I have trouble with Easter, and my trouble with it is mostly because I have difficulty finding meaning in it without regurgitating the entire manual of Christian idioms and vernacular I learned as a child. All of the natural, knee-jerk phrases I would use to talk about Resurrection Sunday all consist of things that I now hear myself say and think What does that even mean? I was hard-wired to recite and understand events like these like the story of Hanzel and Gretel. And I mean that not so much in the sense that reduces Easter to just a story, but more in the sense that if any seven-year-old at a modern evangelical church were asked to retell either story, both are automatic, integrated stories that can be recited at any moment’s notice.

For family reading, stop panicking that I’ve backslidden (another nicely packaged word with a bow on top that is not heard in any other normal situation) and listen to what I’m saying.

I need Easter to be fresh. I don’t want to reduce or downgrade the potency of its meaning; I don’t want that to go away. I just want to find meaning and an understanding that doesn’t involve a communal feeding on verbal vomit that’s brought back up the Church’s throat every year in April. I no longer can glean meaning out of what I’ve been fed all my life. I can’t sit through another church service and hear the pastor with his happy smile, arms lifted hear him say “He is risen!” and we, as the lovely congregation repeat back “He is risen, indeed!” Don’t misunderstand me, I mean nothing against churches that do that. I just need to understand the exact implications it has on my life. Because as far as I see, it doesn’t mean anything other than a new dress, an ungodly (pun intended, shut up) early church service, brunches, cantatas and lots of irritating Easter basket grass.

Well, it means that he has conquered death! Yes, but what does that mean? It’s great, I appreciate it, but if this holiday is so huge and so integral to the Christian faith, how exactly is my life suppose to change because of this? What does it mean for me, Deanna, in Michigan on April 8th, 2010 to live as if “death has been conquered”? We no longer have to fear death because Christ has be victorious! Once again, what does that mean? When I wake up tomorrow at exactly 7:45am, how should my life be different because of that fact? Because right now it doesn’t. And at least, it doesn’t in most people’s lives that I know. So why is this holiday like a lesser cousin to Christmas for the church?

It’s just a too well packaged, too concise a holiday full of over-arching phrases that have lost their deeply practical meanings. I now am in a place in my life where I have to step away and approach this all from a different angle to even keep it around.

Maybe this is exactly what people mean when they say “Christmas is dead.” It’s not so much that other people (or things) killed it (because if I hear ONE more person say that commercialism killed Christmas, I will probably snap), it’s that it’s lost all meaning in and of itself and it’s lying there on the ground, and all that’s left to say is “I either need to give this holiday a funeral, or take time to find true meaning in it.”

The night before Easter, my husband and I ate dinner over at my family’s house, which was wonderful. There was wonderful food, lots of laughing, and a few Office episodes squeezed in. It was warm, sweet, and what I hope to be doing every Easter. Sunday morning we (surprise!) slept in, went to see Clash of the Titans (because we all know that Easter is not properly celebrated without a Greek mythology 3D action flick), and then went over to Drew’s house to enjoy the new Rob Bell video (happy lights?) and delicious food with his folks and our small semblance of a house church.

We didn’t do anything out of the ordinary to celebrate Easter. We just talked about the video for a few minutes, and then went upstairs and spent the next 7 hours just talking.

This is what I desperately need in my life. No amount of new dresses, annoying white sandals, or Easter cantatas can deliver, for me personally, what I need on Easter or in the rest of my life. I don’t need formality, I don’t want gospel songs (GASP!). I need connection, sounding boards, people to laugh with and people who (I am resisting the urge to say “edify” because no one really knows what that means) challenge my own thoughts and ideas. While most of the conversation was talking about the French Connection UK brand of clothing, griping about Flash and how we can’t wait for HTML5, Keisha lyrics, and all things pop culture, we often have conversations that last late into the night about All the Things That Matter. We sit around watching movies and end up in mind-blowing conversations about point of views, the rifts between political parties, the reason Detroit is dying and how it should change, religion and what it means in our lives, etc.

All of it is meaningful, and I am a better person every time I leave those conversations.

If traditional Easter services work for you, great. But they don’t do it for me anymore. They’ve become devoid of meaning because I’m jaded and because I harbor cynicism that’s crept into my life over the last couple of years. I had to find a different way to see Jesus this year. I had to find Him in the people around me and in the community of close friends that I call home. And even in all my pessimism and irritation with my perception of the church, He still showed up. And that, is what I desperately needed to know on Easter this year.

