All These Memories Like Tears in Rain - Easter

That quote in the title comes from the most removed from Easter that you can get, a modern sci fi film. A dying Robot sits on an edge of a skyscraper as his life force runs out and utters a longer quote about all he has seen but the end and the gist of it is summed up in that phrase. As I get older, too, memories pop up from the distant past, and this morning I was thinking about a First Holy Communion gift that I was given when I was a child in Philadelphia and made my Confirmation. I guess I was about ten, and my father gave me a bible, a small white bible with gold edges on the paper that I still have, and someone gave me a necklace with a MUSTARD SEED in it. I don't think I fully understood what a mustard seed signified then, but maybe I did and I have forgotten.

Easter in my long ago childhood in Philadelphia was a big big event. So was First Holy Communion. My small church on the waterfront, Gloria Dei, Old Swedes' Church was a simple, humble, non-ostenatious affair, but families ALL bought brand new clothes and dressed up for Easter - to start the new cycle of the year, the rebirth, of Jesus and the world. We wore Easter bonnets in those days, and gloves! I had a whole new outfit, a new dress, socks, shoes, sometimes a light Spring coat or jacket. First Holy Communion I remember most from the Catholic children. We lived in what is called the Stella Maris Parish. The flood of Italian immigrants in the early years of the 20th century had turned the formerly Irish and German neighborhood, entirely Italian, but we all got along and they brought a lot of color and joy. Also, it was all I had ever known, I was born into an Italian neighborhood. At Christmas the men strung lights from house to house, criss-crossing the entire block and the women made and gave pizzelles to their neighbors. At Easter, the Italian market was filled with intricately braided and woven palm fronds which people put on their doors. And when the children made First Holy Communion, long parades of solemn girls dressed in white bridal dresses, layers of organdy, pleats and pearls, heads covered in veils and gloved hands holding rosaries or small white bibles like mine would walk silently down the streets to the church, their families gathered and gazing at them with awe and pride. The boys wore new suits with hair pomaded back, shoes shined. The whole neighborhood was a part of the celebration either through participation or observation. For weeks ahead of the holiday, dress shops had First Holy Communion dresses hanging outside to remind families of the upcoming ceremony and to tempt them to buy their dress there.

I can't remember if I had a First Holy Communion dress, if I did, I can assure you in our more humble and plain version of the ritual, it wouldn't have been one of those spendid wedding gown dresses. What I do remember is wandering around before the ceremony repeating over and over the Apostles Creed worried that I would forget at the important moment and shame myself and my family. I think I got through it. I was NEVER much good at memorizing.

Anyhow, back to the mustard seed, As I am reading HOPE, by Jane Goodall, she mentions the mustard seed, the parable of Jesus to describe the Kingdom of God, a small thing holding great power for expansion into something nourishing and enormous and powerful. As it happens some researchers ran across 2000 year old mustard seeds in Israel and Dr. Sarah Sallon oversaw the sprouting of the seeds, the fertilization of the male and female speciemens she grew, and they became fruitful. Jane Goodall relates this story to illustrate how resilient nature is. Her story stirred my memory of that long long lost world when religion played a such a big part in the lives of ordinary people and I wore a necklace with a mustard seed in it.

Upcoming Holidays - Happy St. Patrick's Day, and Happy Easter! To get ready for Easter, I am doing what I always do, watching lots of movies and documentaries about the beginnings of Christianity and the life of Jesus Christ. I wa texting with a frriend recently and she said every year at Easter she watches the Ten Commandments! I always watched that movie, too, and Ben Hur, and Spartacus! I learned so much, or perhaps I should say, I was inspired to learn so much from those movies! When I moved to Germany as a new bride with my drafted soldier husband in 1969, the book I took with me on the plane to read was a newly published book about the Discovery and Research on the Dead Sea Scrolls, what some archaeologists and bible scholars call the greatest archaeological discovery of th 20th century. Egyptologists might disagree with them on that, after all King Tut was discovered in that centtury too!

Happy Trails, Jo Ann