It was a hell of a Holy Week this year. I found myself pulled as usual in multiple directions, Passover, Easter, the Bipolar I nightmare that is the month of April, excessively high blood glucose levels, and dealing with a school vacation that robs me of my routine as well as a week's worth of pay. Spring has never done much for me, I love summer, but that's another story.
Anyway, as far as the Holy Week issues, I could have defaulted to my old standbys of religious discord as the basis for my current distress, however that would have been a lie. This year I have been more at peace with who and where I am on my spiritual journey than I can ever remember. I watched and listened as the Jewish and Christian holidays and traditions danced, dovetailed, and diverged as they always do. I marveled at their relationship and my relationships with each of them. In reality my problems with Holy Week have far more childish roots, or at least, reasons that are rooted in my childhood.
The angst I experience each year stems from what I didn't get to do as a child, what was not done for me, and how I leap down the rabbit holes of distortion over and over again. Every year I perseverate on the missing elements of the holidays and the ones that I as an adult am now responsible for. There is a deeply wounded place within myself that recoils at the jobs that are now mine. And there is but one reason that underlies my petty unwillingness to participate in a manner befitting an almost 40 year old.
My parents never hid easter eggs for me.
It appears trivial in a way, never having been gifted with the opportunity to seek out plastic eggs filled with jellybeans, candy, or coins. It seems silly, to be sad over children's holiday games that ultimately do not enhance the spiritual meaning of the religious tradition. And it even seems a little pathetic that I, a trained theologian, become morose at the thought of Easter morning because there will be no hidden eggs, no basket, no store bought candy waiting for me when I awake. My desire for religious growth is buried under a heaping mound of missing chocolate bunnies, stringy vinyl easter grass, and those damned plastic eggs.
Now, for sake of transparency, I will admit that I did receive easter baskets in my youth, they did have candy in them, albeit from the fancy candy store from our beachside town, and that there were indeed plastic eggs with goodies in them in the basket itself. Mind you, the coins within the eggs suffered from a dirty, sticky, cough drop infused coating that made the money seem more like a scrounge through the bottom of my mother''s purse than a special treat. The amounts weren't even clever, just assorted clumps of change that my mother had in fact fished out of her purse that afternoon. Oh, and the dreaded black jellybeans were in other eggs.
But these childhood slights are not about the traditions themselves, not the actual hunting for eggs, or shrink wrapped, toy filled, plastic baskets from the local department store, but rather what they represent. They represent the normal that I longed for that was never achievable in my nuclear family. I wanted adults to be adults and hide the Easter eggs for me to find, just like my neighbors' families did. I wanted to believe in the Easter Bunny, but just like Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and every other childhood fantasy staple, that desire was crushed on a yearly basis. My parents were people unwilling or unable to play the magical roles that create a foundation for playful innocence and joy in a child. Instead, they chose to explain how the magic tricks were done, leaving behind no mystery for me to be amazed by.
So, I hid the easter eggs for them. I was the Easter Bunny. I was the magician performing for my parents. At the tender age of 9, I secretly hid the eggs and ensured that each one was found. I hid those stupid plastic eggs for people who should have been hiding them for me.
So, like most years, Easter morning arrived this year and once again there were no eggs to be found. In fact, because there is often a hectic rush to church on Easter morning, the Easter Bunny visits our house while we are at church. Translate this statement to mean that when the church service ends, one parent must rush home, hide the eggs all over the lawn, make sure the baskets are ready, and display the handwritten note from the Easter Bunny himself stating how many eggs he has left for the boys to find. This final touch ensures that each child will have an equal number of eggs at the end of the affair.
It was my parental turn this year, so I came flying home to be the Easter Bunny again, 30 years later, this time as a father attempting to perform the magic for his children. And as my stomach turned, I hid the plastic eggs, and did my best not to fall into the rabbit holes of my mind, where the sadness, unworthiness, and fear reside. I tried to hide the eggs skillfully and with joy, but most of them just ended up barely hidden in obvious places. And in retrospect this lax effort was not a mere fall into the rabbit holes, it was a knowing leap.
As I squeezed into the darkened tunnels that twist and turn, creating a never ending maze of fear and disappointment, I willingly stayed in the confinement of distorted thinking and behaviors. It is not a truth I want to disclose, but I wasn't the parent I wished that mine had been. I didn't bring my best that day, and I didn't miraculously evolve into a better, richer, more fully actualized version of myself. No, I limped along, tried to make the best of it, and still managed to be an unpleasant fool to be around for the rest of the day.
At the end of the day I had still done more than my folks ever did, and I knew that my boys were happy with whatever magic I had managed to create. And in the days since then, I have realized more and more that I can see the rabbit holes before I fall flailing into them. It doesn't mean that I won't fall or leap into one, but it does mean that I don't have to, and that I can climb out before I get sucked down further. Just like the disappointing plastic eggs of youth, those rabbit holes are not filled with what I need, want, or even desire anymore.
What I need, want, and desire is to be a man of integrity, dignity, and inherent value, and I want that for my sons as well. I want them to know that they are loved. And maybe, if I can watch where I'm going, I can lead them away from the rabbit holes that I've fallen into too many times. Maybe, I can lead them to the hidden eggs where the treasure is in the finding, and not what is inside.
Thanks for joining me along this crazy bunny trail of a journey.
Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.
- Ari
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