I was pulling sheets out of the dryer the other day, and they were tangled together in a maddening way, amplifying my mildly agitated mood. Rather than sort them out, I wanted to toss them in the trash.
Long after my mother died, and many years after my father left the Episcopal church because he wasn’t allowed to marry a divorced woman in it, after he had almost kept his promise to his mother that he would at least have his children confirmed (three out of four), and years after all of us had left the church, he asked me if I missed it.
I thought for a minute, “A little.”
He nodded, “Me, too.”
The way I remember it, we both said we missed the ritual the most. For my dad’s part, I know he missed more than ritual and all it represented. He left the church but continued to think of Jesus as a role model, a guide. I, inherently drawn to theater and ritual, missed ritual for ritual’s sake before I understood what it meant, and at the same time fostered what I thought was a righteous anger towards the church. I had no connection with Jesus, who I could find no evidence of in my life, a child’s worldview.
I’ve made peace with not being a part of an organized religion, because try as I might with many visits to various churches over the years, none was a fit. I’ve found other ways to quench that thirst and feed my spirit.
I still feel a tug sometimes, especially at Easter. I remember the Easter outfits that must have cost my parents a lot when they had little, patent leather shoes, a white muff, a new dress and hat for me and suits for my brothers. I loved Palm Sunday, the pageantry and colors of Lent and Easter, a joy on Easter Sunday that I felt but didn’t entirely understand, and the way Easter and spring marched in time.
My feelings about Easter are as balled up as those sheets that were so hard to sort. Of course, I sorted and folded those sheets. Easter? Not so easily sorted. But I confess I am more than a little intrigued by the way you continue to pull at me, Easter, the way you are a part of me in spite of me, the way as you near, I am anticipating something and like the sealed-up daffodils that rise and stand ready to bloom, I feel like I might burst open overnight and smile and wave at anyone who will look my way.
Divine Ready 