{"id":1976,"date":"2013-04-01T05:24:47","date_gmt":"2013-04-01T12:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/66.147.244.209\/~canadiu3\/?p=1976"},"modified":"2014-02-09T05:26:06","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T13:26:06","slug":"thoughts-of-easter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2013\/04\/01\/thoughts-of-easter\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts of Easter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"walkway-reflect\"<\/a><\/p>\n

MY THOUGHTS of Easter are associated with the most seemingly random of things: egg-hunting at the grounds of the<\/i> White House when I was 7 years old; it was the Carter administration, and Jimmy\u2019s daughter, Amy, used to host an annual egg-hunt for kids of government officials. My unmarried aunt worked for the World Bank. I was the lucky \u201cdaughter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spending my Easter weekend at the age of 11 at the Easter Parade in Sydney, Australia. We flew out on a Thursday, back on a Sunday night. Just in time for school the next day. What can I say? My mother worked with Philippine Airlines and tickets back then were virtually free for senior employees.<\/p>\n

Putting on cantata after cantata, what with 15 years of service in a born-again Christian Church as part of my curriculum vitae. I was in charge of the theatre ministry, and Easter usually meant dealing with choirs and their 4-part harmonies; actors and their makeshift costumes; and sneaking whatever might be deemed as suitable stage props out of my parents\u2019 house.<\/p>\n

Being mobbed by hundreds of screaming, running kids in search of the golden egg.\u00a0 I am, to this date, a children\u2019s party host, so this is still<\/i> a yearly occurrence that pretty much comes with the territory.<\/p>\n

And, throughout my daughter\u2019s childhood years, taking her to countless parks, Easter events, and egg hunts; being that frantic mommy, running around (thereby occasionally mobbing the party host, in a weird karmic cycle), worried that her daughter would not find any.<\/p>\n

Except of course for that year when my daughter was 5 and sick in hospital over Holy Week and the Easter weekend. I was still that frantic mommy, running around and worried, but hardly because of painted eggs.<\/p>\n

Yes, Easter\u2014given my often crazy life\u2014conjures up random memories indeed.<\/p>\n

Amidst these random memories, however, are the inescapable associations of a more spiritual nature. The essence of my Easter Cantata days, revisited. The Christ on a Cross, paying the ultimate price. The Christ in the tomb, descending into hell to take humanity\u2019s place; the risen Christ at the Father\u2019s right hand, offering up the sacrifice for the sin of the world.<\/p>\n

No matter your religious inclination or the absence thereof, it is hard to deny that many Easter memories are tied-in with these beliefs. Whether yours or someone else\u2019s. Unless you\u2019ve lived in isolation on some remote island all your life, you have surely heard the Gospel version of Easter.<\/p>\n

Every Holy Week and Easter, a Manila-based independent faith-group of young, passionate people known as Church Simplified<\/i> helps to create Easter memories of a more inspired and inspirational kind. On its 5th<\/sup> year, the group\u2019s \u201cWalkway\u201d presents a different take on the traditional Stations of the Cross; featuring historical, reflective, and interactive representations of the passion, death and resurrection of the Christ.<\/p>\n

\u201cWalkway,\u201d set up at the Fort\u2019s Bonifacio High Street in Taguig, takes you from The Garden, where Jesus pled His Father to take the cup of suffering away from him; and ends at The Table, where people partake of bread and wine in memory of their Savior.<\/p>\n

The 14 stations are: The Garden, The Betrayal, The Trial, The Verdict, The Whip, The Curse, The Cross, The Two Simons, The Crucifixion, The Mother, The Promise, The Darkness, The Cloth and The Table.<\/p>\n

Stations are interactive and interesting, even artsy. Devout, skeptical, curious, or anywhere along the spectrum, it is hard to deny the impact of these displays: the props, the reflective narratives, the history and imagery of each. People are encouraged to examine a replica of the scourging whip; take swatches of symbolic cloth (red this year, black last year) and nail these to a cross installation; take on a heavy-enough-though-not-nearly-as-heavy-as-the-real-thing cross on their shoulders and walk around with it; examine their reflections in dusty mirrors, and\u2014well\u2014reflect; write notes of gratitude; and the like.<\/p>\n

I am hardly churchy. Not these days. And I most certainly have had my fill of cantatas. But \u201cWalkway\u201d undeniably tugs at strings I would sometimes rather deny having.<\/p>\n

Check out the photos from \u201cWalkway\u201d 2012 (all photos credited to Andrew Syyap).<\/p>\n

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