Happy Holidays are so five minutes ago

Every once in a while, something happens that... affirms my belief that my life is more positive and more enriched without organized religion in it.
I think I always loved Easter more than Christmas, when I was a kid. There was always a pretty dress and a hat, an age appropriate gift (a locket or my first lipstick) and, of course, a bright pink basket just bursting with Cadbury creme eggs, jelly beans, chocolate bunnies, all nestled on a crinkled, shiny, happy-colored nest. Before church, Mom would make a lavish breakfast of braided sweet bread and maybe an egg casserole. We would fancy up in our new finery and go to church, where there would be more treats, beautiful songs about victory and heaven, happy people in colorful ties and floral dresses. Then? Home to ravage the ham dinner Mom would spoil us with. There would be candy to eat for weeks, and maybe an easter egg hunt, and always perfect weather.
Perfect. It was always the perfect day. For us, at least. I loved it. The last few years have seen patchier Easters, but the memory of those early years is a bright one.
This year, though? I guess with age comes awareness, and with awareness come... disillusionment? I didn't think much going into it. I figured I would go to my church job, head to someone's house for dinner, and then wrap up the day with some Reese's eggs.
But Facebook reared its ugly head. As always.
The day before Easter Sunday, I was reading some posts by various people I used to attend my conservative Christian college with. They were reminiscing about the service the night before, where they stood as a congregation and shouted "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" They were sobered by the reminder of their own cupability in the nightmarish death of Jesus, and appreciated the chance to replay the moment when they, we, everybody betrayed and murdered their Savior. Good Friday. The day that will live in infamy.
I... I felt a little ill. I feel a little ill. I started crying and it took me a while to figure out why.
GUILT.
Guilt is the ugliest word in the English language. Guilt is the most powerful motivator and the most devastating weapon. And (at the risk of offending many, many people... which is nothing new for me) is the way religion has held people in thrall for many, many years.
Contrarily enough, I think that seperating myself from the... virulence of many of the ideals of religion and those who practice it virulently has helped me appreciate Jesus' message of unconditional love even more. It upsets me that this message is referenced, when convenient, but never seems to be the primary goal of widespread Christianity. It's always shuffled under evangelism, or atonement (don't tell me that's an "Old Testament" ideal and that you live under a "New Covenant" and then spend Good Friday screaming "Crucify Him". I have quite simply lost the ability to believe you.) or guilt, or apocalyptic dread. Even when it's practiced in theory it's not always practiced in actuality.
I can see more clearly now than ever before that Jesus treated everyone with kindness and respect, that he wanted everyone to be able to see people the way he did, at their most sublime... that he wanted everyone to be treated with respect and valued the way he valued them. I think that the last supper was never meant to be an elaborate ceremony with chanted words and white linens and people getting huffy about whether or not there was alcohol involved. I honestly think he was just saying that he wanted them to remember him, lovingly, and the way he was when they were together, friends, that one last night at the passover party in the upper room.
So understand my dawning horror as I realize that our agressive need for ceremony and culpability has warped this loving man's ultimate gift into an elaborate pageant in which we, sinners that we are, relive our ugliest moment and nail him to the cross again. And again. And again. 3 nails+1 time a year= 4 ever struggling with guilt (to paraphrase a sign I saw on Facebook.)
Why? WHY? Tell me why, please. (My therapist said I have anger issues. I told her that I spent 20 years being given the mixed message that Jesus loved and redeemed me but that every little misstep made me an ugly human stain.) Why must the message be cheapened? Was the beating he took not enough? Because if there are people flogging themselves on "Good Friday", it must not have been sufficient. Do we love him the way we should? No, but don't blame that on our being "fallen", blame that on the fact that any gratitude we might show him will be tainted with our self-imposed guilt and remorse. Do we celebrate Easter, or do we put on an epic pageant of emotional whiplash? "Indeed, He is risen" hasn't been news in about 2000 years. What would be "news" would be "Indeed, He is risen and instead of feeling guilty about it, I simply said, "Thanks.'"
I know that people are good people, and I know that they're worshipping in the way that seems best to them. And that their self-flagellation is not meant as ingratitude for the gift they've been given. And perhaps they find peace through guilt and remorse, and transcendence through atonement. But it hurts me to watch, and it hurts me to see people struggle through the psychological and spiritual burnout that comes from being inside the wrong church for too long. And I'm tired of being tired. And burned out. From being in the wrong church for too long.
My therapist has diagnosed me with crippling anger issues. 20+ years of church has taken its toll emotionally, psychologically, even physically- once a week, on Sunday mornings, when I'm sitting in the pew at my church job, I break out in hives and get a severe headache. Either I'm allergic to the flowers in the narthex, or I'm reacting HARD to the almost corporeal anxiety I feel every time I even think about religion. I'll be thirty in a few months, and my hope is that there will be peace in my heart and my mind and I can put the anxiety, guilt and anger behind me.
This Easter was not a jolly one, and I haven't felt happy since Good Friday. I've shut down my Facebook account (because I feel anxious about what people will say, I answer in anger, and then I feel anxious about how people will reply. I want to contribute, and I think every perspective deserves to be heard. I do. But for now, I'm closing my ears.) Someday, when I can make it through a holiday without crying from disillusionment, when I can log on to Facebook without feeling dread in the pit of my stomach, when I can look at people who reflect the values I can't respect and still love them unconditionally, when I can think about church without having a physical reaction... then maybe I'll be strong enough to face this crapsack world with grace and patience and freedom.