Here’s to finding what you need, and here’s to looking at Easter in a new way.

So, Happy Easter. Or for those of you who hate cantatas, Happy Zombie Jesus Day!

After waking up late, almost walking out the door without knowing where I was going, having to stop at a gas station to grab some chocolate milk to keep my empty and noisy stomach from taking part of the festivities, and accidentally trying to go in through the out driveway (zing!), my morning at Christ Church Cranbrook was off to a weird start. (This is the Awesome Project, after all. No post here is complete without some strange and seemingly controversial cultural reference in the title. Zeppelin for the win.)

“I’m probably going to be about 5 mins late.” That turned out to be a lie, it was more like 15.
“Okay. I’m on the right side of the church, about 15 rows from the entrance.”

The campus that the church is located on is peaceful. The driveways are strolling, the parking lots are nicely spaced and are scattered throughout a landscape full of trees, large sections of grass, and old architecture. I mean, I like my megachurches sitting in the middle of a plain, industrial parking lots built for a football stadiums as much as the next

Christ Church Cranbrook in springtime

person, but there is something to be said about the serenity that was immediately present from the environment as I was walking in.

Luckily I walked in while there was singing going on so my awkward search to find Drew wasn’t noticed. I must say, he wasn’t lying when he said the church was beautiful enough to make me want to immediately convert. The sanctuary was thin, not quite as wide as the Notre Dame Basilica of Montreal in Quebec, Canada or some of the old European cathedrals in Amsterdam, Netherlands, but it was long. Everything is built of grey stone, and the paintings on the walls are just stunning.

My Baptist background doesn’t easily lend to the rituals and procedures of an Episcopalian church, which was why the bulletin was extremely helpful. It had everything from notations of when to sit/stand/kneel, page numbers, a guide to which book was which, the full scripture passages that were read, the congregation responses, and even a subtext of what to do during communion. This thing was so pretty, it should have been sold in the front as a playbill (all it needed was the bios and pictures of the cast.)

The prayers and creeds that we read aloud were actually kind of wonderful. I’m still not totally familiar with the format, but as I was reading I took the time to actually pay attention to the words that were being used. The Reverend prayed for the homeless, the unemployed, the new Lector that they are still looking for, Israel, Obama, Palestine, the earth and for our will to protect and care for it, our governor, and almost everything else. The prayers were sweet, honoring, respectful, and poetic. They are what I want my prayers to be but never are. Not only did they pray for the popular things (Israel, the unemployed), but they also prayed for the things that need prayer but are less socially acceptable / politically correct for a church to be offers prayers for (Obama, Jennifer Granholm, Palestine).

“Did you hear them pray for Palestine? I was shocked. You could go to the Baptist church down the street and you won’t hear them praying for Palestine.”
“They prayed for Obama, too! Scandalous.”
“And Jenny? I was like… Wow.”

I will admit up right up front that I missed the main point of the sermon because I was busy looking at my surroundings, trying to feel out the message of everything that was going on, and being amused by Drew’s slight fidgeting. But, one of the biggest things that stuck out to me was how personable everything was. This church’s main prerogative was not to shut out those who are strangers, but welcome them in.

One of the scripture passages for the day was Mark 12:38-44, one of the most over-used passages on tithing. The Reverend Lloyd Buss poked fun at the church in saying that whenever giving to the church comes up this passage will be used  to encourage the congregation to not only give, but to give more. And while, like I said, I missed the overarching point of the message, this particular part was about how it’s not all about tithing and it’s not all about giving financially, that living like Jesus involves more than just your checkbook. Later, he mentioned that historically, the only correct way to talk about a Reverend was to say “The Reverend, but now, we have Reverend, The Very Reverend, The Most High Reverend. Reverend Buss continued with “And The Very Correct Reverend, The Mostly Correct Reverend, The Obviously Not Wrong Reverend.” We all chuckled in our wooden pews.

I think a lot of people (at least the Baptists I knew and grew up with) have the idea that the Episcopalian and Catholic veined churches are stingy, ritual based, and leave no room for life, humor, or authenticity. At Christ Church Cranbrook, this simply was not the case. I was comfortable, warm, and knew that this was someplace I could call home. While I can see how it would be easy to go on a Sunday morning to a church like this, read what you’re supposed to read, sing what you’re supposed to sing, repeat what you’re supposed to repeat, and remain disconnected, Cranbrook makes provisions for everyone in the congregation to take part of a heartfelt experience that is both profound and encompassing.