Easter-Geddon IV: This Time It's Personal!

It was all going to plan.

The plan was afoot. The trap was set. The bait was taken.

And then . . . BAM! Fucking Orthodox Easter.

Turns out, tonight is Orthodox Easter. A holiday I was hardly aware of has suddenly reared its ugly head right into my Saturday night.

Let's rewind a few hours shall we.

Earlier today, my wife and I hatched a devious plot to spend a night without kids by way of inviting the neighbors' kids for a sleepover. "Huh?" You say. "How will inviting MORE children over increase the chance of being alone?"

Come walk through our labrythine logic.

Our neighbors have four kids -- one of which is my eldest daughter's OMG BFF. So we invite her over for a sleepover KNOWING that the children's father thinks she's too young to have sleepovers. Plus, we anticipated that the rest of the children will be jealous and want to come over -- something that we know just won't happen. And that's where the genius of the plan kicks in.

Alright, so we threw out the first pitch and invited the eldest daughter over. Her mother said "yes," a little too quickly. I would be lying if I said we weren't a little scared.

Forty minutes later, the mother called stating that it's her daughter's birthday tomorrow (did I mention that they're Jehovah Witnesses -- at least the mother is -- so her child's birthday wasn't going to be a big deal) and she wanted to invite our two daughters over instead.

YES!!!!

Not ten minutes later, I'm rushing around the house -- literally throwing my childrens' pajamas on, gathering toothbrushes and shoes. It's what's known as "Married Man Nesting." It's eliminating all distractions and deterrents from your wife's surroundings so that she can concentrate on . . . making brownies (look my parents read this blog so give me a break).

Anyway, the children are dressed and ready to go. So I called the mom -- "The girls are ready to come over." Yes I love my children but to say I wasn't hopping around like a puppy would be a lie.

"Well, actually we're going to a midnight Easter service. I didn't know earlier. I'm sorry."

CUT TO ME IN CAPTAIN KIRK'S CHAIR SCREAMING INTO THE CAMERA ABOVE:

"JESUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSS!"

Fucking Orthodox Easter has ruined my Saturday night. On a night when I had planned some decidedly un-Christianlike behavior, Jesus has resurrected and achieved a masterful cock-block. Well done Son of God.

For you curious few, Orthodox Easter is the neighbor's father's idea -- it's not a JW thing. He's fighting an uphill battle against his wife's new found faith with Jehovah's Witnesses and is doing his best to keep his kids out of Kingdom Hall. I don't blame him, but couldn't he have found a different day to fight this war?

Don't miss the Easter-Geddon series here:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 2.5
Part 3

All Dressed Up . . .

These are my daughter's Easter dresses.

They were given to us by my aunt-in-law Cheryl (is that right?) for the great African-American tradition of getting gussied up for Easter service.

But wait, you ask, does that mean I'm going to church this year?

Fret not, Thirdsies, I will not be at church for Easter -- I'm actually looking to make 2009 a completely church-free year -- so keep your fingers crossed. You know it, I know it and so does Aunt Cheryl. But this is the latest passive-aggressive missive in the largely silent, but deadly war between myself and my wife's devout relatives.

Want another example?

Every year, we get Christmas cards from her Aunt Sharon who never forgets to add, in her own hand-writing, "Never forget, Christmas is about the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ -- so get to Church before your soul is reduced to a bubbling strip of hell-bacon."

She doesn't actually write that last part, but it is implied.

About two years ago, my wife's theological entertaining of Jehovah's Witnesses, threw her whole family into a tizzy. They all volunteered two hands and both shoulders in the tug-of-war to save her soul -- all doing their part to wrestle her back to Baptism and back to church.

During a conversation with her Aunt Sharon, my wife mentioned that she was still keeping her options open in terms of religion -- you know just dating and not committing to one supreme diety just yet. And, being the understanding and loving aunt that she is, Sharon said kindly: "You don't want to go to hell do you? What about your kids, don't you want them to go to heaven?"

Sweet, no?

And, really, at the middle of this war is our lovely daughters, who, for all my in-laws know, are graven-image-worshipping heathens in desperate need of saving. Hence, these Easter dresses which were either washed in Holy Water or equipped with a tractor beam that pulls the wearer to the nearest Easter Service. If not, the next time these dresses find themselves in church will be when they're picked up as donations.

So far as Easter is concerned, I have no idea what we're doing. We'll be at my parents so, you know, no chance of church there. But the month is still early so anything could change.
Trust me, if I end up at church, you'll be the first to read about it.

Jesus is My N*gga

So, I'm bouncing around the interwebs Sunday afternoon and I bump into none other than Black Jesus (no, not Leon from Madonna's video).

Turns out, not only did this dude die for all our sins (allegedly) but he is funny as shit!

Watch a couple of these skits (courtesy of Aaron MacGruder) and if you don't laugh, know that Black Jesus will come for you like a thief in the night and break your pinkie toes.

What I love most, these videos are 100% biblically accurate.





Here's another one:

The Big Question

"Daddy, am I a Christian?"

This is what my 7 year-old daughter asks me today as I pick her and her 3 year-old sister up from a slumber party this morning.

Now, I've dodged a lot of existential bullets from her ("How did God make trees?," "Is Great Pop-Pop in heaven?"), but this was undodgable.

