Day 117 Egg Butts and Points

April 5, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

Easter Sunday was always a family day when I was growing up. Before the holiday, we shopped for new clothes and fancy hats to wear to church and we dyed and decorated hard-boiled eggs together. Easter morning we would search for baskets of candy that the Easter bunny hid for us in the house. Then we would dress in our new outfits and go to church. After church, we ate a big family dinner and then “picked” eggs by tapping “butts” and “points.”  The object was to emerge unscathed while your opponent’s egg cracked. 

Before the birth of Jesus, the egg had been a symbol of the earth’s rebirth and later became a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus. As Christians, we believed that Jesus arose three days after he was crucified and that he was our hope for salvation and an afterlife. Today on Easter, some of our family gathered at my middle sister’s house where she had prepared dinner and my youngest sister said grace before we ate. Today was our first Easter without our father.

My beliefs have evolved since I was a child but I hold onto broader concepts at this time of the year—the idea of new beginnings and renewal. Metaphorically speaking, out of death arises a new life, a resurrection of sorts. Death of the past, which we can revisit only in memory, dictates that we must move on to a new life each day. Tomorrow, today will have faded into yesterday; again and again, we must move on to a new today so that seeds of yesterday may bloom. 

We start over by accepting the past and by continuing to find joy in each day, for it is another new beginning.

My gift today and every day is a new beginning.

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> Day 118 Cicindela Sexguttata


You can find links to my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html