Seagull Fountain » Easter http://www.seagullfountain.com online mother Mon, 06 Feb 2012 06:34:13 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Start all the clocks http://www.seagullfountain.com/2009/04/11/start-all-the-clocks/ http://www.seagullfountain.com/2009/04/11/start-all-the-clocks/#comments Sun, 12 Apr 2009 05:47:43 +0000 Shannon http://www.seagullfountain.com/?p=3435 Start all the clocks, get on your Sunday best
Let the dogs bark, let them wake us from our rest
Strike up the organ, the choir shout Hurray!
For He is risen, and is not where He lay.

Pink-gloved daughters, sons in pastel ties
Full of sugar, sticky fingers, high happy cries
Scribble with crayons the message of joy:
We are rescued from death and Satan’s decoy.

He is our North, our South, our East and West.
Our daily Savior, by whom we’re blessed.
Forgiver of sins, comfort for pain
Sweet mercy when we deserve disdain.

Dress the house and light every light
Hallelujah to the Lord and to His might.
For death is conquered, and sin can be
If I so choose, and remember Thee.

—
Auden’s Stop all the clocks

]]> http://www.seagullfountain.com/2009/04/11/start-all-the-clocks/feed/ 7 Does a kangaroo have a mother too? http://www.seagullfountain.com/2008/03/23/does-a-kangaroo-have-a-mother-too/ http://www.seagullfountain.com/2008/03/23/does-a-kangaroo-have-a-mother-too/#comments Sun, 23 Mar 2008 15:45:03 +0000 Shannon http://www.seagullfountain.com/2008/03/23/does-a-kangaroo-have-a-mother-too/ Easter was just another opportunity for me to feel oppressed and traumatized as a child. Like Halloween but with less publicizing of how terribly awkward my parents were — at least we didn’t have to hide in the basement from trick-or-treaters on Easter. My parents were your basic conscientious-pagan-tradition-abstainers.

We didn’t get Easter bonnets or gloves or baskets or candy. We often got new spring dresses that my mom sewed by hand (and needle, I assume), but they weren’t “Easter” dresses, and by the time I was 12, I didn’t want home-sewn clothes anyway. Mom made cute dresses for her 5 granddaughters this spring, and while I’m calling them Easter dresses so I don’t have to shell out real money, they did wear them last week. So technically they’re Palm Sunday dresses, and next week they’ll be plain old spring dresses.

If Easter’s not about eggs and bunnies and chocolate (well, everything should be a little bit about chocolate), and I did get that message from my mean parents, and if it’s not about the pagan goddess Eostre, then I guess we’ll be celebrating Christ and the Resurrection and forgiveness, rebirth, new beginnings, victory over death and all that.

christus_statue.jpg

We could write Easter resolutions and plan our brave new lives, which would require giving up what our lives have been so far. And some parts of my life I really like, even (especially?) the self-indulgent lazy parts. And what if, because life isn’t fair, we have to start over when the good part, or what we always thought was the good part, is taken from us before we were ready, or when we would never be ready to do without it? Why isn’t life fair, when Christ suffered so much and bled and died and rose again? Why didn’t that, if nothing else, fix everything? How do we start over from what seems like scratch?

The older I get, the few answers I have (and the less original I can be, I realize). I do know the answer to one question: Are Mormons Christians? Whatever else we are (sinning, fanatic-ish-at-times, repenting, occasionally narrow-minded, generous as a people, devoted to our prophets and our heritage), we are Christians. As Joseph Smith said, “And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!” (D&C 76:22)

Somehow, this makes everything better, even if it doesn’t fix everything right now, right away, right as I want it. He lives. And someday, that will make everything right.

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