I am not a religious person, whatever that may mean to you.I was brought up in Bulgaria in a very traditional family, followed all the national and traditional holidays throughout the years. In my hometown right across the road from the orthodox church there was a mosque and every year my Muslim friends were off school during the celebration of Ramadan. It was all good, whenever my family was invited to celebrate with them and it was the same when they were in our house to celebrate Easter.
It never occur to me to call myself a Christian or a Muslim or a Pagan.I remember asking my mother what am I? She said ” You are You”. To this day I don’t know what I am, but I do know for sure, that I have faith. I have faith in the goodness of life, I have faith in love, I have faith in the freedom of choice and I have faith in you and I honor your presence here.
I am not a religious person .I have faith.I feel, that the moment I say to you’I am a christian” or “I am a muslim” I would build a wall around myself and I really do not want to. I believe in Life and its abundant flow of energy. Its always with you.
So now Easter is approaching.Wow, what a big advertising campaign for a chocolate factory. Did you know that according to “waste connect”, approximately 80 million chocolate eggs are sold in the UK at Easter which generates around 4,370 tonnes of card and 160 tonnes of foil waste. That is still fine, but what about the lamb? I know its traditional, I know it’s a symbol and I know that “Jesus is a lamb of God”………
I used to have a lamb as a child, done on the spit-very traditional way to celebrate Easter.Easter in Bulgaria is a strongly celebrated holiday.Pagan mysticism still exists in Bulgarian culture even today, but this is a subject for another post.
I remember the lamb before being killed standing in my granny’s garden.
When I think of it now I am horrified of the thought , that you have to kill an animal to celebrate Life.
What does any celebration involves? Table with an abundance of food and drinks and your close family and friends. Regardless what you are celebrating, could be Easter or your birthday it involves the same things.This Easter I won’t be having lamb , if ever….
To me Easter and any other holiday celebrations are all about Life itself. Celebrate that you are here.You are alive and you are in heaven, because you are with people , that you love.
Thank you Athena , glad you enjoyed this post.I cherish the meaning of Easter, too.Now a days we have all the information at our finger tips and many traditions make no sense to me.But then some people would feel like they haven’t celebrated properly if they haven’t eaten a roast lamb.
Hope you are a having a nice celebration today.Sending blessings your way.
Beautiful post! Personally, I cherish the meaning of Easter but am unsure of whether sacrificing a lamb should be truly necessary to honor life (as you have mentioned). It’s a tradition that we repeat ever year, but we rarely question it… so I decided to actually search about why we do this and ended up here! Thanks for sharing this story 🙂
Indeed, Iva, the love for Jesus makes it up for all the nonsense out there these day :-).xx
I love traditions, Oana. Some of them make me feel good ;-)The only thing, that I was really disagreeing with is the killing of the lambs.
I think differently about Easter.Studying History has opened my eyes to many things and I always like to be in the middle when it comes to religion. Easter was being introduced on Sunday by the Roman Emperor, as they wanted to distance themselves from Jews and Jewish-Christians.”Passover ” was renamed Easter.All the Easter symbols have a pagan origin.
I do not know all the history into detail, but that
is not important as much as the love for Jesus Christ
which many people have and share.
Iva, it’s all good not to get hang up on traditions if you feel they didn’t bring value to your life. But don’t throw the baby with the bath water, as they say. What I mean to say is: there is a real meaning beyond the lamb, the chocolate eggs and the Easter cards. And the reason for the Easter celebrations is Jesus. I will stop here, I don’t want to sound preachy.xx