Mammals Gone Wild—an Easter Tale

Do you know what I’ve discovered?   People are stone crazy and God must be on a soon-to-be stranded Carnival cruise off the coast of Mars because humans aren’t getting any better and he seems to be really detached about the whole thing:  can you say, “teenager shoots baby in the face while robbing Mom on a morning walk, and God seems to be nowhere around to stop this madness”—WTF?  I mean I loves me some Jesus, but I’m beginning to agree with my atheist and agnostic brothers and sisters that the mayhem, murder, and chaos is REALLY getting out-of-hand, and if there is a God, how can he just sit back and let it all happen?   What good is being all-powerful if you won’t put a stop to bad shit?

Sunday is another Easter that has me thinking about my doubting faith and the bat-shit craziness of man (some call it the sin of man).    But as I was contemplating the insanity of humans everywhere (there is not a corner of the Earth where people aren’t doing something horrific), I came across a journal I’d never seen before on the Internet listing the recent nasty behavior of animals.  (Animals:  don’t I have enough to worry about trying to outrun the rapists, murderers, robbers, and friends turned haters without having to throw animals into the mix?)  In the journal titled:  Top Secret Animal Attack Files (Animal Attack News from Around the World) by Igor Eximel, a sampling of the first six months of 2012 was an animal vs. human whup-ass fest and the animals won the day every time.

• “A B.C. woman was attacked on her sofa by a starving cougar that strolled into her house in search of a meal
• “Australian mom says kangaroo stalked her for 2 days then attacked
• “Horror as baby attacked by 2-foot pet PYTHON that slipped into the crib and tried to EAT his foot
• “’Killer’ swan attacks Illinois caretaker until he drowns
• “Tigers attack tourist bus in China
• “Angry Sea Lion Attacks the singer Shakira in S. Africa . . .”

(Seriously, God—really—isn’t it bad enough that I have to exist on the same planet as Wayne LaPierre who wants to arm us to the teeth against a zombie attack, demanding we shoot first and ask questions later, without having to worry about rogue animals?)   I was agitated as “all get out” after reading the endless pages of animals attacking humans any which way but Sunday in Igor Eximel’s journal, that all I could do to calm down was knock back a bottle of Riesling with my husband, WW, as he tried to talk me off the ledge.  As WW soothed my troubled soul by rubbing my throbbing back and temples, I gradually fell asleep and drifted into a dystopian dream scene that looked much like the kitchen from The Matrix (I) where Neo and the Oracle meet and she tells him he’s not “The One.”  Only instead of Keanu Reeves, the main character was a pissed off anthropomorphic rabbit by the name of “Silly Rabbit”, and instead of Gloria Foster as the Oracle, I, Dalai Mama, was the Dalai Oracle.  Dun, dun, dun. . .

SILLY RABBIT:     “That’s it—I’ve had it; I quit!” (The Easter Bunny walks into the 1960’s kitchen on two hind legs, standing straight up like a human being and slumps down in a plastic-covered kitchen chair where the Oracle is munching a cookie from an overflowing plate of freshly-baked cookies on the kitchen table.   Dalai Oracle is calmly sipping her tea as only Oracles can do in times of crises.)

D.  ORACLE:        “What’s that baby?  You quit—you quit what?”

SILLY RABBIT:     “I quit this whole damn sham of a life.”

D.  ORACLE:        “Oh, sweetie-pie, seems like you do that every year about this same time.  You’re just a little frustrated due to the season and being overworked.  You probably need some rest, my little fluffy-nutter—how about a jelly-bean cookie and a spot of Earl Grey tea while we chat?”

SILLY RABBIT:     “Gerrr . . . I’m in no mood for cookies and tea!  I didn’t come here because I need a grandmother and a chat; I came here because I need some answers—someone to predict the future.  I want to know if this is the year I get to come out of the closet and live like an authentic bunny rabbit, shredding people’s gardens of carrots and shit, instead of hopping around acting like a furry Pez dispenser of colored eggs, jelly beans, and Cadbury diabetic orbs.   I came here to ask if I’m “The One”—the one courageous rabbit that will finally break out the other Easter bunnies from having to play the role of resurrection imposters?  I am who I am and nothing else, even though sugar crazed humans have tried to supplant me as the raison d’être for Easter for longer than I can remember.   I’m telling you Dalai Oracle:   I’m ready to spill the beans.

