Easter and Alone

Easter holds no particular signifigance for me. As I kid, I got Easter baskets full of colorful chicks, cute bunnies and candy. It was an excuse to get together with family and friends. But it was a purely secular experience.

This year, I found out that the season of Lent and Easter Day are much holier than Christmas, which is much more widely celebrated here. I was surprised, and felt embarrassed that I had not known. However, I came by it honestly. As I am fond of saying, my father didn't find Jesus until I was almost fourteen, so I was raised in essentially an atheistic home.

When my father did find Jesus, let me say he went looking with a vengance. This is the same man who got angry if other people wanted me to go to church with their families because I had spent Saturday night with them and it was easier for them to drop me off after church. He didn't care. No one was going, covertly, to educate me religiously, which is what he thought was going on.

My curiosity was then piqued as to what my friends spent their Sundays doing. And thus, my search for God began, but it turned out my search would bring me to a much different understanding of a higher power than my father's beard in the sky. As a result, I am once again alone on Easter with time to think about the existence and nature of God.

I don't believe in a vengeful or magnanimous God. I believe God is much more the rules of physics and common sense than a sapient being that created all. Whatever God there may be is one of our creation, rather than the other way around. There are many that would regard this as sacriledge, but it is not intended to be. It is just my belief, and is not intended to influence or disparage anyone.

One person who has been very influential in my thinking about Gods, and their rise and fall, is Terry Pratchett. Gods in his books are centers for belief that take on a life of their own only once we give it to them. Gods are very real, but not creators, per se. That seems logical to me. The universe is, as often, carefully ordered as chaotic. Gods bring reason to the chaos, and for that reason are helpful, and for this we owe them a great deal regardless of whether they are our own construction or not.

Often people who think differently are alone. It is our cross to bear, so to speak. So, here I sit, with that which makes me different, once again alone on Easter. Whoopie for me.