A recent conversation with several friends who are also lapsed Catholics got me thinking about Easter’s significance in my life. Why do I still celebrate it when I no longer attend Mass?
Ties to my childhood faith remain, although they have thinned and frayed. I’m at a loss to explain why I still feel that religious tug, but I do.
Some of the symbols associated with Easter have an even stronger pull: the natural world coming back to life in spring, daffodil and tulip bulbs blooming after lying dormant for months, and eggs representing new life. The idea of yearly rebirth and renewal resonates with me.
Maintaining an Easter tradition also matters to me, because it ties my small family to past generations.
Even though much of Easter’s religious meaning has faded for me, I feel a connection to my heritage and to the natural world. This Sunday my family will gather, eat a more elaborate meal than usual, and I’ll add a bouquet of spring flowers to the table. I won’t wear special Easter clothes
but our grandchildren might—mostly because it’s fun for their mothers to buy cute outfits. My granddaughters are too young to understand the idea of gathering pretty dyed eggs, so they’ll get small toys, and only the adults will get candy eggs.
Our celebration is not all past generations would have done, but it’s right for me.
I was sad to hear a book group friend say her 11-year old-granddaughter didn’t consider it a treat to go to a bookstore to choose a book—she doesn’t read books. I was slow to realize the books I’d been gifting my 10-year-old niece weren’t a hit. Not because I’d chosen boring stories but because she doesn’t enjoy reading. It saddens me they won’t have the pleasure of being immersed in the imaginary worlds I have so enjoyed.
Although it sounds counterintuitive, fiction presents truths through the lives of made-up people.
I’ve learned about worlds I wouldn’t have access to any other way. Through novels, I’ve entered the lives of a Black Texas Ranger, an 15th century Chinese physician, an escaped enslaved woman, a modern-day reporter in India, Korean deep-sea divers, and more. I’ve gained insight and empathy by seeing cultures beyond my own and feeling the dilemmas of people unlike me. Memoirs also offer me inspiration and perspective for my own life.
Recently, the disinterest in reading novels and the related inability to read whole books has been receiving attention. Several theories may explain the change.
That puzzles me, because TV and movies still engage us. With “Game of Thrones,” “Succession,” or “Slow Horses,” viewers enter into invented worlds and can track the plot and characters, so why not in novels and memoirs, whether paper or Kindle books? Perhaps nonreaders have lost the ability to imagine. With TV and movies, the visuals are supplied.
Shorter attention spans are also part of the problem, and students aren’t alone in this. Myriad distractions clamor for our attention and our culture serves up lots of information in short bits—texts, Instagram posts, 35- to 50-word news summaries. In 20 minutes, I might read a dozen short clips instead of one 3,000-word article. Constant interruptions have diminished my powers of concentration. I can still enjoy a 400-page novel, but these days, I get restless and impatient with longer novels.
I learned to love reading whole stories as a girl when there were far fewer distractions. At 8 years old, I draped myself across an upholstered chair and devoured Nancy Drew mysteries. By 14, it was Daphne duMaurier. Often, I wonder about the characters in novels I’m reading and am eager to find out what happens next.
I wish my niece, my friend’s granddaughter, and their peers could experience the gift of being immersed in good books. The joy of being transported to another time or culture. The hours of pleasure, escape, and knowledge.
My family moved from Luxemburg, Wisconsin, population less than 500, to Milwaukee during the summer of 1961. From a grade school with eight grades spread over six classrooms, my brother and I were enrolled in a Catholic elementary school with 150 kids in every grade. We had never seen so many kids.
The first year was rough on my mother who no longer had a part-time job, a bowling league, or knew the names of everyone in the parish. She didn’t even know the names of women on our block. By the summer of 1962 life could be testy in our household. My great-grandmother moved back to Luxemburg and took me with her at the start of summer.
Our second school year began with more confidence and my mother found a seasonal job. She was happier. Until October 16 when the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis moved the world toward danger. People were deeply afraid that Cold War was morphing into actual war with Russia, including missiles falling on the United States. Adults knew about the horror of war. Kids were directed in useless duck and cover drills, crawling under our desks with our hands over our heads.
My mother wanted to be in our Luxemburg home with its dug-out basement, food cellar and indoor pump. Our Milwaukee ten-year-old ranch offered no place to hide. It was too late to build a bomb shelter. She emptied the clothes closet in a spare room, brought in blankets and pillows, water jugs, crackers, peanut butter and other food plus towels, tissue and a bucket. She listened to the radio constantly. We went to bed fully dressed. October 28, she woke us with orders to get into the closet. Blankets had been placed over window curtains, a rug rolled at the bottom of the door. We listened to news coverage throughout the night. The crisis was averted. Nerves remained raw for years.
We’re back to practicing some odd form of duck and cover. And it is just as useless. The stakes are high for every citizen and much of the world.
