Conciliatory moves over Easter

Raymond Brown wrote:
> At 3:33 pm -0400 28/4/00, John Cowan wrote:
> [....]
> >
> >(I find it inconceivable that Ray Brown would be sarcastic about
anybody's
> >religion, and I think you must have misunderstood him.)
Maybe. I am quite touchy about my religion, and get sick of having to
validate my beliefs at every turn. _No-one_ should have to defend their
religion.

> Thank you, John.
>
> Yes, I once had a profound religious experience - long years back it now
> seems - which overturned much of what I'd been taught & which quite
> literally left me stunned intellectually.  I had to relearn - very
> humbling.  And I was opposed at first by my family, till they learned to
> accept it.  So I try to respect other people's religions and, following
the
> exhotation of Paul, to be all things to all people.
Ah, isn't there a phrase that it's impossible to be all things to all
people.

> I just like a bit of respect in return.
>
> >Anyway, here it is:
> >
> >"Eostermonath, qui nunc pascalis mensis interpretur, quondam a dea
> >illorum quae Eostre vocabatur et cui in illo festa celebrabant nomen
> >habuit."
> >
> >All net.sources, whether pagan, orthodox Christian, or Judaising
> >Christian (and almost all of them violently tendentious),
> >seem to agree that this is all we hear about Eostre from
> >any source, except that there are surviving placenames in Germany
> >that probably (according to Grimm) reflect the same entity.
>
> Ah, I see you've been doing a similar search to the one I made. I wish I
> could say it'd been fun   :=(
>
> >What is clear, though, is that Bede identifies Easter-month with
> >the Roman April, which pretty much eliminates any notion of the
> >vernal equinox.
> >
> >(Which of course does not mean that religions are not free to change
> >their ritual calendars to fit the changing times and the increase of
> >knowledge: all religions that have calendars at all, AFAIK, have done
so.)
>
> Oh yes - I agee with both the above paragraphs.
Here also.

> If someone wants to celebrate the Vernal Equinox & call it 'Easter',
that's
> up to them.  But what I kind of resent is when I'm told that my Easter is
> in someway not real and that their Easter is the true, original one -
> especially when, as you observe, there is no evidence that 'twas ever so.
Ah, here is where we have been at crossed purposes. I really didn't mean to
imply that your easter was not real at all; just that Christians aren't the
only people that celebrate Easter. Then all this Bede-based nitpicking
seemed to me to be exactly what you were being offended about: it seemed
that someone was telling me that what I was celebrating was not real.

As for "true and original" festivals, well. Wiccans celebrate both our four
Germanic high festivals and the four Celtic fire festivals, and generally,
we don't complain. Whatever we call it and whenever we do it, Christians,
Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists or Pagans, we are all united in our desire
to
celebrate and worship the divine, in whatever form we find it.

Sorry for any offense, it was entirely unintentional. I thought that by
saying "Easter" (with quotes) rather than Easter (without quotes) back in
the original posting would have mitigated the offensiveness, because to my
mind saying "Easter was a while back" seemed like saying that the Christian
Easter was actually a while back. Maybe I should have said 'Our "Easter"'.
Ah, the benefit of hindsight...

Odd that a simple query into the calculation of the date of Easter can blow
up into a rather vitriolic interfaith argument! Well, I believe referring to
that old conversational advice would be a good idea now: "Don't talk about
politics or religion; stick to the weather...". Is it sunny where you are?

Dan