I do a lot of stuff while the TV is on and I only half listen. Maybe because it’s the Easter weekend, there are programs on exploring the origins of belief. My take on it always, is the one I used to think of when I watched my late kitty, Scratch. He would, at the loft, jump on to the top of the refrigerator. From that vantage point he could reach a light pull on one of the fluorescent lamps. He would bat at the light pull for half an hour or so, delighted with his prowess, endlessly fascinated. I would think, silly kitty. He would jump off and do something else and soon he would be back, on top of the fridge, playing with the light pull. He didn’t get bored, he didn’t learn anything, but boy it was fun. He would also, my beautiful white kitty with the yellow eyes, chase his tail. I do miss that kitty, peanut brain and all. And that’s how I think of the endless fascination with our origins.

Meanwhile, I would like to know where evil is born in the heart of a Sunday school teacher who kills one of her little pupils, a friend of her daughter, stuffs her little body into a suitcase, and throws it into a body of water, out in California. Didn’t her faith step in anywhere to prevent this horrific act? No one knows why she did it. I am speculating here and I don’t know what will develop, but suppose she was a pedophile? Suppose she did something to the child and didn’t want the child to tell? It isn’t only dirty old men who are capable of such acts.

Now about Greek Easter

These are my thoughts on Easter weekend. It isn’t “my” Easter anyway. If I were observing, I would be all set for next Sunday, the Eastern Orthodox Easter that Greeks share with Russians. I have always been drawn to the Russian personality. Perhaps this is why. But I have always been involved with people of Scottish/Irish/English backgrounds. Not by design. It is only in retrospect that I have realized it.

I remember early Easters with my family, one in particular involving a lamb that lived in our little flat in Chicago for a short while before being slaughtered by my dad and uncles on the back porch and served for Easter Sunday dinner. I was too young to be horrified. I used to follow it around and wonder why it kept “making raisins”. Later my dad spread the skin out to dry and it disappeared. It hadn’t been cured and I found it sometime later, shriveled up and useless, where it had been abandoned by the stupid kid who had stolen it and didn’t know what to do with it.

The Greek Orthodox Easter services are very dramatic and I will write what I remember.

On Good Friday, the congregation surrounds the funeral bier of Christ. It is densely covered with flowers. It is lifted and carried into the street with the congregation following. The procession continues around the block or through the town, depending on location, and then returns to the church. At the end of the service, the parishioners go up to the altar and the priest gives each flowers from the bier.

The following night the ascension of Christ is celebrated. In the Greek church, the house is totally darkened. The choir sings. The altar boys bring the eternal light from behind the altar where it has been maintained after being lit in Jerusalem. They light the candles of the parishioners in the first row who, in turn, light each other’s candles and the candles of those in the row behind them. This continues until everyone in the congregation is holding a lighted candle. As the candles are lit, the house lights slowly come on and the church is ablaze. The choir sings the hymn of the ascension, a minor key, haunting melody I wish I could recreate here. The congregation sings along. It is quite moving. I was for a time a member of the choir.

After the service the parishioners carry their lighted candles home, making sure they do not go out and those who have lit icons in their homes (we did not) renew their light under a picture of Jesus. Still we carried our lit candles home, cupping them with our hands to be sure the breeze did not extinguish them.

Them’s me thoughts at the start of Greek Easter Week.

xx, Teal