Easter Sunday with Hazel
As some long time readers know (if there is such a thing), it has become a sort of tradition that I write a blog on Easter Sunday. Why I'm not really sure, I am not a particular fan of the holiday unless you count an excuse to eat more candy. But you could eat candy any day of the year. It's also a holiday where we celebrate the hiding of eggs and cute little fluffy bunnies. Some pagan carry over into a Christianized holiday. I was half tempted to go out and buy some kits to dye eggs, but it seemed kind of wasteful because I don't really eat eggs all that much. So it would be wasteful to make a dozen hard boiled eggs that have some dye on them, then have to find something to do with it when I don't like deviled eggs. This was also the first year without a holiday dinner, since Mom and Dad were going to be in Detroit with my sister prepping her house for her eventual move this summer. It was kind of a sudden thing, since she had to put it up for sale ASAP and then have the real estate rep start showing it the following week. So, I am alone on this day. It's not so bad, because I do after all have a family who could not otherwise be here. There are those who like to commit suicide around the holidays because they do not have families, their families are not speaking to them or vice versa. But even if I didn't have one, I would not be one of those people.
So on this day when I am usually dragged out for my biannual appearance in church (save for a wedding or funeral which would cause for more appearances) and report hilarious things around me, I am spending the day in my bed with my laptop. And quite honestly, it's a good time. I decided to watch The Passion of The Christ online as well, thinking that would be my one and only religious activity on this day. My feelings on religion are rather hysterical when I think about it. I come from two extremely devout parents, have had the displeasure of encountering so called "religious people" in my life who are "living as the Lord tells them too" (which also includes unnecessary guilt, telling others that they are better than they are, judging those for their so called deviant lifestyles while they sin in secret, etc.). Once I freed myself from such confines, just said "forget about it", I found I was living a far more wholesome and fulfilling life. But that's another story.
I found myself on this day turning to literature pages for this day, and on this day I found myself reading Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor. Although her work has fallen into a definite beta category in literature, her work stands as some of the funniest commentary I have ever encountered. Today I spent it with Hazel Motes, the main character of her story. So me and Hazel were sitting in his boarding house living the live of an ascetic, because it seems that we had both failed (him in his false prophecy of being the leader of a Christ-less church and I with my whole treading water existence). Hazel then unfolds into insanity when he decides to blind himself with lye, have barbed wire wrapped around his chest, and broken glass in his shoes until he wanders off from the mental institution where he had been committed and dies in the wilderness due to exposure to the elements. Often times, I have felt like this; and, ironically, some of the most suffering was caused by those who claimed to bring more knowledge from their lives of prayers to me. Sometimes I think back to something a long time ago, almost fifteen years by now, of a hypocrite who proclaimed his life to be free and clear of all bad things due to his fanatical Catholicism. Instead he chose to abuse me because it was easier for him to tell me that I am wrong rather than he. Such is the role of those in life, I guess, but I have learned to just roll with it. Others rip you to shreds because they are unhappy with themselves and they would rather tear you apart because it feels better to make someone else hurt as bad as they do. And if it's not now, it will be later somehow.
Later on I'm going out for some Mexican food because it will feel so against Easter food of ham and potatoes that it will taste really good. I wish Hazel was a real guy, I would take him as well. He suffered and died for me as a secular Jesus.
So on this day when I am usually dragged out for my biannual appearance in church (save for a wedding or funeral which would cause for more appearances) and report hilarious things around me, I am spending the day in my bed with my laptop. And quite honestly, it's a good time. I decided to watch The Passion of The Christ online as well, thinking that would be my one and only religious activity on this day. My feelings on religion are rather hysterical when I think about it. I come from two extremely devout parents, have had the displeasure of encountering so called "religious people" in my life who are "living as the Lord tells them too" (which also includes unnecessary guilt, telling others that they are better than they are, judging those for their so called deviant lifestyles while they sin in secret, etc.). Once I freed myself from such confines, just said "forget about it", I found I was living a far more wholesome and fulfilling life. But that's another story.
I found myself on this day turning to literature pages for this day, and on this day I found myself reading Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor. Although her work has fallen into a definite beta category in literature, her work stands as some of the funniest commentary I have ever encountered. Today I spent it with Hazel Motes, the main character of her story. So me and Hazel were sitting in his boarding house living the live of an ascetic, because it seems that we had both failed (him in his false prophecy of being the leader of a Christ-less church and I with my whole treading water existence). Hazel then unfolds into insanity when he decides to blind himself with lye, have barbed wire wrapped around his chest, and broken glass in his shoes until he wanders off from the mental institution where he had been committed and dies in the wilderness due to exposure to the elements. Often times, I have felt like this; and, ironically, some of the most suffering was caused by those who claimed to bring more knowledge from their lives of prayers to me. Sometimes I think back to something a long time ago, almost fifteen years by now, of a hypocrite who proclaimed his life to be free and clear of all bad things due to his fanatical Catholicism. Instead he chose to abuse me because it was easier for him to tell me that I am wrong rather than he. Such is the role of those in life, I guess, but I have learned to just roll with it. Others rip you to shreds because they are unhappy with themselves and they would rather tear you apart because it feels better to make someone else hurt as bad as they do. And if it's not now, it will be later somehow.
Later on I'm going out for some Mexican food because it will feel so against Easter food of ham and potatoes that it will taste really good. I wish Hazel was a real guy, I would take him as well. He suffered and died for me as a secular Jesus.
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