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Today is Easter, for those who celebrate such things, the commemoration of Christ's victory over death and sin (as though it were actually any contest...) and the promise of redemption extended to all who would accept it. It is also 4/20, and I am certain that some of the people I know and have known are going to take the opportunity to intoxicate themselves with smoke, perhaps as a preface to the kind of holiday late lunch / early dinner that typifies holidays with my family and many families like mine. (It makes sense; there will be a large spread, and wasting food is a bad thing.)

That I would refer to the day in such a way may seem disrespectful. It may well be disrespectful. I have been told such things before, that there are things which should not be said, that there are traditions that should not be abrogated. And I have spoken and written in a way I think forcefully in defense of such things from time to time. But I have also spoken against other such things and written against them, for I see no reason why I should not say what it is that I see and write what I perceive. I know no reason why I ought not to be the one who says the emperor is, in fact, naked in the streets, and that his scepter inspires little awe but much "aww."

Perhaps it is because I am a "lazy Millennial" that I say such things. Perhaps it is because I am in a position of privilege as a heterosexual white man of the US middle class with a classically English name and self-identified Protestantism. Perhaps it is because I am insulated from reprisal by writing in front of a screen and being read in front of another. Perhaps it is simply that I am and always have been a smartass whose mouth and writing have always raced ahead of what little good sense he has to leap to some strange thing that, while it may be accurate, is in poor taste. And perhaps some people need to take the sticks out of their asses. (There are things that feel much better coming in through the backdoor.)

That there is perhaps promise in this day, I accept. But there is promise in every day, and those who operate within a Christian worldview surely must accept that the hope of resurrection is not on one day only but on all days. Celebrate, yes, and commemorate, but do not neglect to remember that the day is a day for all people, not only those who profess to follow the Nazarene (and who usually do a damned poor job of remembering what the man actually said to do: help those who ask for it without expecting anything in return). After all, Jesus did not turn people away, even if they were not of the "right" faith, and nor yet did Christ expect that other celebrations cease in His presence.