By now you may have heard the Net-Tale-Gone-Viral about “a Seattle school” (never actually named) “banning” (it may have been one teacher, may have been an administrator’s call) the term “Easter egg” (some net versions say plastic candy-filled eggs, others improve it to a full egg hunt) in favor of the term “spring spheres” (that’s the one consistent part of the Web retellings).
The story originated on 97.3 KIRO FM's Dori Monson Show, offered up by a caller identified as "Jessica." As the days pass, two things are happening with this tale. First, it is growing into an urban legend, some retellings actually qualifying as outright hoaxes when compared with the original (still unverified) claims. Second, it’s being treated by American Christendom as yet another attack on faith in Jesus. You know, just like the “War on Christmas.”
It’s a controversy about words, so I have to get involved and ask: Easter? Attacks on that word are attacks on the Christian faith?
Many of you will see where I’m going here, but bear with me. In one of the languages I use, we call this holiday Pascuas, derived from the Hebrew word for Passover. To clarify its Christian significance, it’s often called Pascuas de Resurrección. In contrast, my other tongue, English, has always applied the odd term Easter to the same day … not naming it for anything Jewish or Christian, but for a pagan Germanic goddess of spring. This oddity is so well known that many churches now refer to Easter as Resurrection Sunday, sidestepping the pagan origins of the more common name.
One would imagine, then, that renaming the eggs by taking away homage to a pagan goddess would have Christians rejoicing, whether the spring spheres tale is an urban myth or not. The name of the pagan demon is gone! The innocent word “spring” is inserted in its place! Go Team Christian!
Alas … facts rarely slow down a healthy explosion of righteous indignation. This weekend, blog after blog and Web article after Web article decries the renaming of Easter eggs as an attack on Christianity, even while millions of Christians themselves head into the de-Eastered week they’ll be celebrating.
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about what the Christian outrage over the renaming of eggs honoring a Teutonic goddess might mean. For my part, I’d like to take the idea a step further. What if we went all the way with the Resurrection Sunday renaming? What if we stripped Godless, pagan connections out of everything we encounter in our language and Western culture? The task might be daunting, but wouldn’t the widespread purity be worth it in the end? And be honest … wasn’t there just the tiniest part of you that grinned and thought, “Aw … I wish I’d been the one to come up with spring spheres.”
COSMIC’S ATTACK ON THE PAGANS
For each item below, I’ll give you the term, its pagan root, and my suggestion for a new name.
The Offending Term: Neptune, our outermost planet
Its Pagan Origin: The Roman sea god
My New Name: "Planet ChillRock"
The Offending Term: Athens, Georgia
Its Pagan Origin: Athena, goddess of wisdom
My New Name: "CNN HQville"
The Offending Terms: The days of the week
Their Pagan Origin: Sun/moon god, Tiu, Woden, Thor, Frigg, and Saturn
My New Names: "OneDay, TwoDay, ThreeDay, FourDay," etc.
The Offending Term: Nike footware
Its Pagan Origin: Nike, goddess of victory
My New Name: Swifty Swoops™ (® 2011 Cosmic Parx)
The Offending Term: Fortune magazine
Its Pagan Origin: Fortuna, goddess of luck
My New Name: The Bucks-O-Rama Bi-Weekly
The Offending Term: Lunar eclipses
Its Pagan Origin: Luna, the moon goddess
My New Name: "Night of the Celestial Dimmer Switch"
The Offending Term: Anyone named Irene
Its Pagan Origin: The Greek goddess of peace
My New Name: "Shaloma"
The Offending Term: Midas Muffler
Its Pagan Origin: Mythical king of the golden touch
My New Name: "Your-Gold-for-Our-Steel Muffler"
And just so my fellow Christians can see the full extent of these adjustments, I need to add changes to book titles in the Scriptures themselves. Don’t worry – I would never mess with the text. But my pastor assures me that the titles are of uninspired human origin.
The Offending Title: Letter to the Romans
Its Pagan Origin: Romulus, man-god who founded Rome
My New Name: "Letter to the Pre-Italians"
The Offending Title: Letter to Titus
Its Pagan Origin: The pre-Olympian Titan gods
My New Name: "Memo Re: Stuff I Already Told Timothy"
The Offending Title: The Gospel of Mark, shortest of the four
Its Pagan Origin: Mars, the Roman war god
My New Name: "Gospel Lite: A 1/3 Less Filling"
My challenge to you this week: Count the number of times you hear the Spring Spheres story related as if it were absolutely, verifiably true. If you run out of fingers on both hands, let me know! It’s up to you whether you correct people or not … you buzz killer. J
Marana Tha,
Cosmic