Lucky for me, I've become a bit more bold with my heathen pronouncements as of late. Around Halloween, her good friend JD, whose house she was at last night, developed a fear of devils ("not the red ones," my daughter assured me, "just the blue ones"). So when she asked me if I was afraid of devils, I told her I was not.

"Why not?" All big eyes and wonder.

"Because devils don't exist." I didn't even flinch as I wiped out the king meanie of Christianity, and, by default, it's main recruiting tool.

"But JD says . . ."

"Honey, JD is six. Who do you believe, him or me?"

The fact that she didn't answer right away concerned me.

Which brings me back to this morning.

"Daddy, am I a Christian?"

I'm no Bill Cosby, but even I realized this would require a little something called tact, or as I like to call it, "verbal tap dancing."

"Well, honey that depends on what you believe. Christians believe that Jesus is the savior of mankind. Do you believe that?"

"What's a savior?"

From there it was Christianity 101 taught by yours truly, which if there are any Hollywood execs reading, should be a TV show.

"Did Jesus die?" "Did God die?" "Did God go to heaven when he died?"

I give Christians credit because I have a hard enough time teaching her how to tell time on an analog clock, I can't imagine teaching the holy trinity. Not to mention, if you can explain the physics involved with Noah's Ark without laughing, you're either a great liar or a very dedicated believer.

However, what struck me most is that I really, really, don't want my daughters to be indoctrinated with a belief system they have little to no chance of ever understanding in a rational way. I'm not saying they can't be christians, just not yet. Like sex, drinking and cell phone use, they should at least be teenagers before they go down that path.

As it is with most bloggers, eventually the conversation came back to our favorite subject -- me.

"Daddy, are you a Christian?" She asked.

"No, I'm not" I said.

It felt good, honestly. Maybe because I knew my daughter would not judge me for my lack of faith or wonder if I had any morals or a spiked tail in my pants. She just accepted that her father was not a Christian, which didn't make him a bad person.

I hope she's as understanding when she discovers that while I'm no Christian, that I am indeed, Santa Claus.

No Mormons Allowed

Don't let this entry's title fool you thirdsies (hey, if I don't keep this trend up, who will?), I am a very tolerant man. My father, however, is not.

OK, that's not really true. OK, it is but not when it comes to religion. He honestly doesn't care what faith you profess, but like most Black men born in the 1940's, he can smell racism at a million paces. In films, cartoons, cereal boxes -- the man is like a golden retriever for bigotry.

So when you see my father and want to start espousing your faith, don't be afraid -- he'll listen and only silently judge you.

But if your faith has even a whiff of racist doctrine be prepared for this Baltimore-born, West Philly raised Negro to hop directly in your face.

Case in point:

It was the year of our lord 19 and 87; Michael Jackson lost his third shade of melanin, Prince's masterpiece "Sign O the Times" was still a year away and I was in the seventh grade. It was summer, and despite the fact that we lived in Pennsylvania, I remember the day felt distinctly Houston-ish -- hot and humid enough to melt your face like a Nazi in "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Now, like most children, I grew up thinking my father was Superman. And like supes, my dad has his own kryptonite -- heat. Remember "Superman 3" with Richard Pryor where Superman encountered red kryptonite and turned into a badly-shaven asshole? Well, that's what heat does to my dad. Not that he becomes an asshole or badly shaven but he does get damned cranky. He starts cursing more (though that might be hard to notice) and complains of sweating. Keep in the mind, this is a man who turns the AC on in the car during WINTER. Nutshell: Dude does not like heat.

Next on my father's shit list is grass, specifically, tending to it. However, since we were one of three Black families in our neighborhood, so racial pride kept him mowing, edging and weeding our lawn.

And it was on this fateful day of heat and lawn care that two Mormon boys strolled up to my father with recruitment on their minds.

"Sir, have you heard about Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints?"

Now, I don't know exactly what they said because I was inside enjoying the air-conditioning and NOT doing the lawn, but one thing I can be sure of is that my father had indeed heard of them.

Having spent years in hotel rooms during company trips, he took it upon himself to read the Mormon bibles while staying in Marriots. Now, without reiterating everything ( see what Mormons believe right here), the Mormons believe that Black people have dark skin and kinky hair because they were cursed by the biblical Cain (the first brother-on-brother crime in history).

So you have to imagine -- heat + lawn + racism parading as religion = the perfect storm.

Sorry -- back to the story.

"Sir, have you heard about Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints?" -- I imagine them asking in unison.

"Get the fuck off my lawn!" -- That part I know is true.

"Sir?!"

"I said get the fuck off my lawn. Don't come to my house with that racist bullshit!"

"Bu ---"

"How the hell do you expect me to buy into a religion where I'm a second-class citizen? I can't even get into the same heaven as White people and you expect me to join your little cult?"

"Bu ---"

"You know why Brigham Young started that shit out in the midwest? It's because he couldn't hack it in New York? The only way he could get people to swallow his bullshit was to move to the middle of fucking nowhere."

"Bu ---"

"How would you feel if I came to YOUR house and asked you to join the Black Muslims? Do you know what they think of you? How about you do that? Does that make any fuckin' sense to you?"

"Bu ---"

And then my father punched them both in the face with a single punch.

OK, that part isn't true but it's a great way to end the story as I really have no idea what happened next.