Esme's first Easter egg hunt - searching for the meaning of Easter

We took the kids to the neighborhood brunch and Easter egg hunt this past Sunday, and Esme discovered the joy of the hunt. Even as I type this, she's happily munching on the jelly beans from her loot bin. Being only 2 and a half in a hunt for kids 5 and under has its disadvantages. She only found one egg by herself, then the sweetest little boy named Brandon took pity on her and started shoveling his own eggs into Esme's basket. For the rest of the hunt, I surreptitiously stole eggs from Esme's basket and re-hid them for her to find. At one point she looked at me and said, "Mommy, throw another one!" I was busted.

Jacob and I have noticed that other people make assumptions about our religious beliefs when we tell them we went to an Easter egg hunt over the weekend. I was talking to my good friend Courtnay, who responded, "I thought y'all didn't celebrate Easter." I was stumped. Was going to an Easter egg hunt celebrating Easter? We don't consider ourselves Christian or Jewish (or Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu or any other religion). Jacob, being the good MIT grad that he is, has more of a "science is god" perspective on life, whereas I believe in the mystical and spiritual, but don't believe that any single brand of religion has the sole key to the spiritual world. Both of us believe strongly in morality, and we try hard to teach our children the difference between right and wrong. But major wars have been fought in the name of religion, and we don't support the dogmatic view points that come from associating yourself with one single path.

When we headed off to the Easter egg hunt, none of this was going through either of our minds. We were simply going to a neighborhood party, looking forward to chatting with the neighbors, drinking coffee, and watching Esme discover a fun new game with all her preschooler friends. I'm sure that while most of our neighbors probably do consider themselves Christian, they weren't thinking of religion on Sunday either. They were thinking, "God, this is a gorgeous day to be out here in the redwoods. Aren't all those kids running around cute." "God" in this sense of the word, is a figure of speech, not an evocation. (And, by the way, I saw a family I know to be Buddhist there, and another family that belongs to a local Temple.)

Yet when Jacob told his Mom that we went to an Easter egg hunt, her reply was, "So I guess you're not celebrating Passover." I wasn't even aware it was Passover until I talked to my friend Beca, who was home visiting her family for the holiday. Of course, I wasn't aware it was Easter until I got the email about the neighborhood brunch. If we had gotten an email about a neighborhood seder, we would have gone. And the truth is, I will take the kids to seders when they get old enough to be aware of what's going on. I think it's important for them to understand the traditions of world religions, because it is a way for them to understand different cultures and it might help them later on their own spiritual paths. But I don't think that we need to subscribe to just one religion to give our children a spiritual education.

What about tradition, some people may ask. And what about it? Almost every major religion was founded by an individual who broke with tradition, recognizing that the established institution gets corrupt and needs to be shaken up. The great religious leaders have been mavericks, and I think it's important that my children recognize that and learn to think for themselves. Morality is not something that you achieve by following a religion. It is something you show in your everyday choices. When suicide bombers kills themselves and scores of others in the name of religion, are they making good moral choices? When Christians scoured Europe during the crusades, forcing out the Jews and Gypsies, were they making good moral choices? Does it sound like I have a grudge against religion? Maybe I do.

Our lives are not devoid of tradition. We have family traditions, and since we are a young family, those traditions are still in the making. But I look at composting and planting seeds as our religious traditions, teaching our kids how to be responsible and live in harmony with nature. What does finding a plastic Easter egg stuffed with sweets teach kids? To eat lots of sugar and get cracked out on candy? I don't see the religious element there. The meaning behind Easter, the rebirth of Christ, is religiously significant. It's symbolically and spiritually significant, but is a 2 year old going to get it? I don't think so. Similarly with Passover, it documents the Jewish story that is an important part of the culture. But I don't think Esme would understand it yet. And it's a story that reinforces one of the things about Judaism that I don't really like, which is the concept of the "Chosen People." What does that mean? That all the "Unchosen People" are shite? I thought we were all God's creations, and therefore all connected.

This gets at the root of why religion does not play a strong role in our family. It stresses differences between cultures, and I would rather my children grow up seeing themselves as connected to other human beings and the the natural world around them. Seeing the world in terms of "us" and "them" is what enables us to justify waging war on others. God help my children from ever viewing things that way.