This started out as a status message but there was too much humour and learning in it so I am writing another of my notes...
My status read ...
this weekend will be great fun as Ma Maureen tries to negotiate her way around her Torah Children observing unleavened bread and her Rastafarian children who don't eat meat while she desperately wants to have pickled fish and hot cross buns ...
The malls are draped with posters and paraphernalia of the religious festivals which coincide again this year. For them it is all about emptying the pockets of all the observers into their cash registers. Passover kosher signs guide you to the matzos and set apart shelves while bakery staff beckon you to taste and see their hot cross buns are the best. Floor space free from leaven competes with the overwhelming aroma of fruity buns puffing to perfection in the ovens. Business is booming and the store owners meet their targets and fulfill their intentions ...
At 38 Lyndon Crescent, we have a very different experience of the festivals coinciding and needless to say our intentions are well tested at times like these. For the Bensons (my girls and I) we observe the Levitical festival of unleaved bread during this month of Nissan. For the Rastafarian's (my brother and his fam), it is the obeservance a life long Nazarite vow abstaining from the fruit of the vine as did their forefather Samson and others in that sect. For Ma Maureen, pickled fish serves as an observance to the mourning of sacred flesh crucified for her redemption. For these three families the marketing symbols displayed in the shops have deep meaning to their path in persuit of Adonai, of Jesus and of Jah.
So on the next four days, vinegar, leaven, raisens, fish, buns are much much more than a meal ...
Not only does the Easter weekend fall in the seven day period of unleaved bread but so does the first commemoration of Pa Ronnies birthday on 24 April. The first time Ma Maureen will not spend a birthday with him in 50 years.
With the invention of fruitless buns our problems were almost solved in that my brother and his children would eat the buns and my girls and I would eat of the fish. That way Ma Maureen would technically have pickled fish and buns with her family. That was until the Rastafarians chose to observe the festival of unleavened bread this Nissan. Realising that this also meant no trifle, chocolate cake and other puffy treats on Sunday 24th April left Ma Maus as flattened as a matzo.
We will find our way around the leaven, raisens, vinegar and fish this weekend. Somehow we will have a meal. In so doing, we will partake of a greater meal by the tolerance, acceptance and unity we afford one another. It is far easier to eat Matzos instead of buns, fish instead of meat, apples instead of raisens than what it is to feel the need of your friend and brother. We will all honour our vows, we will all keep our traditions but more importantly we will have fellowship which seeks to include everybody, exclude nobody, respect what is different and be affirmed for what is your own.
Matzos, raisens, vinegar, buns and fish ... all these symbols are but physical reminders to the greater goal. Whether we eat unleavened bread to lay off the puffed up sate in which we desire to receive for ourselves alone or place the symbol of a cross on a bun to remind us of selfless and atoning love or we abstain from the fruit of the vine signifying a sacred vow ... our common aim is to honour the Creator.
From our family to yours ... may the Creator grant you the light and grace you need to see beyond the symbol ... may the Creator grace you with the desire for unity with your brother and friend ...
God Bless .........................One Love ........................Baruch Hashem
