Gifts. Chickens. Eggs. Easter

Roses that I have discovered in the yard which have never bloomed before, a white wisteria seed that Lis brought me, a tiny creamer bottle for fairy flowers and a book, both sent by Bethany.

All gifts.

And I planted the seeds for bottle gourds and heirloom cucumbers Bethany sent me as well as the zinnia and sunflower seeds. And I settled the wisteria seed into that pot and watered it well. I love gifts that say, "I know you. Here, grow this."
I love gifts that spring out of nowhere, red roses so deep in color that blood running from a vein couldn't touch it.

But my hens. Oh, they are not gifting me. Where are they laying their eggs? Darn those hens. Scared of snakes in the hen house and not one egg in the fern in the last two days. I don't have time to watch them all day long as they go from one part of the yard to another, doing whatever it is that hens do.
They are withholding their eggs from me and it's almost Easter.
It's not like they sit on those eggs and are protecting their soon-to-be-chicks.
No, they lay and then they leave.
Not one damn good mother in the bunch.

Perhaps they are just providing me with an Easter Egg hunt.
And perhaps Easter Egg hunts are nothing more than a very, very old dance between humans and chickens to find the eggs the chickens lay so profusely in woods and leaves and old sheds and ferns and wherever it is that chickens lay.

And what any of this has to do with the resurrection of Jesus Christ is beyond me.
Or chocolate for that matter.
Or some sort of pink protein served at Easter dinner (ham, salmon, rare lamb) or...Peeps!
Or bunny rabbits! What do bunny rabbits have to do with the resurrection of our Lord and Savior?

Mmmm.
Probably no more than trees have to do with the birth of Baby Jesus.
Or Lay-Away at Walmart.

Sometimes I feel so sorry for Jesus that it makes me want to steal him out of the manger

and send him to public school and tuck him into bed every night and tell him that it's not his job to save the world.
Just be a boy, I'd tell him.
Just be a sweet man, I'd say.
Just be a really, really smart man and know how much your mama loves you.

And maybe he'd look at me with eyes like, really? and I'd look back at him with eyes like REALLY and he'd stick his thumb in his mouth and turn over and I'd reach under his shirt and lightly scratch his back and hum a little song to him and I wouldn't leave his bedside until he fell asleep and then I'd kiss his little Jesus curls and on Easter, I'd fix him up a basket with jelly beans and chocolate bunnies and chickens that you could wind up and set down and watch hop, hop, hop across the floor and leave it by his bed so that he'd wake up in the morning and find it and he wouldn't have any fear of being crucified at all.
And then we'd go hunt eggs that our hens had left us. Somewhere. It might take all day, but we'd find them.

Oh. And no one would have to wear a crucifix around their neck and churches wouldn't have to have that horrible statue of Jesus with his bleeding hands and feet, his ribs all poking out, his head tilted to the side, his eternity-seeing eyes staring off into space and little children wouldn't have to see that, none of them.
Especially not Jesus himself.

And maybe on Easter Morning there would be a new litter of baby rabbits to cuddle and stroke, maybe there would be a nest full of just-hatched peeps to wonder at.
I know boys.
And if there was a Jesus he was a boy once. And I think he would have liked that.

Well. I've just picked basil and my hands smell of it, stink of it, and I'm going to go peel and mush garlic and they'll stink even more.

I have a good imagination, I'm a good cook, and I've had a weekend full of gifts.

Ain't nothing wrong with that.

Not one damn thing.

Deck The Halls With Balls of Folly

Well, Christmas is almost upon us and I have been notably silent with a few exceptions on the subject.

As we all know, I hate Christmas down to my very bones. I have no idea why although I have some suspicions and at this point, it doesn't matter; it's not going to get better and I am not going to be suddenly and miraculously blasted through with the "true meaning of Christmas" like some Hallmark special.

Ain't gonna happen.

I still don't know what I'm going to "do" about Christmas and there are many factors to consider, some out of my hands, so at this point I am ignoring it and hoping it will simply go away. It's easy if you stay out of the mall.

I was discussing this at yoga today with my teacher and the one other student in the class. Both of them are Catholic and they were tolerant of my heresy as I pointed out that Christmas is essentially celebrated when it is because of the ancient Pagan holiday which was no doubt created to get us through the long days of winter and that also, yes, I do think it's very cool that Jesus was born, etc., but in my beliefs, EVERY baby that is born is Christlike or Buddha-like and so what's the big deal with that one particular baby?

I mean really, do we believe his mother was a virgin?
Hmmm. The midwife must have had a few problems with THAT delivery but oh well.

So my teacher, bless her heart, suggested lightheartedly that I COULD become a Christian and then I would have reason to celebrate and I said something like if Jesus wants me, he's going to have to find me, quoting a Lyle Lovett song, but to myself I was thinking that it was just about as possible that I would become a Santeria priestess.

At least that way I'd get to wear really cool clothes and smoke giant cigars and drink mass quantities of rum and slice through chickens and other small farm animals with a machete and dance myself into a trance where I could speak to the dead and channel their voices and I'd get paid for it!

Man. That would be AWESOME!

And I just keep thinking about the poor baby Jesus who has been dragged from the manger to the mall in a short 2000 or so years- as if it wasn't bad enough that he was born with the unbearable weight of being destined to save mankind by being nailed to a cross.

And I think about the poor Christians who have been waiting for his imminent return for these 2000 years and who are passing the time by buying junk no one needs and putting up Christmas trees which are Pagan in origin and continuing to talk about a baby born in a manger while all around the world and even in my neighborhood, babies are being born every day, no one noticing that they, too, are god, they too are born of a miracle, destined for who knows what while the world keeps turning and the days will begin to become longer and the light will return again.