Tag Archives: easter

Easter (The Holiday Trinity)

Posted on by
Reply

In the spirit of resurrection, I thought I’d resurrect this piece from Easter 2014.  It only took me five years.  – Ben Gannon

holyweek

I’m going Holy on my readers’ butts today.  Don’t change that website.  Not to worry, there will be no preaching.  That’s not my style.
As many of you know, this week is considered Holy Week for those believing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Looking back upon my Catholic upbringing, believe it or not, I enjoyed this week, concluding with Easter Sunday, more than Christmas. Palm Sunday is where it all begins.  Unlike Christmas when it is traditional for some to unwrap one gift on Christmas Eve, you receive a gift on Sunday, a full week before Easter proper.  The congregation meets outside for a prayer and all parishioners are given a palm representing the greeting Jews provided Jesus when he arrived in Jerusalem.  According to the bible, they waved them like banners at a ballgame, then respectfully laid them on the ground before him like a green carpet while he began his journey to crucification.  Don’t worry, I’ll try not to provide anymore misinformation regarding the bible and I’m certainly not becoming a Catholic Missionary.  These are just fond memories when I actually learned and appreciated the finer points of attending mass.

Faithfully, I showed up and participated for over thirty years without missing a Sunday, even while we were on vacation, and even more miraculous, when I attended college at Washington State University.  This was especially miraculous because my father and mother weren’t there to force me to go.  Prayer and tithing, even if tithing consisted of a two for one Burger King Whopper discount coupon, were the only two reasons I graduated from a University annually placed in the top ten list of the nation’s leading party schools. (Quite a dubious honor.)  One of my roommates was Catholic, so we would attend Saturday evening mass and then proceed to defile ourselves until two or three in the morning.  I digress.  Let’s get back to this Holy Week.

Once you receive your palm, you enter the church and proceed to follow along with the same readings you have heard the last ten years of your life.  However, it was simple to avoid the Sunday Snooze because you held this palm in your hand.  Traditionally, you and your brothers and sisters would spend the next hour in the pew fashioning a cross from the palm’s strips.  It was a fun competition to see who could create the finest cross someone could die upon.  Mine would commonly turn out looking like the letter X draped with seaweed.  Even Jesus would have taken exception to carrying this thing around.  “Uhh, yeah, I don’t mean to complain, that’s really not in my nature to do so, but is it possible I die on something a little more…..well, cross like instead of cross eyed?  Great.  Thanks.”  Those crosses, mangled or not would adorn our mantle for the year.  They would then be burned and used as ashes for Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, the same day one is asked to give up something significant, like beer, for forty days.  This made Easter Sunday, the day Lent ends, especially sacred for the adults who tackled this forty day sacrifice. After Palm Sunday Mass, you then began thinking about Easter Sunday and the hunt.

Before Easter Sunday, there is slight speed bump referred to as Good Friday.  This is the day Christians commemorate the passion, or suffering, of His death on the cross.  Didn’t seem so good to me.  As a youngster, I didn’t understand the Holy Day’s name, and I am still a bit confused.  After Good Friday has passed, you picture Easter Eggs so big they’d make ostrich eggs look like gall stones.  One more day of planning your strategic backyard hunting scheme.  This was basically how I could outwit my two older brothers.  Stay as far away from them as possible. That was my only hope.  They were bonafide egg thieves.

I loved the hunt almost as much as the deviled eggs mom would fabricate shortly after.  As for the Easter Bunny, I never believed in that crap.  I didn’t want to.  Since we were coloring the eggs, I figured it out pretty quickly.  Mom and Dad would never let some creepy rabbit in our house to gather our eggs and hide them in our backyard.  If a large bipedal rabbit did enter our house, one of my brothers, having a midnight snack, would grab a shotgun and go Elmer Fudd on that rabbit’s ass.  The only rabbits in our house were made out of chocolate.  For my brother, Tom, those chocolate rabbits had to be solid.  As our resident chocoholic, Tom refused to eat the ones which were hollowed out of bounds.  That was too chocolate ghetto for him. This is also followed by a feast which would include ham, turkey and all the necessary fixings.  We had mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, gravy, hot rolls, fruit salad, stuffing, and I need to stop, because I am now feeling Catholic guilt and shame remembering so many other families in our humble neighborhood who didn’t have the means for this.  Crap.  Thanks Catholicism.

