Only those who have a real and lasting sense of abundance can be truly charitable. – # A Course in Miracles
Follow the bunny. He has the chocolate. – Anonymous
The Bunny
If you have ever wondered how a rabbit became associated with Easter, here’s a short explanation. Blame it on the Dutch. They brought their tradition of Oschtger Haws, a hare that laid colourful eggs, to Pennsylvania in the 1700s. The Germans were smart. They took the eggs and bunny a step further and in the 1800s started making them from chocolate. Well, pair any tradition with chocolate and you know it’s going to stick.
Bunny: The Story
So about that bunny…. Apparently it has to do with spring and procreation. One theory is that Eostre, an early Anglo-Saxon goddess of abundance and fertility had the animal symbol of a rabbit, known of course, for its energetic breeding. Well just imagine pairing those bunnies with the caffeine and sugar from chocolate and BAM! That’s a lot of energetic procreation.
Anyway, early Christians weren’t about to give that one up easily so perhaps early monks just let their followers keep that tradition and hoped it would go away. Nope. The bunny, especially a chocolate one, was here to stay. As for chocolate, have you ever tried to pacify kids with a carrot? Doesn’t work. It has to be chocolate. Our kids’ idea of a balanced meal meant a chocolate in each hand.
A lasting sense of abundance
If we wish to delve deeper into the meaning of the Easter season, we need to pass by the thrills and frills of chocolate and Hallmark to seek the true meaning of the day, which had nothing to do with the body or its gratification. The true lesson of Easter was that spirit is reality; the body was and is of little importance beyond being useful while we are here. It was never important to Jesus. The shock of seeing him come and go after He was dead was intended to show his followers that his reality is spirit, as is ours.
Jesus had a lot of lessons for us, one of them is realising true abundance in life. For most of us, to give anything implies that we will have to do without it. Perhaps we give because we believe that we are somehow getting something better; which might be considered “giving to get”. To turn the tables on this idea would need a change – a very important change – in attitude. When we realise that giving = having = love, then true abundance is the result. It’s like that old story about trying to give a gift when it is firmly locked in our fist. Only when we open our hands and hearts can we realise what we have.
May you realise true abundance in your life this Easter and in all seasons to follow.
“I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.” John 10:10