Happy Easter (a day early)

I missed giving the Passover blessing, so I’ll be a bit early: Happy Easter! For the Christians in the audience, please remember that today is the important one — not Good Friday, despite what Mel Gibson would have you believe.

Of course, consider the source: I’m an agnostic, lapsed Presbyterian, one-time Christian existentialist, one-time Ayn Rand materialist (shudder), who has close Jewish relatives to whom he’s devoted,* who was married in a Lutheran Church, whose parents are Episcopalians, who was deeply influenced in his moral thinking by a Catholic law school,** and who buys a lot of books on Buddhism.***

In other words, I am a mess. But I do like Easter. Easter represents the very highest things in humanity: sacrifice, love, patience, and perserverence. You don’t have to believe in it to be moved by it. (Though, as I grow older — and perhaps wiser — I do find myself believing in it all the more.)

Be kind to one another. Be kind even to your enemies — especially to your enemies.

von

p.s. to Moe Lane/others: Don’t let this pre-empt your own Easter greeting.

*Uncle converted when he married a nice Jewish girl. We were going to celebrate my niece’s Bat Mitzvah in Israel — then 9-11.

There’s also a rumor that we vons are Jewish in part by blood. I don’t put much stock in it, however: It seems that every other week my beloved grandmother discovers another trunk to the von-family tree. We were once Scotch-Northern Irishpersons who married DAR types (the Horn family, landed in 1640). Then she “discovered” our Pennsylvania Dutch roots. Then, maybe, we’re Swiss as well. Then, . . .

**Probably why I like reading Paul Cella so much — he’s a very Catholic Presbyterian.

***Oh, yeah, and who sees no conflict in the foregoing with saying (once again): It is wholly unjust that Edward cannot marry the person whom he chooses.