Now, if you think about it, to solidify my point, I felt like this was the trinity of holidays.  It wasn’t just the Father, Son, and The Holy Spirit, Amen.  It was Easter, Christmas and Thanksgiving all rolled into one.  There were gifts, there was a phony character called the Easter Bunny, there was an enormous feast, there was family, and there was Sunday Mass where Deviled Eggs were dancing in your skull.  Can you want or wish for anything more?  Yes, you can. Once you grow old enough to be the one hiding the eggs, rather than hunting for them (always a proud moment for the youngest in the family), you realize how fun and satisfying it is to hold the hand of the youngest niece or nephew helping them find enough eggs to rival their elders.  We always tried to keep the competition fairly equal to avoid any tears.  There will be NO crying on Easter!  You know why?  BECAUSE THERE’S NO CRYING ON EASTER!  (Thanks, Tom Hanks.) All these children were so wildly happy…..and all just to find a few eggs.

Ultimately, when you grow to investigate the true meaning, or story if you wish, it is as inspirational of a story one can read and disbelieve, read and question, or read and believe.  I choose to believe.  It gives you hope when you are down.  It gives you faith when you have fallen.  It gives you the genuine will necessary when your life seems to have spiraled out of control and you feel lost and thus beaten.  But, then, you ponder this story and think, “For crying out loud, this dude rose from the dead!  I think I can get off this dirty floor before the count of ten and keep fighting for a better life for myself and others.”  Or, you may just find that your head is up your ass for an unusually large amount of time.  If that occurs, think about the Resurrection of Jesus, grab a great big wad of your hair, if you still have some, and pull your head out.  Maybe, just maybe, that’s what Easter is all about.

Happy Easter

Want alerts for the latest Wildman posts?  Follow Swing Like A Wildman (@bengannon13) on Twitter via https://twitter.com/BenGannon13.

Easter (The Holiday Trinity)

Posted on by
Reply

In the spirit of resurrection, I thought I’d resurrect this piece from Easter 2014.  It only took me five years.  – Ben Gannon

holyweek

I’m going Holy on my readers’ butts today.  Don’t change that website.  Not to worry, there will be no preaching.  That’s not my style.
As many of you know, this week is considered Holy Week for those believing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Looking back upon my Catholic upbringing, believe it or not, I enjoyed this week, concluding with Easter Sunday, more than Christmas. Palm Sunday is where it all begins.  Unlike Christmas when it is traditional for some to unwrap one gift on Christmas Eve, you receive a gift on Sunday, a full week before Easter proper.  The congregation meets outside for a prayer and all parishioners are given a palm representing the greeting Jews provided Jesus when he arrived in Jerusalem.  According to the bible, they waved them like banners at a ballgame, then respectfully laid them on the ground before him like a green carpet while he began his journey to crucification.  Don’t worry, I’ll try not to provide anymore misinformation regarding the bible and I’m certainly not becoming a Catholic Missionary.  These are just fond memories when I actually learned and appreciated the finer points of attending mass.

Faithfully, I showed up and participated for over thirty years without missing a Sunday, even while we were on vacation, and even more miraculous, when I attended college at Washington State University.  This was especially miraculous because my father and mother weren’t there to force me to go.  Prayer and tithing, even if tithing consisted of a two for one Burger King Whopper discount coupon, were the only two reasons I graduated from a University annually placed in the top ten list of the nation’s leading party schools. (Quite a dubious honor.)  One of my roommates was Catholic, so we would attend Saturday evening mass and then proceed to defile ourselves until two or three in the morning.  I digress.  Let’s get back to this Holy Week.

