Easter

Baskets & Hats

I grew up Catholic. My mother is French Canadian—from Nova Scotia—and my father Italian American, the only Italian with red hair I’ve ever known.

Every Easter my mother took me shopping for a new dress, coat, shoes and hat. This was one of the few times I remember we shopped together, and an even rarer occasion that I came home thrilled with my little girl outfit. I can close my eyes right now and see my pale sky blue coat with beautiful buttons, my white Easter hat with a wide rim and a ribbon that hung down from the side, my black paten leather shoes that the nuns told me never to wear with a skirt so the boys wouldn’t see the reflection of my underpants.

On Easter morning my brother and I would find two huge baskets, each filled with a giant chocolate bunny with buck teeth, Cadbury and little Hersey foiled-wrapped eggs, jellybeans, marshmallow chicks, and usually one stuffed toy rabbit.

We went to church as a family back then. I look back now and am surprised that even though we went every Sunday to the same Mass, we rarely greeted anyone we actually knew. Ours was a large parish and I don’t remember hearing much about community. I think that’s just the way it was then.

Communion & Confession

I was thrilled to make my first communication. I chose my Aunt Aggie to be my Godmother and she was surprised by that. I felt the presence of God when I put my white dress and white veil and white shoes.

I remember being so proud when I could go to confession by myself, and I walked a half mile almost every Saturday to do that. The stuffy smell of the confessional was a sanctuary for me, and when the priest slide that little wooden window open, and I told him that I lied to my mother or smoked a cigarette or cheated on my social studies test, I went from sinner to saint. Afterwards I would linger in the church and visit the Stations of the Cross, sometimes but not always whispering the rosary all the way through.

Mass & Mystery

I love mass to this day. The tradition, the hymns, the holy water, taking communion, reading the gospel. But I have to work at it to find my place there. And sometimes I don’t agree with the sermons, with the emphasis on patriarchy and a judging shaking finger overhead telling me what’s right and wrong.

Sinners & Saints

I stopped being a practicing Catholic after I married my husband and a priest told us if we did not raise our children Catholic they would not be able to enter heaven, and if we dared to use birth control, we would not be able to get there either. I remember thinking about overpopulation in India at the time, and just not agreeing with him, not one bit.

When Jessica was born, I found a priest who allowed us to call her baptism a “celebration” and that satisfied my mother. Mostly. Back then she told me my departure from the Catholic Church was to spite her and I should remember that at her funeral. My mother doesn’t say anything like that any more, not in any way, but I struggled with her dogmatic insistences at the time.

Then, after my marriage fell apart and I began a loving relationship with a woman and not a man--I knew I could no longer belong to the Catholic Church. That’s still how it is, and I’m okay with that, but I’m also angry that the church does not and will not support and bless so many gay and lesbian Catholics throughout the world.

Ashrams & Chants

My friend Willa got into new age philosophy and took me to an Ashram where the head folks wore orange robes and had red dots on their heads. From the start the place felt spiritual: lit candles everywhere, incense that even today transports me to somewhere safe, and chanting. It was the chanting that did it. I would find myself in a meditative state, relaxed and content, and when someone said, “God dwells within you as you,” I understood it.

Today I still meditate though not often enough, and I still love chanting and drumming. I’m sorry to say I never felt that “inner dwelling” at mass the way I came to understand it at the Ashram.

Gods & Goddesses

I struggled with my Catholic faith on and off for years, and especially at Easter and Christmas. Then I read a book by Marion Zimmer Bradley called The Myths of Avalon. I read about the role of women and the Goddess and how the catholic hierarchy inaccurately revised their histories and mysticisms. The book is fiction, but I discovered a Goddess who took her place along side a God, and she has not left me since.

Fast Forward

So here I am on Easter weekend 2009. I don’t have a new Easter outfit, I don’t think I’ll have an Easter basket, and I won’t go to Mass. But God dwells within me as me. I know that to be true. In fact, that feels like the most important thing I’ll ever know.

Blessed Easter wishes to my Christian friends. Thanks yet again for the pleasure of your company.

P.S. Yup, that's me.