Friday, March 21, 2008

When is Easter?

I was thinking about this very topic this evening while I was driving to Walmart. I looked up into the East sky above Maple Mountain as the full moon started to peak his beautiful face between the mountain peaks. It reminded me of the most valuable information I acquired while at BYU. I contemplated the thousands of dollars it cost to acquire my degree from BYU: tuition, rent, car, insurance, gas, bus passes, blue books, pencils, pens, highlighters, backpacks, books, lunch at the CougarEat, late night run to 7Eleven for slurpees for study breaks, the list goes on and on. I thought about all of the various facts that I learned and while accumulating those 128 credit hours required for graduation. And I fondly remembered the single most valuable thing that I learned while at BYU for 5 1/2 years. It didn't come from a Religion class, from Biology 100, or even Early American Literate. It came from one of my most favorite, yet least necessary classes as far as my degree in English goes--Floral Design. Before I share with you the most profound information of my college career, let me just say Floral Design was not for the Pansies, if you will. It certainly was not an "Easy A" (I had a hard time finding any "easy A" classes at BYU, and believe me, I looked!)
The most valuable information that I retained from my 5 1/2 years of study is this...
When Is Easter: "Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox"


Yes, folks, that it is. Whenever anyone asks when Easter is I can confidently share with them this little tidbit of knowledge. It seems to come in handy from time to time. It seems to be much more impressive than being able to share with someone whether or not they correctly used the subjunctive case of a particular verb in conversation. Most people don't really appreciate being complimented on their verb usage. I just secretly make those notes to myself and patiently wait for the right opportunity to share with my friends why Easter is so blasted early this year that we couldn't even plan an outdoor Easter Egg Hunt this year for fear of snow.

So go outside this lovely Spring evening and check out that full moon and share your knowledge with those you spend time with this Easter weekend. I won't tell anyone that you got your random trivia from me.

6 comments:

missliss5/Melissa said...

Hey! I totally didn't know that! And I am super glad to understand how all that works now. Thanks so much for your years and money spent on your education so you could teach me---(grin). I am totally going to read what you wrote 10 times so I can confidently say it to Dan as if I am naturally that smart....wish me luck.

Jessica F. said...

I still cannot believe that it is this early...do they always really have to follow the rules?!?

Merrills said...

I just barely learned about the Easter schedule this week because I was so mad that it is so early this year. Oh, well. The moon is gorgeous and hopefully the Easter Bunny has lots of fur and he won't freeze hopping to all our homes!

Carroll Family said...

That's how it works! I just thought for some wierd reason they rotated between like 5-6 Sundays - maybe because no one could agree, so they all take turns. Yours makes a WHOLE LOT more sense!

Jacobson Five said...

I was just told that little tidbit of info just yesterday. I thought to myself (no actually it was out loud) That is stupid, Easter should be in April, for get the moon,because nobody knows about it, so nobody would care.

Marcie said...

haha. Thank you for your wealth of knowledge. But I do love Maple Mountain. I can see it from my house. I climbed to the top in high school with my best friend and her ward and we sat on the even ridge on the far summit and called my house on her dad's phone. Wow, did they even have cell phones back then?!