About Good Friday and Easter time

An Essay from Karin Jansen

Some thoughts and facts about these free days in the Western Christian civilization

Update from my Geman language Essay from 23.3.2016

Easter: The biggest feast in the Christian West is, like the other Christian festivals, a great festival of consumption. And why we shouldn't enjoy all the colourful flowers, bushes and fertility symbols like eggs and bunnies which look at us wherever we are on these days. So we can get in the mood with spring season after a more or less hard winter. It feels well to keep some rituals in the rhythm of the year alive.

The association from the religious Easter festival with pagan customs around the beginning of spring was from the very beginning in the sense of the church fathers. Even today in our modern world the Church benefits from this symbiosis.

Easter is a major festival every year on the agenda in society. The Holy Week, commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, may only touch a few people in the hustle and bustle of their daily life. It’s better to have a weekend to take a small trip and something nice else. A lot of people are overworked and simply enjoy these days off. Comparatively few Christians think of the Easter story, the final supper of Jesus with his disciples, the great betrayal and Jesus’ horrible path of suffering and the martyrs on the cross. Finally to celebrate the miracle of his resurrection. Anyway, Jesus would not be Jesus if he had not risen again. And most people in the West don’t believe and do not think about that. We are living here in a widespread secularized world.

A quiet week would do well our societies and everyone, regardless of denomination, faith or disbelief

Until the 1950s, the week before Easter, in many parts of Germany, was considered a "quiet time" in which there was no public pleasure allowed. And til today some cities hold a dance ban on Good Friday, of course there a some people who want to dance especially on this day. Nothing is to say against dancing. But in our modern world it’s not profitable for business to ban shopping and fun, only for some hours in a year. On the contrary, it shall be sold as much as possible as usual. The same with Christmas celebrations and the sell opening Sundays. People shall not pause to think, but consume and have fun, everyday without any break. This dance ban may be anachronistic nowadays, but the idea of a quiet week isn't bad at all for me.

We would do well to reflect on the polarity of our daily life and to look at the many problems of our days, regardless of any denomination or disbelief. The Dalai Lama spoke out in his Appeal for a Living Ethic, which shouldn't depend on any religion. Practiced ethic becomes more important in this more difficult and destroyed global world for everyone, just because new religious conflicts and terror acts surround us more and more and the climate change threatens us.

Unfortunately individual reflection often isn’t possible in our hectic flooded life. Today, and evermore since the last years, we are confronted with the world's victims of hunger, climate change catastrophes, war, war crime and flight of so many people, who often don't survive on their run in a safe and peaceful country. Not only the destruction of Syria is a nearly unbelievable crime. And it is evident how divided and frightened and even full of hate a lot of the people in European societies react now.

Unlimited consumption how it is used today isn’t the answer to this dangerous situation. The answer is more education, more thinking, more feeling, more compassion, responsibility and awareness - possible for everybody. This world changes and a good change isn’t possible without emancipated free people. Populist politicians with sacks full of stupidity, lies and hate are no answer. Everybody by himself and herself can do something for a better peaceful world daily. That’s a chance for all of us.

This 1st part of this essay Good Friday and Easter - An Essay

and 2nd part Easter 2: Thinking about the Animals in the Food Industry

are published on my staphBlog, the Blog of Studio applied Philosophy

Thank you very much for reading!

Have an enjoyable Easter time!

Dr. Karin Jansen, Expert for Ethics, Creativity, Wellbeing, Critical Thinking, Blogger and Publicist