D.  ORACLE:        “Beans, as in ‘jelly beans?’  Pun intended?”

SILLY RABBIT:     “Jokes?!  You’re making jokes?  Have you seen the news?  Phil let his anthropomorphic charade go on too long and he blew it.  Now he’s a wanted rodent and the Ohio prosecutor is seeking the death penalty for lying about seeing his shadow and predicting an early spring.  There have been so many snow storms and sub-freezing temps across the country since his erroneous prediction that Punxsy Phil has gone into hiding and no one knows where he is—not even his mother.   My Mama always told me that lies have a way of catching up with its owners and doing them in.  Punxsutawney Phil’s Facebook page has been dormant for weeks with only a simple declaration to the world that he should have made years ago:

D. ORACLE:         “Didn’t the Ohio prosecutor exonerate Punxsy?  And why was an Ohio prosecutor passing judgment on a Pennsylvania rodent?  It just doesn’t make sense!”

SILLY RABBIT:     “And a rodent predicting the advent of spring does?  The prosecutor and his lawsuit is not the point, Dalai—work with me here, please.  I’m thinking of posting a similar FP declaration as Phil’s:  ‘I AM A RABBIT, PEOPLE, NOT THE RISEN CHRIST!  I SHOULDN’T BE DOING HIS JOB ON EASTER.  BUT AM I NOT WARM-BLOODED AND DON’T I BLEED RED LIKE ALL YOU OTHER MAMMALS?  DON’T I DESERVE TO LIVE MY LIFE AS A RABBIT, NOT AS A DAMN CANDY AND HARD-BOILED EGG CARRIER?’  So tell me oh, wise Oracle:  Am I “The One” to start the bunny revolution to bust all Easter bunnies out of the closet?”

D. ORACLE:         “You know I can’t tell you if you’re “The One.”  Didn’t you see The Matrix?  Your freewill is involved.  You’re the one who acquiesced to the role of Easter imposter, now you’re the one who is going to have to choose freedom from the lie, and only you know whether you have the courage to make that choice or not.”

SILLY RABBIT:     “If I do this—if I come out like this, do you know how many people will kick me out of their lives and off their lawns?  Do you have any idea how many people will gossip about me behind the scenes on Facebook, and how many people will “unfriend” me on Facebook and “unfollow” me on Twitter if I try to live an authentic life that makes me happy?”

D. ORACLE:         “Silly Rabbit!  What do you care?  Have you ever thought that “How others judge you is none of your business?”  (I think LL Cool J coined that phrase, either him or Martha Beck.)   Your haters’ judgments are their problems—not yours—for the simple fact that you can’t control what other people do.  Have you ever thought that one of the definitions of Easter is letting your fear of the opinions of others get crucified and buried (left in the grave), while you get to boldly march out of the tomb along with Jesus, sporting a resurrected courageous heart to go on and live a joyful, unfettered life?  Hum?  How about some cookies for the road with that bit of priceless Oracle wisdom, baby?”

I am discovering that in spite of animals going wild, people continuously going crazy, and naysayers denying the existence of God, I still believe in Easter because it’s really about hope in the midst of darkness, resurrection rising out of death, and spring flowering after the deadly cold and snow of winter.   I believe in the validity of Easter, in part, because my life is a consummate example of resurrection (poor black Negro child born in the ghetto proves Ayn Rand wrong—OORAH!), and even when it seems as if God is detached from all the mayhem, murder, and chaos on Earth, I sense that he is not nonchalant, and that the God of the universe will someday have the final word—just like spring does over winter.

I am also discovering that I’ve never met a real gardener or a farmer who didn’t believe in resurrection, because no one who tries to grow things in the dirt can truly behold the cataclysmic devastation of death brought on by winter and not be spiritually transformed by the resurrection of the Earth in spring infused with life in greens, yellows, reds, lavenders, blues, purples—and not celebrate the splendor of another chance at living and living well.   Easter morning declares that it only took Christ one morning to make his point to the world about the necessity of death and resurrection, but spring teaches us that in order to reach our full potential as individuals—fulfill our true authentic selves without being afraid of the opinions of others—it takes multiple seasons of going dormant in winter and rising up to bloom gloriously in the spring.

