Down the Road
Easter, Religious or Secular
By Milt Gross
Apr 24, 2011 - 12:35:22 AM

As I was waiting in my bus Friday to start up from a "stop" sign, I noticed a movement at the edge of the woods across the road.

I looked and saw a doe standing at the entrance to a gravel path, moving nervously at the sound of the bus. She was obviously waiting to cross the road to the path's continuation on my side of the road -- to the right of the intersection.

Then I saw my Easter promise of new life.

Two apparently yearling skippers stood side by side, so close to one another they were touching, about eight feet into the woods on the path behind Mama. They were waiting for Mama's signal to follow her across the road.

I paused and watched a few moments but soon left as sounds from the bus were making her start a little every few seconds. I didn't see her motion to her kiddos, but in the rearview mirror I did see them cross the road.

And with that I saw this spring's promise of new life.

I haven't been able to get them out of my memory.

On Saturday afternoon, Dolores told me she had just seen our first robins for this year.

Easter, a return of life.

I understand the relationships between Christmas and Easter for both Christians and non-religious folk, not that all of us don't practice some kind of religion even if it's something as simple as being sure to be out there for the first day of open-water fishing or urging the garden to life and happiness as the season wears passes.

In deep history, those non-religious guys and gals were called "pagans." They celebrated Christmas -- actually, the shortest day of the year -- by burning candles and taking part in other activities to cheer themselves up during that darkest season of the year -- those months after deer season and before open-water fishing season, the season known in some circles as winter -- in Maine, known as, "geez what a long winter this has been." The Roman Catholic Church was ever so wise in capitalizing on that event by making it also a celebration of the birth of the Messiah. After all, that tiny baby, sleeping in a stable because the Comfort Inn was full and didn't yet exist, appeared to be a pretty weak beginning of Messiahhood (new word; don't forget, you read it here first). Things were pretty dark and bleak for the Jewish people when He was born. This baby is our Messiah? Wonder how well He'll do in his first two years of office.

Easter, very similar. Those "pagans" were celebrating the beginning of spring with its signs of new life and renewal all round them. What better time for the Roman Catholic Church to celebrate the crucified Savior and Messiah's return to life -- first back to here and then on to there?

I kind of see those two celebrations together, as both secular -- life around us -- and religious.

I'm afraid too many evangelicals, see only the religious or "spiritual" side of the two celebrations. Sometimes that shortsightedness causes problems, such as in living life when they're not sitting in church. For example, the King James Bible -- the one with which most Evangelical protestants over 29.5 -- coincidentally still my age -- were raised directs man to "have dominion" over his fellow critters. Naturally most historical so-called Christians over the centuries and American evangelicals used and still use that instruction as an excuse to kill, maim, torture, and otherwise torment those fellow critters from that Garden of Eden and sometimes in our garden of veggies.

I think the intent of the original language -- you know, that language the Hebrews used in penning the Old Testament -- was to admonish us to care for our fellow critters. Nothing wrong with having your hoss (you remember, the Maine spelling) pull your wagon, as long as you give him rest, food, and kindness. Nothing wrong with slowing down and not plowing into that deer or moose. And plowing into that moose isn't how we should show our "dominion" over that big, dumb critter that can't leap out of the way of a speeding pickup. And then show that "dominion" again by expanding moose hunting season.

I'm sorry but I've always talked to critters I meet and some of which I get to know. I don't want to expand a season to shoot them. The red squirrel at our bird feeder has a bit of conversation with me each morning and evening, so I think some of them "talk" to us. Even the deer mouse who nibbles at night on the bird food that spills in our shed gets stuck with my conversation. Hey, maybe that's why he hasn't come around so much in the past two weeks. You too talk to animals, such as to that Rottweiler threatening to eat you as you passed it's house on your walk the other day. I know you talked to it. And it listened, because that big canine didn't eat you.

Maybe, in fact, that's why that doe really paused Friday morning as she encountered my bus. Maybe she was waiting for me to talk to her some more -- hey, she could be one of the bunch I've talked to over the years. And, when, after I drove away, she glanced back at her kiddos and I dumbly thought she would be telling them it was safe to cross the road, maybe she actually was saying, "Watch this guy, he's a little strange. He talks to deer."

Some of our bulbs by today have burst from their cold, dark holes in which I planted them -- as the collective "we" buried the Savior and Messiah on Good Friday 2,000 years ago. Those bulbs, reaching for the sunshine and new life in their unintentional symbolic replay of the Easter resurrection, make me smile.

Easter is here!

Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at lesstraveledway@midmaine.com.

Milton M. Gross Copyright 2011