I went to Passover last night with a chosen family. I’m going to an Easter lunch with my other chosen family. A friend wished me a “happy day of resurrection” and this friend is a practicing Buddhist. What do you say back to that? My biological sister who hasn’t spoken to me in a year just wished me Happy Easter and I wished her back but when she asked what we were cooking I came clean. I don’t celebrate Easter anymore, I told her. It’s been years. I told her I was cooking our famous Egusi for my friend’s family lunch to which I was invited. The event has lost its religious significance for me and I don’t buy into the bunny and egg commercialization because thankfully I don’t have a kid and don’t feel pressured to. What has been more and more apparent to me over the last few days is how a largely Christian holiday/holy day (in more recent history) has managed to take over mainstream America. Even our public schools here in Columbus were off for Good Friday, timed to begin their Spring Break of course masking the whole game. I’m not a hardcore agnostic who will get offended at being wished Merry Christmas or Happy Easter or any such greetings attached to these seasons, but I am one who is careful and thoughtful to not text my Muslim friends Merry Christmas no matter how immersed I am in the festivities myself.
I’m not sure what to do with all this. Just that there is a confusion and a pensiveness (mine) about the whole state of the world now and which groups of people dominate or which cultures are preferred over others. Whose “truths” are celebrated. Do I stop believing that a man named Jesus lived and died (there is fact to prove this) and supposedly rose again once I stop celebrating? Or do I simply just believe that a large subset of people order their life around this whole narrative and that is their choice? And that I used to be one of them but that I am no longer? What now rings strongly and true for me is that I was wrong to believe and show that mine was the better choice and everyone else was going to hell. But in a way I was indoctrinated so much so that I really felt for my friends’ souls. I know that those friends of mine who currently believe I’m going to hell for being queer really do have my best interests at heart.
I think back to about 6 years ago when I reflected on the idea of Good Friday and in general, Easter. As I sat to write my essay today I re-read that essay and I am confident that I can’t write a better one today so I am doing an Easter Throwback.
Musings of An African Woman 