                        “Each time I’ve chosen to live more authentically, I’ve been roundly rejected by my “Everybody Committees” (people who try and mold us to their agenda and sabotage our dreams—quotation marks and parenthesis mine). There’s my old Religious Committee, who will gladly tell you I‘m going straight to Hell; the Intellectual Committee, who believe I’m a delusional moron; and the Classy Materialist Committee, who cannot believe I wear a plastic watch from Target in publicity photos.  All these folks are still alive and kicking (kicking people who don’t share their values), yet every cell of me knows that what they think of me is none of my business.”—Martha Beck’s “You’re Doing Just Fine” from The Oprah Magazine/Nov. 2013

“Thank God for Jesus or I would have gone to my grave thinking that all I was meant to be as a poor black child was road kill to the likes of the Ayn Rand’s of the world; instead one glorious resurrection morning some two thousand years ago, ‘Love’ walked out of a tomb and proclaimed that his death had set me free to be me.”—Eleanor Tomczyk

“A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world.  It was a perfect act.”—Mahatma Gandhi

“The symbolic language of the crucifixion is the death of the old paradigm; resurrection is a leap into a whole new way of thinking.”—Deepak Chopra

POST SCRIPT:  After Silly Rabbit came out and started living his best authentic life, he got married, had a huge family as rabbits are wont to do; he fought to change the laws, and helped set his other Easter bunnies free from the bondage of fear.  S. Rabbit has been seen here and there enjoying life—getting into mischief with Br’er Rabbit, Peter R. and a whole host of friends who used to jam with Uncle Remus.  Silly Rabbit has never regretted leaving his old, inauthentic life behind and letting the Christ do his thing at Easter without S. Rabbit and his cohorts confusing the issue.

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Easter Bunny Throw Down

Do you know what I’ve discovered?   Easter bunnies take their lives really seriously and the competition among them to be the Queen Pooh-Bah of Bunnies on Easter is something else.  You’d never know that Easter was supposed to be the celebration about the death and resurrection of the son of the Christian God who came to redeem us from horrendous choices (both ours and others) and teach us how to live on Earth together in love, peace, and joy both here and beyond.  To hear the bunnies talk, Easter is ALL about them, the colorful eggs, and the baskets filled with chocolate Cadbury candy.   I caught wind of this fierce competition recently when the Miss Easter Bunny Pageant of 2012 was held in a copycat Beatrix Potter world up in a small town in New Hampshire like the Hill Top Farm in the village of Sawrey, Cumbria, Lake District that Ms. Potter loved so much.

“Friends” Pinterest image

I went “undercover” as Big Mama for my “Big Mama Speaks” column this week to participate as the Master of Ceremonies of the anthropomorphic bunnies and “bunny wannabe’s” who were competing for the title of Miss Easter Bunny 2012.  Below is a segment of the question and answer session for some of the lucky finalists.

BIG MAMA:  “Our first contestant is Black Bunny Rollin’ from the Southside of Chicago.   I ain’t gonna’ lie—glad to see one of my ‘peeps’ trying for the gold ring.  Ms. Rollin’, since the Trayvon Martin murder, our country has been on edge racially.   56% of Whites think we should move on to other subjects and drop this distasteful matter, while 90% of Black people think we should hold the Sanford police department’s feet to the fire until justice is done.  How would you use your Easter Bunny title to heal race relations amongst the citizens of Sanford and foster brotherhood and love throughout the nation?”

Bunny Wallpaper/Google Image

BLACK BUNNY ROLLIN’:  “Hey, Big Mama.  How YOU doin’?  I am so glad you asked me that very sensitive and important question because I’ve been thinkin’ about this very thing for a long, long time.  I would flood the land with Easter baskets filled with hollow chocolate bunnies and “marsmellowey Peeps” to show that we are all one and the same under the skin or coating, as it may be, so why don’t we just ‘chill’ and follow the great Rodney King and ‘just all get along!’”

