of this holiday being shared by everyone, no matter if they want to it not, an uncomfortable one.
