Like last year the message of Easter has disappeared in discussions about politics and now in 2025: the price of chocolate.
People talk about having a good time, what they want on the table and the weather, while at the same time wars rage on an on, and innocent people are killed without mercy.
Here we are prepared for war.
We are toldme need to be prepared to be self sufficient for 72 hours, so the government doesn't have to deal with people in need. We're urged to buy an emergency package most of us can't afford for a time we can't protect ourselves against.
We have no cellars here, no place to hide for bombs or worse.
My house stands in an area that is below sea level, near a huge river. The center of town is high enough to be protected against flooding, but we are not.
What does the government expect? That we take a heavy package with us when we try to escape from the water when the dikes are thrown flat?
If the war gets here (it's not even at a distance of 1500 km) it's more important to leave, than to stay and survive with a battery free radio and bottles of water.
Easter is this year a rather strange message for me, with so many people killed because of the mental disease of some. It's nice to be promised immortal life, but the grief is still here.
What is needed is the inspiration to stand up against evil. To make the good in people increase in power, and to empower people to stop these wars.
Yesterday I participated in a poetry event, and I wrote about Fatime Hassouna.
She was a photographer in Gaza. She photographed civilian life.. even during the war. And she was seen as a threat, because she exposed the evil of the murder of innocent people among the enormous strength to go on and on with staying alive.
Her smile has become a weapon of power.... good power. Because she cared.
She made the gazan people into real people, and the oppressor can't have that.
During war those who are on the list to be killed need to be without a real face, to be anonimous, to be not worth mentioning, so killing them isn't seen as a crime.
We've seen it in other wars.
This year we commemorate that 80 years ago we were liberated, while we are preparing for yet another war.
Jesus didn't die for eternal life... he died for peace among people.
He showed how useless it is to kill someone...
I said this as a child, and was expelled from the lessons about religion.
I said this as a teenager and was told by the nuns I had a special insight, and was asked by the Jesuits to join in at the Easter celebrations.
I say this as an elderly, and I am told that war is inevitable.
When standing with my father in front of the church by night, waiting for the priest to arrive, my busy mind found rest because nature around me (the church was in the woods) was so calming.
Then the priest came and the sound of his staff, sounding on the huge wooden door, resonated in the area with his loud voice: "Christ has risen."
We lighted our candles and walked into the dark church to bring the light........
I remember thinking: How much more powerful would the message be when it sounded:
we have finally reached peace all over the world!
And our candles would be the symbol for individuals giving their utmost in their own lives?
Dad has gone, I have never heard about the special choir anymore, the church has just one service at Easter and has become part of a circle of musea, part of the wood has become a parking space.
And the war we were liberated from has never been closer since.
But to me the message has become even more important in this world of lack of care, discrimination, judgements, deportations, violence, and overall negativity:
We need peace!
We need peace between countries, between people and within ourselves.
And we ourselves need to be the candle.
We shouldn't try and find something outside us to feel better:
we need to empower ourselves to be a light, to bring peace in our own world.
Happy Easter!!
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