Easter

“I wish that I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.” This famous Hafiz quote pushed its way through the clutter in my mind today to take front and center.

Yesterday, I wrote you a note and rolled it up in magnolia petals and tied it to a bunch of dried roses. We found a new spot on the Hudson to have a memorial chat, and I thought I could hear you laughing when I tossed the bouquet and failed to release it in time causing it to boomerang back at me but still somehow landing it in the water. I laughed, too. And I think I may have heard my father groan from wherever it is you guys are these days.

Eastertime is often fraught for me. This year was no exception. But nudges have come like the one from Hafiz and from Julian of Norwich’s words, “All shall be well… for there is a force of Love in the universe that holds us fast and will never let us go.” And then one other presented.

Part of my job includes oversight of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace archives. I look forward to weekly meetings with the congregation archivist who often surprises me with an interesting find. Several months ago, she handed me a paperback book called A Free Spirit, which purports to be a transcript of the channeled conversations between the order’s founder, Margaret Anna Cusack, and a writer named Patrick Francis. Just as we had both agreed it wasn’t archival, and we could toss it, I thought, wait a second, this is right up my alley.

I finally finished it this morning with mixed feelings about the content. In a wide-ranging discussion, Margaret Anna addresses many subjects, the evolution of the soul and how that occurs being but one. She grabbed me a few times, including with this passage toward the end:

“The first and most important point is acceptance of your own divinity. To an orthodox religious practitioner that may sound sacrilegious. However it sounds, the fact is that all souls are part of God; in other words, the loving energy that is God animates all souls.”

Am I—are we—up to the challenge of accepting ourselves and others as divine, of seeing, or at least imagining, the astonishing light of our beings? To fully embrace that requires a disciplined practice of shifting our focus and holding fast to that knowing, even when we’ve disappointed ourselves, or been disappointed or hurt by someone, some circumstance or group, by life or love. It requires constant awe and wonder. I think you, my river friend, have offered me this Easter gift and challenge, and I accept.

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.

Tag: Easter

Easter Challenge