Once you receive your palm, you enter the church and proceed to follow along with the same readings you have heard the last ten years of your life.  However, it was simple to avoid the Sunday Snooze because you held this palm in your hand.  Traditionally, you and your brothers and sisters would spend the next hour in the pew fashioning a cross from the palm’s strips.  It was a fun competition to see who could create the finest cross someone could die upon.  Mine would commonly turn out looking like the letter X draped with seaweed.  Even Jesus would have taken exception to carrying this thing around.  “Uhh, yeah, I don’t mean to complain, that’s really not in my nature to do so, but is it possible I die on something a little more…..well, cross like instead of cross eyed?  Great.  Thanks.”  Those crosses, mangled or not would adorn our mantle for the year.  They would then be burned and used as ashes for Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, the same day one is asked to give up something significant, like beer, for forty days.  This made Easter Sunday, the day Lent ends, especially sacred for the adults who tackled this forty day sacrifice. After Palm Sunday Mass, you then began thinking about Easter Sunday and the hunt.

Before Easter Sunday, there is slight speed bump referred to as Good Friday.  This is the day Christians commemorate the passion, or suffering, of His death on the cross.  Didn’t seem so good to me.  As a youngster, I didn’t understand the Holy Day’s name, and I am still a bit confused.  After Good Friday has passed, you picture Easter Eggs so big they’d make ostrich eggs look like gall stones.  One more day of planning your strategic backyard hunting scheme.  This was basically how I could outwit my two older brothers.  Stay as far away from them as possible. That was my only hope.  They were bonafide egg thieves.

I loved the hunt almost as much as the deviled eggs mom would fabricate shortly after.  As for the Easter Bunny, I never believed in that crap.  I didn’t want to.  Since we were coloring the eggs, I figured it out pretty quickly.  Mom and Dad would never let some creepy rabbit in our house to gather our eggs and hide them in our backyard.  If a large bipedal rabbit did enter our house, one of my brothers, having a midnight snack, would grab a shotgun and go Elmer Fudd on that rabbit’s ass.  The only rabbits in our house were made out of chocolate.  For my brother, Tom, those chocolate rabbits had to be solid.  As our resident chocoholic, Tom refused to eat the ones which were hollowed out of bounds.  That was too chocolate ghetto for him. This is also followed by a feast which would include ham, turkey and all the necessary fixings.  We had mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, gravy, hot rolls, fruit salad, stuffing, and I need to stop, because I am now feeling Catholic guilt and shame remembering so many other families in our humble neighborhood who didn’t have the means for this.  Crap.  Thanks Catholicism.

Now, if you think about it, to solidify my point, I felt like this was the trinity of holidays.  It wasn’t just the Father, Son, and The Holy Spirit, Amen.  It was Easter, Christmas and Thanksgiving all rolled into one.  There were gifts, there was a phony character called the Easter Bunny, there was an enormous feast, there was family, and there was Sunday Mass where Deviled Eggs were dancing in your skull.  Can you want or wish for anything more?  Yes, you can. Once you grow old enough to be the one hiding the eggs, rather than hunting for them (always a proud moment for the youngest in the family), you realize how fun and satisfying it is to hold the hand of the youngest niece or nephew helping them find enough eggs to rival their elders.  We always tried to keep the competition fairly equal to avoid any tears.  There will be NO crying on Easter!  You know why?  BECAUSE THERE’S NO CRYING ON EASTER!  (Thanks, Tom Hanks.) All these children were so wildly happy…..and all just to find a few eggs.

Ultimately, when you grow to investigate the true meaning, or story if you wish, it is as inspirational of a story one can read and disbelieve, read and question, or read and believe.  I choose to believe.  It gives you hope when you are down.  It gives you faith when you have fallen.  It gives you the genuine will necessary when your life seems to have spiraled out of control and you feel lost and thus beaten.  But, then, you ponder this story and think, “For crying out loud, this dude rose from the dead!  I think I can get off this dirty floor before the count of ten and keep fighting for a better life for myself and others.”  Or, you may just find that your head is up your ass for an unusually large amount of time.  If that occurs, think about the Resurrection of Jesus, grab a great big wad of your hair, if you still have some, and pull your head out.  Maybe, just maybe, that’s what Easter is all about.

Happy Easter

Want alerts for the latest Wildman posts?  Follow Swing Like A Wildman (@bengannon13) on Twitter via https://twitter.com/BenGannon13.

