digging around

I just thought I’d share the tangled web we weave in trying to help our children know about the traditions of mainstream culture, while concurrently trying to hide from it all.

As you know we are not practising Christians, but one of the things that annoys me, so must annoy them even more, is how the symbols of the celebrations are retailed months prior to the relevant day.  Obviously it is in the shops’ best interests if we eat hot cross buns and chocolate eggs for weeks, not to say months, rather than on one day.  But I refuse to be a patsy to them.

In rebellion I made my own hot cross buns on the day.   While putting on the crosses, I re-told the meaning of the symbol to T, who looked suitably appalled.   I think I may be missing some nuances, because the way I tell it, it’s a story of persecution rather than sacrifice.   P looked horrified that I was spreading this propaganda.  This then segued neatly into the story of the resurrection, where P started to really look concerned.  I explained to T that there was good historical evidence for the crucifixion (which only became apparant to me when I visited Jerusalem many years ago) but not so much for the resurrection – which not everyone agreed had happened (look of relief from P.)   On partaking of my home made buns, T informed me that they weren’t as yummy as the one’s that Grandma had brought last week from the shops.  Great.

On Saturday, a friend advised that he thought that there might be good historical evidence for the resurrection – in the form of hundreds of eye witnesses.   For some reason I thought it was only Mary Magdelene and a few disciples, so maybe I need to do more research into the most common version of events.  But as it happens, my respect for Jesus’s life and teaching does not require him to rise from the dead.  And in fact, this is one of my overall beefs with Christianity – this whole focus on an afterlife is embedded in a negative view of human nature – that we could only be inspired to be “good” by external rewards and punishments – whereas in my worldview the rewards of doing the right thing are always intrinsic.   And in fact, need to be.  Sometimes there is no external reward for doing the right thing.  There might even be an external punishment.   (Jesus’s death here could be a good example…..   but then mangled by becoming alive again!)  Some people do die doing the right thing.  That is the unfortunate truth. 

On Sunday morning I had hard boiled eggs with smiley faces drawn on them.  Then later in the day I felt like a meanie and bought them three tiny choc eggs each for an egg hunt at home.  (Aside:  often I feel that my kids get so many “treats” provided by others, that I can’t give them any myself, as I am adding to a toxic overload.  However I’ve obviously frightened people away, so on this occasion I could choose to provide a small amount of chocolate myself.)  So I hid the eggs amongst much excitement.  Interestingly the first finds were gobbled, the second finds were given to me, and there was not much interest in finding the third.  When I ate one that had been given to me, it really wasn’t particularly yummy.

From all these discussions, T has had two questions.

1.  “Mum, what colour clothes did Jesus wear?”   Umm……. mainly brown?

2.  “Mum, did Jesus have a beard?”  Umm…… not sure.  Some discussion on whether they would have had razors.

So there you have it.  Jesus as object of sartorial interest.