I am writing this on Easter morning, thinking about new life, new boards and undiscovered waves. I realize that by the time you read this, Peter Cottontail will have hopped, perhaps deep in Baja, riding one of those famous right points.
Of course, by now, we all recognize myth when we encounter it. Most of us know there is no Santa and no Easter Bunny. What we may not realize, however, is the psychologic trick played upon us in our youth. Set up near the bunny and that jolly fellow is a baby and a dying man.
Logic indicates that bunnies don’t lay or distribute chicken eggs and that Mr. Claus is too big to fit down a chimney. (We had no chimney and were told Santa squeezed himself into the heating ducts.) Like many friends, I grew up believing that God was merely Santa Claus for adults.
With offshore winds and warming water, Easter during my adolescence was a time to surf. We were raised Catholic, and so our water time was cut short by Sunday mass. That was okay, really — a good time to snooze and recover from a Saturday night hangover.
I recall many perfect surf days in our home breaks of Huntington, Newport and Doheny. The grand finale was North County where waves were glassy all day and a crowd was maybe 15 people at Swami’s. Couldn’t wait to graduate high school and move there. Good choice.
Life was peaceful and easy until it was interrupted again by that guy on the cross. What could he want with a pagan surfer like me? I had my god in a 7-foot, 10-inch Dick Brewer pintail. I sacrificed on the altar of unskilled labor, and was rewarded by paradises called Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand.
Then, I made a risky decision — one that once could mean death and now might lead to being ostracized by a secular humanistic society. I became a Christian over half a century ago. While I feel the renewal of the effects of that decision daily, they come into sharp focus every Easter Sunday.
I realize that Easter has pagan roots and is a celebration of spring. But that’s not what Easter means to me.
According to the Gospel of Luke 24: 1-8, “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” 8 Then they remembered his words.”
I try remembering his words. They do not hinder my life or make it any less enjoyable. In fact, they enhance the joy of it as I ride a wave, encounter a school of dolphins or watch the sun set over the Pacific.
Of course, we don’t all have to believe this to get along. You can celebrate Resurrection Sunday, or Passover, or egg-laying bunnies. Happy Easter, or something, dear friends.
