Easter is long over, meaning summer is finally approaching. However this Easter, I was more in touch with my faith in the most unconventional ways. It was not so much that I had found God, but I was embracing the festivities of the religious holidays more. When I was a child living in Los Angeles, there was a routine to approaching Easter celebrations. You gave up meat for forty days, you gave up more meat on Good Friday, wore black on Morbid Saturday, and then capped it off with a feast on Easter Sunday (mostly consisting of pork and cheese). However, when you are living alone away from home as an adult in your twenties, Easter can become just another holiday.
Religion can become a figment of the imagination, and ones faith is depending on their belief in it. One would have to question why anyone would celebrate the religion of a holiday that at times can be hypocritical and downright tyrannical. I think as soon as we move out of the house as adults, the thing we look forward to most is abandoning our faith and embracing our vices; after all, we are only human. Once you start meeting the daily demands of the typical nine-to-five job, our vices wear us down and any day of festivity (or day off, for that matter) is something to look forward to.
This year I was embracing the Easter tradition more than I expected. Being alone, I had already planned on doing an Easter dinner, but then I went the extra mile and decided to go to Easter Mass. Prior to all the events I attended a reproduction of the Andrew Loyd Weber classic, Jesus Christ Superstar, which was starring a woman. I guess you can say that it was not your typical resurrection play. The stage was small and the budget seemed smaller, the Pabst Blue Ribbon (nectar of the bohemian hipster gods) was spilling all over the place, and the actors spent most of the time either singing or improvising. Jesus Christ Superstar is a modern interpretation of a classic story that can be adapted in any era, while still retaining the same message. Even though it was a hedonistic experience, the message was sound and clear. In the end, we were all dancing to the theme song praising the glory of Jesus.
This experience resonated in my mind the next day as I was dressing for Sunday Mass, ending the night enjoying a glazed ham with friends. I once had a professor say that everything you do is a form of critical research. In that night of dancing and laughter, I was unconsciously doing some soul searching only to realize that I never lost my faith. It almost became cool to praise the G.O.D.
Sometimes you need to modernize your soul and beliefs in order adapt to the changes around you, so that your belief becomes so much stronger. Religion in this day and age should not be about scripture, but experience based on principle; what steps can we take in our lives to not only become better people, but find true happiness. I cannot say that I wanted to join a nunnery after watching this play, but it did make me have a more positive outlook on faith and not shy away from the subject of religion.
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