Happy Bunny Season?

The relative secularity of Prague means that there isn’t as much of a chocolate frenzy during Easter as there is back in Melbourne. It’s refreshing, and ironically enough means that I have been focusing a bit more on what faith and observance actually means to me. For years it has always been: attend services because it’s a family tradition, and particularly as one grows up and finds that there are things that I value that challenge a strict doctrine, it’s hard to know whether or not I should just keep following the old routines because they were established.

For tradition’s sake, I do find myself observing the days, a couple of the things that we used to do (like not eating meat on Good Friday–about my only concession to Lent). It seems to be less of a faith-based thing and more out of a respect for my roots–that these were the things that I was raised with, and my parents and family community strongly believed in, and observance of a day, at least, keeps those ties existing.

And not being in a place where it is all commercial and chocolate actually helps gets those thoughts in order–it’s time well spent to think about those I miss, and what it is that had been done in the past to observe these days and why, rather than get caught up in the automatic rush of buying a couple of foil-covered eggs and approaching the day with about the same amount of conviction.