Easter Messages
First, the latest from the authoritarian on Easter Sunday:
That message wrapped up the last couple of days of messages from him and his administration.
Be sure to thank the citizens who voted for this President fully knowing who he is, and give special thanks to white evangelical Christians who have solidly supported him over three elections.
Meanwhile, there was this image of our planet, the only planet that we humans have claimed as home, from the astronauts who are circling the moon:
A non-believer in any supreme being, I note high holy days in my calendar because in my framework, whether it is Easter or Ramadan or Rama Navami, or whatever, they are reminders to help us mortals reflect on our fleeting existence on this “mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam,” as Carl Sagan so poetically put it. To look at the photo of earth against the darkness of space is perhaps how we ought to begin our days, to remind ourselves about the insignificance of our lives, a humbling thought along with a cup of coffee that would take us far away from how the American authoritarian spends every second of every single day.
These special religious days are intentional pauses to our everyday lives. A forced interruption that then makes us think, for at least a few minutes, about what we want to do with the little time that we have on this planet.
I suppose it can seem bizarre that this atheist writes such stuff. It shouldn’t; for all the non-believer that I am, I consciously think about my existence, and question what it means to be human. Nor am I one of those militant atheists making a fanatical religion out of atheism. As long as the religious do not impose their practices on me, I seek nothing but peaceful coexistence, friendship, food, and laughter and conversations with them. On the other hand, if they impose on me their religion-derived ways of life, either directly or indirectly, then I suppose the roads diverge and my travel in life takes a different route, as I have with people with whom I used to be good friends in the past.
In his Easter Sunday address, Pope Leo said:
From without, death is always lurking. We see it present in injustices, in partisan selfishness, in the oppression of the poor, in the lack of attention given to the most vulnerable. We see it in violence, in the wounds of the world, in the cry of pain that rises from every corner because of the abuses that crush the weakest among us, because of the idolatry of profit that plunders the earth’s resources, because of the violence of war that kills and destroys.
He wrapped it up with wishes and prayers for “peace to the whole world”.
Fingers crossed!