Easter Memories And Thoughts On CCD

Posted at 7:17 am on Sunday, April 8, 2007, in Uncategorized, and tagged misc.

It is Easter Sunday, whatever that means. Jesus rose from the dead today, almost two thousand years ago, or so goes the greatest story ever told.

I remember waking up on Easter Sunday growing up and looking around the house for where the Easter Bunny hid the basket full of chocolate. My sisters and brother were with me…

(I guess my younger sister was too young for chocolate at the time.)

Yes, Easter was fun. The chocolate was always very good. And even the jelly beans, of which I am not the biggest fan, were tasty treats.

I don’t think I ever believed in the whole Jesus thing however. I was raised Catholic, and accordingly, I received religious education — every Saturday at CCD, which stands for “[something] county dump,” or so I was told. Sitting in class, I remember thinking, “what is this all about?” and “why are we learning this?” I am not attempting to claim that I knew all along that the Jesus stuff was myth — he was friends with Santa Claus who was very very real — but these were appropriate questions to ask oneself, as we students were being asked to believe something, not only believe it but take it as the (only) answer to life. I was more interested in getting out of there every Saturday. I think the whole class was two hours or so, but it may have been more; it must have been. Some kids from my elementary school were there, and it was interesting seeing them outside of the typical school setting, and you could meet their parents, who were either weird, very weird, or normal, and there were kids from other schools in the district, and if you wouldn’t have met them at CCD, you would have never known they even existed. Other than that, CCD screwed with our Saturdays.

At CCD, the instructors gave us young children Jesus coloring books. We went to the church and confessed our sins — I developed a standard: “I lied, I swore, I got angry at my sister.” The priest would tell me to do five or ten Hail Mary’s (Oh great, the hard one.), and I would walk back to the pew, pretend to do at least one of them, and get back to talk to my classmates. Back in class, we would read passages from the bible, with its crazy numbering system, aloud. We always read aloud. (It was part of their strategy.)

I spoke at the church during my first communion ceremony. I recall finishing my well-done reading, walking back to the pew, and wondering why no one was clapping. I did one helluva job.

I’m more than certain I was never a believer of the Jesus story. I don’t remember explicitly thinking, “wait, Jesus’ mom was a virgin?” It was more like, “um, I don’t get it.” I understand the value of educating young children to be civil, be good to one another, treat others kindly, etc., but I was never sold on any of the Jesus baggage that went along with it. Easter, Christmas, all very good. Not only do we get gifts and chocolate, we get a couple weeks off from school. It was very easy growing up Christian.

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