Yesterday was that time again. Time for the Superbowl of Church, Easter. Where even the casual observer shows up to participate, and the food spread ups it game a couple of notches. For some reason I was having these thoughts yesterday, even though I had no intent to set foot in a church, and after a very social week, had decided to stay home and not share the day with my mother due to Covid precautions. I remember though my first time at an Easter service, and boy, it was long. This was back when I was probably 6 years old at St. Luke's Pentecostal church on the eastside of Cleveland. I would learn later that the Pentecost take their worshipping pretty serious, and are very dogmatic. I was introduced to that on this very Sunday when it was time for the Eucharist, better known as grape juice and cracker time. I ended up being disappointed because I couldn't partake because I apparently was still a heathen, and had not been saved/baptized. Maybe the hunger that had been building in me to that point in what felt like a 4 hour service resolved never to allow this to happen to me again.
So within months, I would take the vow to become a Christ warrior, and was dunked underwater in a baptismal and was now eligible for grape juice and wine at the church Easter service. Also within this next year I became more invested in the church. I attended children's Bible study, Adult's Bible study, Sunday school and church every week. Over this time I read probably most of the Old Testament. I am not sure if my introduction to Church was similar to other youth's, but I was wholeheartedly into it and felt it was foundational. But over time like a lot of people, who would slowly lose faith and not necessarily with the role of God and his son Jesus of Nazareth but with their followers. Something that was difficult for me to comprehend as a 6 or 7 year old, was how people who read the same book and listened to the same sermons have such difficulties following the instructions given. For me if the recipe says add water to flour and bake for 1 hour to make bread, I don't turn around and add milk to gunpowder and place it in the freezer to do the same. To my young eyes then something was not adding up and there were just too many failed recipes at being good and wholesome to want to continue in the manner I was going,
The final official break then came for me in high school in 9th grade English when we began studying Greek and Roman mythology and the thought occurred to me that these prior day heathens seemed pretty committed to their burning of sacrifices to their gods and killing of Christians for bowing to the singular god. What made them wrong, and me right and vice versa. The question I had always been kept up nights thinking about was if everything has an Alpha(beginning) and Omega(end) what was God's Alpha/Omega. They must have one. Can anyone answer? Do they even try? So with these type of questions bubbling underneath, I took a step back, and another, and another. Too heady a question for my sanity I think. But years latter I often if there were too many steps away from questioning and understanding my spiritual nature, and what is that in the first place. We all seem to need to hold onto the notion that when we pass from this world in one form, we are still a part of it in another but who knows. Best to keep it moving and hope one day we are greeted by St. Peter or Charon depending on your view here. So Happy Easter to some of you, and maybe Happy Ostara to some other yous'.