not a festive holiday

The end of Lent and the celebration of Easter is once almost here, and I find that my feelings about this time of year haven't changed really much in the past 15 years. Since this month is the anniversary of my father's passing, it's an annual juxtaposition of the death of my Dad and the death of Christ. I was also baptized on Easter... my senior year in high school.

In a world of commercialized bunny rabbits, colored eggs and pastel-colored schwag, I think every Christian struggles to recapture the essence of Easter each year. Our entire faith is founded on the notion that one man, both completely God and also completely human, sacrificed himself for a human race that couldn't save itself. The mystery of the faith is that every person interprets this same sacrifice in a different way.

For myself, despite the sacredness of the holiday, I can't help but think a lot about my father. Maybe for some Christians, the fact that I can't completely focus on Christ during Easter is a personal failing, but that's how it is. My somberness during March is a combination of both contempation of my father and my faith, but honestly, especially in the past few years, one passing has grown larger than the other. And I don't feel that bad about it at all.


.:.


news hound

No surprises that this went under the media radar...

It looks like the current presidential administration is no different from any other when it comes to so-called "faith-based community initiatives". In the war over the budget, the $8 billion in tax incentives for faith-based organizations got axed. Oops.

Yeah, I'm sure all those huge corporations scamming their investors and CEOs needed the tax breaks a lot more than all those silly churches and organizations engaging in feeding the homeless, taking care of youth, and providing substance abuse rehabilitation.

Go compassionate conservatism! (/sarcasm)


...


Oh, and Bobby Fischer has been released from Japanese custody and is now a citizen of Iceland.

But he had harsh words for U.S. and Japanese officials, calling Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi "mentally ill" and a "stooge" of President George W. Bush.

"This was a kidnapping because the charges that the Japanese charged me with are totally nonsense," Fischer said on his flight from Tokyo to Copenhagen, Denmark, where he stopped before travelling on to Iceland.

In the interview, he unleashed an angry diatribe against the United States.

"The United States is an illegitimate country...just like the bandit state of Israel - the Jews have no right to be there, it belongs to the Palestinians," said Fischer, whose mother was Jewish.

"That country, the United States, belongs to the red man, the American Indian...It's actually a shame to be a so-called American because everybody living there is...an invader."

Whoa, Bobby. Rock on.
posted by G at 6:31 PM   |

in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33