Easter: Paschal Blaze

In the Christian calendar Lent is almost upon us and then Easter beckons.

The link between festival and religion is different at the latter feast than it is at its Yuletide counterpart. In many ways the celebration is less obvious though it is also stronger.

For Christians, the Crucifixion (cruci-fiction?) and subsequent Resurrection are the two single most important events in their calendar.

For secularists, Christmas is the bigger festival. The tradition of present buying and visiting family and friends are stronger at the Natal feast.

Perhaps at the subconscious level, it is because the celebration of birth is a happier time than the commemoration of death (and a violent one at that.)

Both festivals pre-date Christian times. Christianity stole the dates for its major anniversaries. They remain important times not only of ecclesiastical significance but also affording the Churches crucial airplay in materialistic times.

The relevance of the dates, demand they be heard. Urbi et Orbi.

Easter starts in earnest on Palm Sunday. The feast of the Passover is nearing and Jesus is high-tailing it for Jerusalem. Its not known just how bad Easter traffic is in those days.

He had just called in on his old mucker Lazarus, now back nicely among the living. The great man comes into town riding a donkey and is feted by the masses who garland his route with palms.

But the powers that were, weren’t happy. This man, this hero, this cynosure, could become the symbol of a new revolution. He was supposed to have royal blood; the son of David they called him.

We don’t need that kind of loose cannon in the capital. It’s hard enough to keep hegemony without interfering Nazarene preachers with regal links messing things up.

But he is popular, we need an insider in his organisation, a rat in the ranks we can buy off and find out what his intentions are. They must find out by what authority does he do these things.

That search for relevance continues to the twenty-first century.

Plainchant
“speech operates in the middle ground between thought and action and often substitutes for both”
I do
I know
I know I know
But how many times must I know
So that I know I do?
Sleep like the yeast
Ferment fomenting
In soapy moments
But when I pick up speed of a tornado
I spread ransack sadness
Violent rollercoaster of Lord High Speed
Must I seek forgiveness?
For this sick rate is me
The man who knew the child
The boy who saw the curl
The way, way back in me
Far away place
Years and more
I am the voice of you
Who?