Oh my god, the tomb is empty. The holiday.

Gorge on it.  That's holy business.

In general, I'm a big fan of holidays.  I don't usually care much about their underlying purpose, I'll admit, but I'm totally down with the sanctioned rest.  Honestly, I don't know why humans are so utterly incompetent when it comes to providing these little respites for themselves, but I'm game for following the calendar to secure a little downtime.  At a minimum, it provides justification for the rest that is imperative to keeping a soul in working order.  Even if you don't believe in souls.

So here's the thing.  The sticking point, if you will, since this is one of those perverse holidays that uses sugar-coatings to mask the absolute horror of the events leading up to the death of Jesus.  If you know me, you know I'm no Christer.  I like the guy.  He seems like a great community activist and I have always enjoyed listening to Jesus-quality spiels at never-ending town hall meetings.  But Easter?  Come on now people.  Let's use some common sense on this one.

I opened facebook this morning to find a truckload of Easter greetings from people who I know don't know the religious history or even religious dogma that set the foundation for the holiday.  It's supposed to be holiest of holy days, you know?  It's supposed to commemorate the mystery of Jesus's disappearance from his tomb, where he was interred days earlier after perishing on the cross.  Bummer, right?  Personally, I love the plot twist even if I can't quite see beyond its implausibility.  And it makes me think that the writers of the story really didn't think through their tale, or respect their readers enough, to prop up the twist with the rebar of believability.

First.  I mean, come on, you leave a dead guy in a tomb and return three days later to find it empty.  Does that really support a leap to resurrection?  How many zombie books did these guys read?  If I found a tomb empty, I think I'd report a crime.  And I'd probably want to have a good long chat with the medical examiner to see whether death had really claimed the missing body before burial.

Second.  The church continues to call it Easter.  Despite long written history that this refers to an Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre in charge of dawn, or maybe sunrise, possibly light and bits of fertility, (all good things), the church kind of jumped on the name and ran with it.  That's cool, I guess, but let's give some honor to that stuff too, if we're going to use it so freely.  Fair use is fair use.

Third.  Seriously, painted eggs and chocolate?  Okay, I know that wasn't what the original writers probably had in mind, but still.  I remember egg hunts in front of St. Therese when I was little.  Whether or not church elders are as adept at egg-dying as they are at covering up pedophiliac exploits, I don't know.  But they certainly exploit the strange pagan ritual to keep us coming back for more.  Unless you're like me and you find the thought of searching for cooked and colorful eggs in the non-refrigerated lawn where the dog poops pretty repulsive.

Okay, so here it is, my wish for you: have a really wonderful, quiet or otherwise, restful or otherwise, chocolate-filled or otherwise, day off and maybe give a thought to the light, your fertility, the sunrise and the reaction you would have if you discovered a dead and buried loved one removed from their resting spot.  Yeah, that's right.  A stern talk with the gravedigger would be in order.