The Truth about Easter

"Here is the truth. . . " I pause for a breath - I'm still deciding how to say it. From the corner of my vision I see Sharon shooting me a questioning glance wondering what I am about to say. "Parents are not the Easter Bunny - but they do help the Easter Bunny. " I conclude.

Keep it vague, I tell myself. Let her reach her own conclusions. . . She is nodding as if she has found the answer.

But I can't have her spoiling it. She is in on the secret now. "But don't tell it to Indigo and Samuel because it is still fun for them to believe."

Kiara nods her head in understanding and skips off to indulge in more egg-shaped candy that we - her parents - helped "The Easter Bunny" deliver.

She had begun the conversation with a concerned look and a legitimate question to ponder on an Easter morning.

"Are parents really the Easter Bunny?"

I tried to avoid the question - I dodged - I deflected - I stammered - I stuttered.

"No Dad," she affirmed. "It is one question and there has to be one true answer. What is it?"

The question involving the veracity of the Easter Bunny is a complicated one. It is not only tricky because I am a parent and the mere asking of the question means my daughter is getting older and to answer it is like tearing away her innocence - but it is also tricky because in an odd round-about way it is also tied to the veracity of Christian miracles. Belief in the magical linked with faith in the spiritual.

The two great holidays of Christendom are coupled with magical creatures that depending on your view point either mask or enhance the true meaning of these days. Christmas is both about Santa Claus and the birth of the Messiah. Easter is simultaneously about the resurrection of Jesus and a bunny rabbit that lays chocolate eggs.

I gave her a few things to think about, "Our minds tell us that the Easter Bunny isn't real, but our hearts tell us to believe".

I was forced to take a quick inventory of those things I do and don't believe in. I don't believe in the Easter Bunny but I do believe that Jesus returned from the realm of death after 3 days and lived again. I don't believe in Santa Claus but I do believe in the virgin birth of a child who was both half-mortal and half-god. I don't believe in Big Foot but I do believe in angels, I don't believe in astrology but I do believe in revealed prophecy, I don't believe in magic but I do believe in miracles. Prayer but not telepathy; Zarahemla but not Atlantis.

"As we get older our minds begin to understand things more and more and we begin to loose our belief in magical things." I told her.

What I meant is that when we become more logical in our thinking, we are forced to disbelieve so much of what we openly accepted in our innocent youth. This isn't always a bad thing. We are rational beings with intellects and if we are to not only survive but succeed in this life we must be prepared to use these tools of reason. It is our rational intelligence that allows us to separate fact from fiction, truth from error. It kicks in when we stand on a ledge and imagine we can fly or when we stand poised on the water's edge considering walking on the shimmering water.

Enter the Reason vs. Faith debate - clearly there are many things that the tool of reason fails to do a good job with: science isn't built to define God and heaven and angels and miracles. It isn't built for it and I would add that it isn't adequate for it.

Faith is as Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote, a "willing suspension of disbelief". We must cast rationality and logic aside to some degree when we evaluate matters of faith. We must understand that reason, for all it is good at, will not help us understand the nature of God unless it is framed and molded by faith.

Which all brings me back to the original problem. How can I believe in one fantastical and illogical thing while scoffing at another? I believe that Jesus lived, then died, then lived again (along with millions of other Christians around the world) but to believe that a single rabbit is capable of hopping around the entire earth and knowing where all the best hiding places are. . . that would be crazy - that is just kid's stuff.

Somehow we make those decisions though - using some messy mesh of both logic and faith, reason and emotion, thinking critically yet simultaneously suspending any disbelief. And in some ways I was scared to drop the curtain revealing the truth about the Easter Bunny because I was worried that other more profound things would come falling down in the same curtain. I don't want her to stop believing in magically things because I don't want her to lose faith in spiritual things.

Perhaps I over-thought the whole conversation. Perhaps I should have just been more straight with her. Perhaps I shouldn't have feared so much her ability to discern between belief in the nonsensical and faith in the profound.

Kiara has now moved on - no longer visibly struggling with the issue. She is writing a story in her new journal that she received in her Easter basket. It is all about a group of kids who go in search of the Easter Bunny after the furry critter fails to show up one Easter morning. A work of Fact or Fiction?

. . . you decide.