(AUDIBLE GROWN IS HEARD FROM THE BUNNY AUDIENCE)

BIG MAMA:  “Thank you Black Bunny.  Sounds like your answer to our racial problems is ‘get high on sugar and die.’  Obviously, we haven’t read the latest report on sugar, now have we?  Um-humph! Anyhooooo. . . our second contestant is Bunny “Going Rogue” Palin.   Ms. Palin, your name sounds vaguely familiar and really scary; in fact, I’m getting eye tics just saying it out loud.  Have you ever run for office?  No?  Okay, I could have sworn, I’d met you before.  Ms. Palin, the NRA lobbyists have gotten completely out-of-hand.  What are your views on gun control?  What would you do to reign in this growing scourge in our country?   Guns are flooding our schools, homes, and streets, and we are gunning each other down like clay pigeons and without so much as a “by your leave!’”

Courtesy of www.angrybunnycomic.com

BUNNY “GOING ROGUE” PALIN:  “What the hell is that, a gotcha question?  I support our constitutional right to bear arms, and if you’ve got ‘em—flaunt ‘em, if you don’t—‘tote a Colt,’ or maybe you are a sucker and have been brainwashed by the lame-stream media.  At the very least, I’d flood everybody’s Easter basket with chocolate toy guns and bullets from the cradle to the grave that sport the inscription:  Viva la Second Amendment!  And then I’d pass out NRA stickers with the lock and load insignia for their Easter Baskets.  Yeah, Baby—‘cause that’s how we roll in Alaska!”

(ONLY CRICKETS CAN BE HEARD FROM THE OUTSIDE.  NO SOUND COMES FROM THE HORRIFIED BUNNY AUDIENCE BECAUSE THEY CAN HARDLY BREATHE WONDERING WHICH BURROW IN HELL  THIS BUNNY CAME FROM.)

BIG MAMA:  “Ooooh-kay. . .!  Thank you Ms. Palin.   Let’s move on to the next contestant.  Ms. Norma “Nutria” Bunny.   Ah, Norma, I don’t mean to be rude, but you look awfully big for a bunny.  Where did you say you were from?”

NORMA BUNNY:  (BUNNY VOICE EXTREMELY HIGH-PITCHED EVEN FOR A FEMALE BUNNY) “I’m from around these parts.  What’s it to you?  Toss me one of them contestant questions so we can get this over with, Big Mama—I ain’t got all day.”

BIG MAMA:  (clears throat, trying not to show how close she is to opening up a can of “whup ass” on the obnoxious bunny)  “The human recipients of your Easter joy are stressed to the max.  They will need to know that you have a sense of humor.  The March jobs report just came out and it is below expectations.  What is an example of some of the things you’d do to help cheer up the jobless and lighten their spirits?”

NORMA BUNNY:  (BUNNY VOICE EVEN HIGHER THAN BEFORE) “Why, I’d use my girlish bunny charms and my beguiling ways and “make ‘em laugh.  I’ve got tons of jokes like this one:

Two chocolate bunnies walk into a barn.  One has a hole in his ass and the other has no ears.

  What do they say to each other?”

Pinterest

(AN ANGRY COMMOTION IS HEARD IN THE AUDITORIUM AS AN AUDIENCE MEMBER SCREAMS OUT:  “That’s no female bunny, that is ‘NORMAN Nutria’ from Louisiana—the river rat that attacked the woman in Wal-Mart a couple of years ago.  He/she’s an imposter and she’s wanted by the PO-lease!”)

My concept of Norman Nutria (a.k.a “Norma Bunny,” a.k.a. Myocastor coypus)||Google Image

WANTED BY THE FBI

Louisiana woman sues Wal-Mart over incident with “Norman the nutria”||May 7, 2009||LA Times

(AS THE COMMOTION REACHES FEVER PITCH, BUNNY SECURITY CAPTURES “NORMAN” NUTRIA AND BIG MAMA RESTORES CALM TO THE AUDIENCE WITH NO ONE THE WORST FOR WEAR.)

BIG MAMA:  “My goodness gracious.  Lord, have mercy—you just never know what’s gonna’ happen in a day.  Calm down everybody.  No one got hurt, thank God, so let’s do our best to carry on.  We only have one more contestant and then we’ll choose a winner.  Now where were we?  Our next contestant is Dr. Henrietta Beatrix Bunny.  Welcome Dr. Bunny.  I understand that you are a history professor at Beatrix Potter University.  A lot of humans are interested in the history of how the bunny, the basket, the boiled eggs, the Cadburys, and the jelly beans supplanted the death and resurrection of the Lord?”

