MARY KETTL

Perspective

Easter can be a confusing holiday for children. On the one hand, we are deeply worried about Jesus, for whom things don't look good, while on the other we have baskets of plastic eggs, hollow chocolate rabbits, and a chance to eat jellybeans until our teeth hurt. It's hard to know how to feel.

The Biblical events of Easter and their doctrinal implications were always a little mysterious, even to a kid who went to Catholic school in the '70s, where "Religion" was one of our regular subjects, like math and social studies. I always liked Religion because it involved activities I was good at, like coloring maps, memorizing names, using the verb form "begat," and praying, during which, if you skipped praying for your sisters, you could spend more time thinking about cartoons.

Religion was a fairly serious class - there was no partial credit given for confusing Jude with Judas or Judea - but occasionally we got to act out Bible stories, which I loved. I have always regretted not growing up in a time where people wore cloaks and carried staffs. My aunt, who was a stewardess, had sent me a real Japanese kimono with a sash, which, along with sandals, the long handle of a pushbroom, and photographic memory gave me the lead in several Scriptural playlets that my fourth grade class put on for the edification of the first and second graders.

Our teachers, perhaps weary of Mesopotamian Theatre at this level, were happy to let me play The Good Samaritan or The Woman at the Well, probably more because I could remember my lines and move the thing along than because of any natural acting ability. (I had seen "The Ten Commandments" on television several times and was prone to calling out, "Moses, Moses, Moses!" to add authenticity to crowd scenes.) I also punctuated my remarks with frequent banging of my staff, which is probably why people aren't allowed to carry staffs anymore.

Unlike the Christmas story, which was replayed in every possible medium, from light opera to sock puppets, we never physically acted out any of the Easter texts. It was fairly easy to understand how Jesus could be born, a child of refugee parents waiting for a shelter to open in Bethlehem, but how could this guy die on a Friday and then feel better enough over the weekend to rise up and turn back into his real self - not a ghost or a zombie - and go back to work on Monday? It was a lot for a nine-year-old to think about.

Hoping to avoid grappling with these theological questions, not to mention the possibility of me bellowing, "Moses, Moses, Moses!" during The Last Supper, our Religion teachers usually turned us to visual art projects for Easter. Our crayoned pictures were modeled on the stained glass windows we had seen at church, with waving Saviors hovering slightly above the ground amid crowds of smiling well-wishers. While we were mystified about how this could happen, we knew this was a holy event - not magical, exactly, but something like it - and not something that could really be acted out. Jesus had superhero powers, but nobody was going to be him for Halloween.

As I grew older, I started to attend the Easter Vigil, a Catholic service that starts at sundown Saturday night and goes on forever, sometimes until Mother's Day. I went initially for the fun of holding a small white candle girded with a little paper skirt to catch the dripping wax, but I also enjoyed the cycle of Old Testament highlights - the Creation, the Exodus, Psalms - that would be read by actors in different parts of the darkened church. There were no costumes or movement, but the use of narrators, music, and different voices made the stories seem like little plays for grownups.

It was easy to get lost in these stories as you looked at your candle, and once, during the responsive singing of a Psalm, we nearly lost my sister. Steph was seven or eight, with big curly bangs that my mother had warned me about several times before entrusting me to sit with her in the fourth pew while Mom played the piano and directed the church choir. At some point in the singing, my sister, staring intently at her candle, began to singe her bangs.

We happened to be sitting in the direct eye-line of the choir, which, noticing that Steph was smoking, collectively jerked their heads and looked meaningfully at me. Beaming, I nodded back and sang louder. They can probably hear my harmony, I thought. In what could only have taken a few seconds but seemed a lot longer, I sang, my sister burned, the choir bobbed their heads, and my mother, annoyed with her singers, played louder to regain their attention. Finally smelling the problem, I grabbed the candle, swatted at Steph's bangs, and waved away the smoke with a Missalette. The child was fine, but the choir was in convulsions.

While I later maintained that I had saved my sister's life, my mother didn't see it that way. And yet, after this unexpected bit of theatre, we all emerged from the service late that night with a new appreciation for salvation, however it comes.

Mary Kettl is a former junior high teacher in Gillette. She now lives in Minneapolis.