What lives, dies. What dies, comes back to life in another form. It is the cycle we see all around us, a cycle humans have celebrated since before there was history.

Today, we celebrate Easter. For Christians, it is a story of a man who lived, died and returned in a form less human and more God-like.

And, like Christmas that supplanted the pagan celebration of the winter solstice, it is a holiday we celebrate as pagans did at the beginning of spring. It is a holiday that lived, died and was returned in a different form.

It’s a holiday in which the pagan celebrations of fecundity are renewed with symbolic eggs and rabbits now juxtaposed with the Crucifix.

Secular history tells us there is no more evidence for this being the anniversary of Christ’s revival for the tomb than there is evidence that December 25 is the birthday of Christ. The timing of these holidays are no more nor less than the attempt by the early Christian church to compromise with the popular state religion that preceded it.

Do not be horrified. For me, this recounting of how we came to celebrate the biography of Jesus does nothing to lessen the power of the lessons of his life and death, nothing at all to lessen the power of his teachings that can only inspire any who read his words.

I write these things not to persuade you in any way about your faith nor lack thereof. For me, to say these things has no more power over my own Christianity, such as it is, than when I say with great conviction that the Theory of Evolution is far more likely to be true than the story of Genesis. Yet, I am a monotheist and believe in a Higher Power, a creative God that expresses the power of love throughout our lives.

These things are much on my mind this weekend, and not just because it’s the day we choose to celebrate the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

My mother is in the hospital. She’s 82 and I’ve had a moment with her in which her fragility is more apparent than it usually is because she’s such a strong and sharp woman most of the time.

Her current illness is unlikely to be life threatening. However, I cannot deny her mortality. Nor my own.

My sometimes close and sometimes arms-length friend Dzaster is obsessed with death. This, in my view, is error; it chooses one point on a circle and says it is somehow more important than any other point in the 360 degrees of arc. Yes, as a matter of fact, that point is there and it is important because the circle would not be complete without it. Neither would the circle be complete without the point marking birth, adolescence, toilet training, marriage, or high school graduation. I prefer to believe that death is simply one more place of mystery and miracle — even one more gift — out of many such points in the cycle.

No need to get bent out of shape about it. It simply IS.

Meanwhile, it does give us a point of reference I find helpful.

It gives me perspective.

When I’m upset about the price of a gallon of gasoline, how important is that?

This meditation leads me back to Easter. There are those Christians for whom this day represents the crux of Christianity. Belief in the Resurrection of Christ is the be-all and end-all of their faith. Either one believes in this miracle or one is not a Christian.

So be it.

I am not a Christian, by that standard.

For me, Christianity has a single hallmark: do you treat your fellow man non-judgmentally and kindly, as you would like all others to treat you? For me, an obsession with material well-being over charity is the hallmark of un-Christian behavior.

For me, if you cheat on your taxes, lie to your customers and steal from your boss and then go home and worry about your struggle to keep up with your neighbors, no fish on the back of your car makes you a Christian.

Easter is lost on those, in my opinion. Hiding eggs and eating chocolate bunnies is by far more appropriate, pagan celebration it is, than sitting in church in your finery listening to bromides about magic.

How did you spend your Easter?

More to the point, how will you spend your time on Monday morning?

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