The Sacrificial Pew

Posted on by
Reply

Church pews are always hard to come by during the holidays.  I hadn’t heard the term C and E’s until I was in my late teens.  These are individuals choosing to attend a Holy Ceremony only on Christmas and Easter.  Pews are reserved for C and E’s two days out of the year.   I have no problem with this.  Maybe that’s because I don’t go to church  anymore.  Perfectly understanding and supporting our 1st amendment, exercising Freedom of Religion, I believe some Christians took liberties with that constitutional right.  Christians attending mass only on Christmas and Easter conveniently interpreted  it by thinking it stated “Freedom of Timely Religion”, or perhaps, “Freedom of Intermittent Religion”.

Around the age of six or seven, I began noticing this sacrificial pew phenomenon, also known in the liturgical profession as SPP.  Personally, I didn’t really mind getting to church early.  I’d sit in a pew in the back row with Dad, Mom, and several brothers and sisters until being kindly forced minutes later by Dad to sacrifice our pew to some poor old bag who showed up late with her deadbeat nephew.  Looking at the bright side, I thought standing up was actually better than sitting, then standing, sitting then standing, and well, you know the Catholic drill.  Standing during the entire ceremony seemed to simplify mass.

Usually, during the non holiday season, I’d tend to drift off in the pew only to be gracefully awakened by brothers who understood when to stand and when to sleep.  Avoiding sitting next to my father, the bruises my brothers provided were well worth it.  If Dad caught you snoozing, it was Liturgy Lecture time after church, extending the mass an extra 15 minutes in the parking lot, thus cutting into my Sunday football.

By age eight or nine, I begin questioning the sacrificial pew, but I’d bite my tongue because I was not quite religiously educated enough to make a proper argument with my father.  Even if I had been, Dad’s glare was the only argument required for him to succeed.  To his benefit, after church, he would make his best attempt to explain why this is the right thing to do for these poor elderly C and E’s who needed the pew more than I did.  I thought, and again, only thought, these Q-Tips who needed this pew should learn the virtues of “punctuality.”

ElderlyPew

There were those random years when I’d be teased by the pews when the last two rows were empty.  We’d sit down blissfully, only to have our hopes crushed fifteen minutes into the church service when a bus full of cotton tops would bust open the doors, bingo blotters in tow, demanding to be seated.  The ushers would do their best, but we knew our row would be the first to go. (Our family did, on occasion, take up an entire row.)  It was like a hockey game when the players, right in the middle of action, are allowed to make substitutions by leaping over their bench railing.  Similarly, we’d have to jump over the back of the pews to avoid a walker cracking one of us in the shin.  Dad acted as our hockey coach.  “Greg, you and Tom are the first to go.  Ben, you’re next.”  Fruitlessly, Greg would argue.  “We’re not even the oldest!”  What about Patricia, Dorothy and Maggie?  They’re all older than us!”  Dad craftily explained to Greg why the AARP members, and other females, always come first, even if they show up last.

Attending Catholic classes at the age of ten and eleven, I began to learn about items such as The Ten Commandments.  One of the Commandments shouted, “Thou Shalt Not Steal.”  Aha!  Now I have a piously educated argument with my father.  I tried to convince him that sacrificing pews was just allowing the untimely and unjust to steal from us.  Instead of kindly reinforcing the differences between right and wrong, or sacrificing and stealing, he told me to get in the car and stop questioning His Commandments or he would be forced to kick my ass up between my shoulder blades.

Between the ages of twelve and thirteen, I had matured and finally understood why we all have to make sacrifices.  No, it’s not just to avoid getting your ass kicked up between your shoulder blades, but rather, it can merely mean saving a dying art which was once called chivalry:  courtesy, generosity, and valor.  My father had his own misgivings, but he always reinforced, by example, the importance of courteousness, generosity and valor.  So easily these can be displayed by simply sacrificing a pew.

 

Want alerts for the latest Wildman posts?  Follow Swing Like A Wildman (@bengannon13) on Twitter via https://twitter.com/BenGannon13.