Here Comes The Sun
Bring The Sun Back Into Someone's Life This Easter!
Just like Christmas, Easter has evolved from an occasion commemorating Christ’s resurrection, into also serving as a date on the calendar that somehow invokes rabbits, coloured eggs, chocolate and of course, greeting cards. Culture has a way of blending different elements into a new whole - Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol launched a number of customs that are not part of the Christmas tradition. The best theories regarding our current hybrid Easter suggest that it originates with the large number of German immigrants who arrived in America in the 1700s, primarily in Pennsylvania. One of the things they brought across the Atlantic was ‘Osterhase’, or Oschter Haws’, a Germanic folklore about a hare who would lay coloured eggs. Children were encouraged to make nests for these mythical bunnies. As well, the pagan festival of Eostre, honoured a goddess of fertility symbolized by…what else? – the typical prolific bunny. (While some cultures actually associate the Easter/spring season with foxes or cuckoo birds, we’ll go with traditional rabbit for now.)
Bunnies aren’t the animal traditionally associated with Easter in every country. Some identify the holiday with other types of animals like foxes or cuckoo birds. Similarly, egg decorating can be traced back to the thirteenth century, when some churches instructed their followers to abstain from eggs as a way of observing Lent. Easter was the signpost when they were once again allowed. Even the legendary appreciation of ornately jewelled eggs amongst Russian royalty was linked to the Easter season.
Some of the other secondary ‘messages’ bundled into the commercial Easter messages do resonate, because they involve universal emotions and ideals, like sacrifice, community, and rebirth. Cultures around the world can be as varied as their belief systems, but Everyone experiences some kind of winter. There’s a season when farmer’s fields go into an extended state of slumber and regeneration, and historically, all cultures have had to be aware of possible adversity through a lack of food or adequate shelter from harsh elements. And sometimes…those harsh elements are not always visible. It’s only in the last fourty years that the ‘winter blahs’ has been scientifically confirmed to be a very real and sometimes very lethal thing called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Whatever triggers the feeling of futility, hopelessness is the result.
Futility and discouragement are the opposite of Hope, and there is no more elemental symbol of that discouragement than the grey, unavoidable winter. Hope reminds us that there is Always a spring on the way, and that life will literally bloom and grow again. Charity provides thousands of ways to deliver that feeling and message of spring to anyone who is trapped in their own personal winter. For some families, that can be a cycle of futility and hopelessness that goes back for generations, due to substance abuse, mental illness, or the tragic combination of both. For others, a recent misfortune with their livelihood or health could have plunged them into a prolonged state of feeling like they could never expect to appreciate life, and have their own personal spring.
Link Charity invites you to use this Easter as a chance to help someone make it through their toughest season, with a variety of options to maximize your caring in whatever direction you choose. When in doubt, it’s never a bad idea to cite the Beatles. As George Harrison sang, in one of his own times of despair, ‘It’s Been a Long Cold Lonely Winter…’ Let Link Charity help you bring the sun back into someone else’s lives.
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604-789 Don Mills Rd
Toronto, Ontario
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