Easter Monday

This happens every Easter. It gets to Monday and I'm sort of over it in a way. Maybe it's just the afterglow of too much sugar, but by Monday there is this sort of relief at being over feeling like you have to drum yourself up to feel certain things about the cross because it's a particular day. It's like Christmas. Celebrating Jesus' birthday every year is just patently stupid; surely when you're as old as he is you just want to let it slide by quietly :)

But I wonder - is Easter the same? Shouldn't the death and resurrection be commemorated or marked or pondered all the year? In a meal and a drink shared amongst friends? When you're sitting on the toilet? At 4.36 pm on a Wednesday afternoon? What happens if Easter comes around and God isn't speaking to you about anything in particular, or you're not speaking to God about anything in particular, or you're struggling to believe God is there at all, or you've got your period and you're in a shitty mood? At the very least it is a release on the pressure valve to read the amounts of writings going on in the blogosphere that are expanding and pondering and looking from different angles what happened on that cross. That just fills me with hope. Thank God there is room next to the concept of penal substitution. About time. Maybe now we'll get some life in the party again.

So this is what happens on Monday for me. A relief that the party is over for another year, even while I appreciate it when it's going on. After the party, I can't help feeling like the people who are happy and content in their faith are left feeling full, while the ones who are struggling or who have no faith at all are made to feel worse. Actually, no. Having no faith at all is easier - you get a four-day weekend and easy potshots at the stupid faithful who believe childish tales :)

I can feel the effects of yesterday's sugar eating. I had a particularly enjoyable day watching Hawthorn demolish North Melbourne with my friend John. He is a North Melbourne supporter, and I got to rib him all day and all night, as we caught up with Andrea last night and saw Judith Lucy at the Comedy Festival. That was fun. So was eating two Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a milkshake and chocolates and then some more chocolates followed by some chocolates upon waking up this morning. But am I looking forward to having a break from sugar again? Yes.

That is a miracle in itself. When I am in the midst of eating sugar every day, like I have been for the past six months, it seems impossible that I will be able to quit it. I forgot this is how it goes - quit sugar (with an emergency square of Lindt 85% cocoa every night), and slowly, very slowly, it begins losing its grip on you. Until you get to the point where you find you can say no to it and it's not even that hard. You never think it's going to happen, and then it does.