***

Pinned by milkbeforebed.tumblr.com

DR. HENRIETTA BEATRIX POTTER:  “I’m-so-happy-you-asked-me-that-question-because-it-is-really-quite-the-story-since-history-is-always-quite-the-story-is-it-not? (GULP) Well-you-see-the-Christians-stole-all-the-pagan-rituals-and-tied-them-into-their-new-celebrations-and-Easter-is-no-exception. (GULP) Greg-Jenner-has-written-a-marvelous-article-(I-tell-you-just-marvelous)-entitled-‘Easter:-what’s-with-all-the-bunnies-and-stuff?’-and-he-says- that- the-word-Easter-came-from-the-word-‘Eostre-who- was-a-pagan-goddess-in-the-Saxon-religion. (GULP) In-fact-almost-everything-we-do-or-have-done-emerged-from-the-pagans-and-we-either-modified-it-to-fit-the-biblical-characters-or-we-outgrew-it. (GULP) Why-Mr.-Jenner-tells-the-most-delightful-story-about-how-Christian-farmers-used-to-bless-their-lands-to-make-them-fertile. (GULP) They-would-go-out-and-follow-these-pagan-instructions-to-the-letter-of-the-law:

‘1) At night, dig up four clumps of soil from the four corners of the field

 2) Then take a sample of every grass, herb, tree in the field, and add it to milk from every cow, and honey from every bee hive.

 3) Now add holy water to this concoction, and drip it in the holes…

 4) Now sing an incantation, asking them to grow.

 5) Now sing the Lord’s Prayer, several times

 6) Now take the four clumps of earth into the church, and get your local priest to sing four masses… one for each clump

7) Now get four crucifixes and write Matthew, Mark, Luke and John on them. Place the crucifixes in the holes you have dug, and shout ‘Grow!’ nine times

 8) Now sing the Lord’s Prayer nine times

 9) Now turn east, bow and say a prayer

 10) Now turn around clockwise three times, and then lie prostrate on the ground while chanting about your lovely green fields

11) Now bless the plough and bless the seed

 12) Now plough a furrow, and place a cake of honey and milk in it.

 13) Well done, you now have a fertile field!’

WHEW-isn’t-that-so-silly! (GULP) Now-back-to-bunnies-eggs-and-Easter-which-came-to-us-via-the-Germans in the 17^th Century. . . .”*

***

I am discovering that one must never give a professorial bunny an open mic!  Anyway, a very beautiful bunny won (Miss Honey-pot Bunny) that was a mixture of all the bunny races and became the proud Easter Bunny of 2012.   But since none of the answers of the bunnies were satisfactory to nourish the spirit and soul of humans, Miss Honey-pot’s Easter duties only encompassed satisfying the taste buds and the body.  IMP. NOTE:  “Norma” Nutria escaped from the Bunny security and is still on the lam.

Prize Rabbit/Google Image

I am discovering that bunnies, boiled eggs, and Easter candy (I do so love me some jelly beans) can only feed the body, but the rejection, the loneliness, the fear, the cruelty, the injustice, and the pain and horror of living on this Earth can only be overcome by the touch of a god who has the ability to feed my soul and inhabit my spirit so that I will not retaliate and become the evil that assails me.  I don’t understand everything about my Lord’s death and resurrection, but nobody has come back to tell me what is really on the other side (I don’t believe that little boy who claims he saw Heaven for a “hot chocolate minute”—he’s a mimic of his religious parents—no more no less), so I could be wrong about so many things which is why I respect other religions and would never, ever lead a crusade.  But until the newly departed atheist author, Christopher Hitchens (“Hitch”), comes back and says, “nanny-nanny-boo-boo, I was right—there is nothing beyond the veil,” and Carl Sagan tags along to confirm it, I’ll stake my claim on the resurrection and keep aiming for an abundant life on this rock and beyond.  To that end, the Easter Bunny will stay in its place of “cuteness” along with Santa, and I’ll go and join in on Handel’s Messiah with the rest of the imperfect Christians on Easter as I humbly sing, “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the Earth.”

Happy Easter and a glorious Passover (“Chag Pesach Sameach”)!

Ruben’s Resurrection of Christ

* http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/greg-jenner/easter-whats-with-all-the-bunnies_b_1406355.html

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.