Happy Historical Easter

(For those who may be historically sensitive, please change the channel.)

What do you think of at this time of the year?
Hunting for eggs?

I remember going to St.Andrew's United Church Sunday School and singing hymns led by good old Mr.Reid and Mr. Longlay. Our grade was up in the back rows -familiar names - Oliver-Butt-Bossart-MacLean-Artagnan-McConnell-and others.

"..He holds the anchor... etc.

Church...organized religion.

Here is the church
and here is the steeple,
open the doors and
there's all the people.

Let's look back now - way back.
Let us take the blind folds off for a bit and put them back on later.

Imagine way way back, in Bethlehem, then Nazareth and Jerusalem, one becomes "the chosen" and ends up crucified. All the good philosophic strains are extracted from the movement and made into a religion.

A tax collector has an epiphany coming home from work and changes his name.

He goes out on the road with his perception of 'the message', - to Rome, where the market is a bit rougher - they feed Christians to the lions. To survive and adapt, they make changes to 'the presentation' of the message to make it more akin to those who are following the Sun God in Rome -Constantine and friends.

Hence - the holy day of the week is changed from Saturday to "Sun" day to make it less Judaic and more Roman. They change the originator's birthday to make it more convenient to Roman 'days off' and cleanse many of the Judaic 'House of David/God of Abraham' trappings to a more and Roman-ized spin- changing the wrapping to gear themselves to the desired new audience.

A new development emerges in the future times, -Rome- "improves" the home grown idea - "where two or more are gathered in my name, there I shall be", and inserts an ecclesiastic Latin speaking intermediary between the individual and her/his God - and adds some new secret handshakes, smoke and passwords.

Fast forward into the future, at a big meeting (long, long after the originator's untimely demise), (Easter), they award, in absentia, three things in one shot to the founder's nature, he is voted retroactively, a man, a spirit and a God. A Miracle.

Later, against the intermediary 'priest' idea, a spiritual and philosophic rebellion takes place in Holland and the west; a "Protest -ant" group of rabble rousers break free.

Not being able to pass up a good opportunity when he sees one, King Henry the 8th in England, needing some cash and wanting to change marital/divorce laws to his liking, snips free of Rome with the help of "Parliament' and creates the new Church of England while stealing all the gold, silver and precious objects, not to mention Real Estate (Feb. 4 1539), from the Catholic monasteries for the new church -which is led by -you guessed it- King Henry 8 himself.

As time goes by, in the "so-called" new territories across the ocean, First Nations peoples not-withstanding, Churches of various stripes, like good spiritual lube, lead the way to "appropriating" Real Estate for the good of our ancestors and therefore -us today. We also get our own brand of cigarettes and lung cancer. "Was it good for you?"

But Let us not forget the original message irrespective of wrapping - "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Just where does Peter Cotton Tail come in to this?
Not 'Thanks-Giving' anyway.
Perhaps Halloween?

Damn! I can't eat chocolate due to high cholesterol.

Now where is my blind fold?