'Easter' is a movable event, calculated by the relative positions

Host: The afternoon sky was pale and wide, its light diffused by thin clouds that drifted lazily over the city. In the old cemetery park, between rows of stone crosses and willow trees, the air smelled of earth, spring, and faintly — of incense from a nearby church where bells were softly tolling.

Jack stood with his hands in his coat pockets, his eyes fixed on the church steeple, watching a flock of birds cut across the sky. Jeeny sat on a worn bench, her hair dark against the pale marble of a grave behind her. She held a small bouquet of white lilies, absentmindedly tracing the petals with her thumb.

Jeeny: “You know, Annie Besant once said, ‘Easter is a movable event, calculated by the relative positions of sun and moon, an impossible way of fixing year by year the anniversary of a historical event, but a very natural and indeed inevitable way of calculating a solar festival. These changing dates do not point to the history of a man, but to the hero of a solar myth.’”

Jack: half-smiling “So Easter’s not about resurrection — it’s about astronomy?”

Host: A faint breeze passed through the trees, stirring the grass, making the old headstones shimmer with tiny patches of sunlight.

Jeeny: “In a way, yes. She meant that what we celebrate isn’t just a man’s return from death — it’s the earth’s. The sun dying in winter, reborn in spring. It’s the rhythm of everything alive.”

Jack: “Or maybe it’s just people dressing mythology up as faith. You know, hiding their uncertainty behind poetry.”

Jeeny: “Is that so wrong? Maybe myth is the poetry of truth — not literal, but living.”

Host: Jack turned to her then, his grey eyes narrowing slightly, his tone pragmatic, but not cruel.

Jack: “You sound like you want to erase history. Jesus becomes the sun, resurrection becomes sunlight — where does that leave belief?”

Jeeny: “It doesn’t erase belief, Jack. It deepens it. If Easter’s tied to the movements of the sun and moon, that means it’s not just the story of one man. It’s the story of every living thing. Of life itself refusing to end.”

Jack: “That’s beautiful. But you’re describing physics, not faith. The cosmos doesn’t need meaning — only humans do.”

Jeeny: “Maybe meaning is what makes us human.”

Host: Her voice was soft, but the air around her seemed to hum with conviction. A child’s laughter drifted faintly from the churchyard gate, mingling with the deeper toll of the bells.

Jack: “You ever think maybe we make too much of it? People talk about Easter miracles, but it’s just another turn of the planet. Another year, another circle.”

Jeeny: “And yet every year it feels new, doesn’t it? That’s the miracle — the same circle never feels the same. Like breath — always repeating, never identical.”

Jack: “That’s poetic, Jeeny, but nature doesn’t care how we feel. The sun doesn’t rise for us.”

Jeeny: “And yet we rise because of it. Isn’t that connection enough?”

Host: A silence settled between them — not empty, but full, like the pause between two notes of a familiar song. Jack crouched, picking up a small stone and rolling it between his fingers, his eyes thoughtful.

Jack: “You think the ancients had it right, then? All those solar deities — Osiris, Mithras, Ra — same story, different names. Dying gods, reborn with the spring.”

Jeeny: “Maybe they weren’t wrong. Maybe they were just seeing the same truth through a different language. The sun sinks and rises — the same story we live in smaller ways. We fall, we rise, we love again.”

Jack: “So you’re saying myth and science aren’t opposites. Just… metaphors standing on each other’s shoulders.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Science tells us how the sun moves. Myth tells us why that movement moves us.”

Host: Jeeny’s fingers brushed a strand of hair from her face, her eyes bright with that unmistakable light of someone defending not logic, but wonder.

Jack: “But then what happens to faith, if it’s all metaphor? What happens to the divine if it’s just sunlight in costume?”

Jeeny: “Maybe divinity was never separate. Maybe the divine is the sunlight itself — not above it, not beyond it. Just in it.”

Jack: “You’re turning God into physics, Jeeny.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. I’m turning physics into prayer.”

Host: The words lingered in the cool air, like incense smoke curling into invisible patterns.

Jack: “You really think that’s what Besant meant? That all religion comes down to nature worship?”

Jeeny: “She wasn’t mocking religion. She was reminding us that belief began with the sky. Every ancient culture looked up and found meaning — in sunrise, in stars, in cycles. Maybe Easter isn’t about replacing that, but remembering it.”

Jack: “Then why the story of one man? Why Jesus, not just the sun?”

Jeeny: “Because stories are bridges. We can’t hold light, but we can hold a face. We can’t pray to a star, but we can love a man who died and rose for love’s sake. The story gives the light a heartbeat.”

Host: Jack stood, pacing a few steps, his boots scuffing the damp grass. His shadow crossed the names carved in stone, momentarily merging the living with the dead.

Jack: “So maybe the story of resurrection isn’t false — it’s just larger than we thought.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Maybe the man and the myth are the same truth told in different languages — one human, one cosmic.”

Jack: “You always find the middle ground.”

Jeeny: “Because truth usually lives there.”

Host: The bells had stopped now. Only the soft rush of wind and the faint trickle of water from the stone fountain nearby remained. A few cherry blossoms fell, carried by the breeze, scattering like fragments of light across the path.

Jack: “You know what’s strange? Every time I walk through a graveyard, I feel… still. Like everything’s waiting, not ending.”

Jeeny: “That’s because it is. Death is just winter with better timing.”

Jack: smiling faintly “You’d make a dangerous preacher.”

Jeeny: “Only because I’d tell people God speaks in sunsets, not sermons.”

Host: The clouds began to part, a thin ray of gold breaking through, touching the church spire, then sliding down across Jeeny’s face. She closed her eyes, and for a moment, it looked as though the light itself bowed to her calm.

Jack: “So… Easter isn’t about proof. It’s about pattern.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. About the promise hidden in the pattern — that everything that falls will rise again. Not once, but forever.”

Host: Jack nodded slowly, his expression softening as the weight of argument gave way to quiet understanding.

Jack: “Maybe faith isn’t believing in miracles, then. Maybe it’s recognizing them in motion.”

Jeeny: “And maybe science isn’t cold, Jack. Maybe it’s the map God drew so we wouldn’t get lost looking for meaning.”

Host: The light brightened — not sudden, but gradual, tender. The rain had stopped completely, leaving behind a sheen of silver on the grass. A small bird landed on a nearby stone cross, shaking its wings, singing a brief, trembling note that hung in the air like hope itself.

Jack: “You know… maybe that’s why Easter moves every year. Maybe truth itself refuses to stand still.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because resurrection isn’t a date, Jack — it’s a rhythm.”

Host: He looked at her then, and she looked back — both caught in the quiet revelation of shared understanding.

Jack reached down, picked up a fallen blossom, and placed it gently on the bench beside her.

Jack: “To the hero of the solar myth,” he said softly, half-smiling.

Jeeny: “To the sun in all of us,” she replied.

Host: The camera would linger as they sat there — the sky clearing, the light growing, the church bells silent now, replaced by the whisper of a new wind.

And in that stillness, where science met myth, and faith met sunlight, it became clear —
that the story of resurrection was not only written in books,
but in the turning of the earth itself.