The Easter Egg hunt...

Empty grave on Sunday? Jesus not found among the dead? Maybe he's elsewhere or, even, everywhere.

"Wherever 2 or 3 are gathered for a good purpose, I'm there."

So it looks to me that Easter celebrates the death of 'bad' religion and the birth of 'good'.

Disciple John says Jesus' crumpled suit was all that's left in the grave. He's buzzed off.

Beware of the crumpled suit, folks, ie. bad religion. Deirdre's piece gives clues as to Jesus' whereabouts. Keep looking.

Happy Easter! Bob.

The trend is back to basics - that's fundamental

Deirdre Macken
AFR: April 5 - 9, Page 47

The local yoga centre did a mail-out the other day to woo back lapsed yoga students. Some ex-students may have been prompted to get their karma back and get some discipline back into their downward dog, but I was just reassured that there are other lapsed yoga students out there.

Being a lapsed yoga devotee is a bit like being a lapsed Catholic; or a Jewish person with misgivings about the Israeli government; or a Liberal who enters the polling booth with a How to Vote Fishing Party card. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what made you lapse, even if it was easy to once explain why you joined.

People join because the doctor gives them a talking to. Or they visit an ashram and see the tranquility. Joining up is full of conviction, but the process of disenchantment isn't so definitive.

Before you become lapsed you become slack. Before you become an unbeliever you become disenchanted. And then there's a moment of enlightenment when you lie down on a yoga mat at 10am on a Saturday and decide there are better things to do outside. Or you read a news report about people who do things in your name and you decide, not on my behalf, thanks.

Sometimes, you just can't hack the leader/teacher/preacher any longer. The yoga teacher acts as if she's the channel for all the chi in the world. The priest insists you go to mass weekly or you're not part of the flock. The rabbi won't hear of political discussions in his presence. The mufti insists on recreating the ancient East in a suburb of Australia.

Fundamentalism is the 21st century default position. What starts off as a good idea hardens into doctrine. What was once a practice becomes policy. Agreement becomes belief and members are expected to become followers. If not, you're a latte drinker in a short black society.

Attachment parenting experts belittle parents who use controlled crying - it's not different strokes for different folks, it's simply bad parenting. Economic fundamentalists lambast social policies as wasteful - it's not so much a policy choice but a bad choice. Executives mouth platitudes about flexible work options and then treat flexible workers as wastrels. You're in or you're out. You're a core worker or you're on the outer.

Here, for instance, is what Gadens law firm told graduates to expect from them when they attended the recent Sydney Law Careers fair. "We will be giving away a manila folder containing a sample time sheet, a list of after-hours dinner delivery services in the CBD, a guide to achieving optimum personal billing statistics during your summer clerkship and a bus ticket." Ex-cons get a better sample bag than that.

We used to be an easy going country. A job was just a job. Exercise was what you did when you raised a sweat. Skin care was one tube. The CSIRO diet started off as a guideline. And you trod lightly on the earth without having to calculate the carbon credit you owed every tome you forget to turn off a light.

This weekend, the Catholic church is fretting about a report about the number of long-term churchgoers who've given up the ghost. After reading the report, theologian Richard Lennan said the reason were plain to see. The lapsed Catholics, he said, had "reduced church to authority", they saw "the exercise of authority in negative terms" and thought "the church's focus was on rules, not compassion". A philosopher might simply have said, "Duh".

Tucked away in the report, however, was the fact that half of those who've given up on the church say they want to develop a spiritual life outside the church. And the ways they intend to do that include "developing a personal relationship with Christ, expressing religious values in daily living, voluntary work in the community, conducting special family liturgies and expressing spirituality through art, music, sport or interaction with nature".

Gee, that rings a bell. Isn't that what Christ did? If those people are rejecting the fundamentalist nature of the church, they're doing it by getting back to the fundamentals of their church.

Yet the response of the bishop of Bunbury was to suggest that the reforms of Vatican II were introduced too fast - i.e., wind back the clock - and to say you can't be a "good Christian" if you don't accept the Eucharist - i.e., if you don't go to mass you can't be a good Christian. If it was sermonising that turned churchgoers off, it's not going to woo them back. If the rabbi can't tolerate different opinions inside the faith, then dissenters will take it to the media. And if the mantra of the yoga teacher annoyed students, a mail-out is unlikely to get them back.

Comments

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Nice cartoon, I always wonder why we have easter bunny laying eggs butg ather it has to do with some smart insider joke who decided to make the most of the easter trade and thoughti f we can get them to believe in jesus we can get them to belive anything. Finally the wheel is turning and easter bunny is almost out.
LOL

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