The Easter Vigil

Penn Family Memorial at North Lawn Cemetery, Utica, Ohio

The morose truth that we learn to forget is that death is our common experience.  This forgetting is a kind of saving grace in our day to day life. But death is at the core of our being.  It is exposed at extreme intervals and faced when someone we love is taken from us.  The grief is not only overwhelming but contains a kind of personal expectation.

I remember my father's funeral.  The family was gathered in the little room adjacent to the casket and just out of sight from the other mourners.  It was quiet as we waited for the service to begin.  One of my aunts turned to her sister and whispered "I wonder who will be next."  The words, though quiet, echoed in my heart.  What an ominous thought!  She was referring to herself, her sisters and brother...my dear aunts and uncle.  Two had passed before my Dad.  Five remained.  Someone would be next.  One day they would all be gone.  And of course, it came to pass. The emptiness that follows death seems unbearable.  We have been left alone and abandoned.  The time that follows the ceremonies and burial are dark.  We are numbed and seem to be just going through the motions.  There is little consolation.

These are the experiences of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil.  The church enters into death.  We stop our rush to the future and sit in collective sorrow.  We can the imagine the grief, fear and hopelessness of Jesus' family, friends and followers.  We can do this because we too have experienced the death of a loved one.  No one is spared.

It is, however, at the darkest hour on Holy Saturday that the unexpected happens and continues to happen.

Holy Saturday ~ Developing An Ability To Grieve

I wrote last year about the darkness of pathless places. Holy Saturday brings us here, as it always does, to look into the depth of emptiness. Why? Most of the contemporary Christian churches diminish or just ignore this day. We crowd it in to a passion play and move quickly to the happy ending. It is hard enough to deal with the tragedy of death and horror of the ordeal of Jesus’ path. It makes it even worse to have to sit and wait, in the unrelenting darkness of grief that comes with Holy Saturday. We just can’t seem to come to terms with it.

Our culture cannot tolerate or honor sustained grief. We demand that the business of it move along and get done. Our patience with those who suffer wears thin and we want them to “get over it”. This inability to allow grief to process is powerful force that plays a major role in much of the depression and chemical dependence that I treat every day in our outpatient clinic. It lies at the bottom of unresolved emotions and unfulfilled actions that have been repressed in a desire to make people believe that “everything is okay”.

We do not always have to be left with comforting words. Sometimes we have to be joined in silence and allowed to wail. There comes a time when the harsh reality of pain, loss and suffering must be experienced. Lincoln understood this as he gave his address at Gettysburg. Whitman grasped it as he wrote “O Captain! My Captain!” A writer named Adolofo Quezada lost a young adult son and lamented his “dreams forever unfulfilled”. After a near breakdown, he came to believe that if he allowed himself to let go and experience all that comes of grief, then and only then, would he find the comfort of new life.

Keeping Quiet ~ by Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth
let's not speak in any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victory with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), "Keeping Quiet"
Extravagaria (translated by Alastair Reid)
Jonathan Cape, London, 1972, pp.27-29

The Darkness of Pathless Places

One of the people that I serve in my addiction recovery center said “I have won all of my life. This is not supposed to happen to me at 56. I should be getting ready to retire and live the good life”. These words are so familiar to me. I uttered similar ones several years ago. I was 49 and my life was falling apart. I had been there before. How could this be? There are experiences that bring us to the place where we are lost…lost in pathless places without visible or invisible means of assistance. We are alone. Facing ourselves and afraid of what we might find. It is dark and we are baffled, confused and disoriented.

We have come to believe, in our modern culture, that this is an aberration. We think that we are somehow intended to start achieving when we begin school, lift off the ground when we graduate, and soar to greater and greater heights throughout our existence. It is the American Way. Never has there been a more mistaken perception. All of the religions, all of the mythology and all of the fairy tales are filled with stories that deal with the subject of the downward spiral. The familiar accounts of Moses, Muhammad, Buddha, Elijah and Jesus clearly tell the tale of being comfortable in a predictable life, being somehow drawn into the unfamiliar, struggling and dealing with the situation and then coming out the other side with a new message, ministry or epiphany. What had been is no more. The same is true in mythology and fairy tales. There is someone who becomes lost and eventually there are guides to help them find the way. The hero vanquishes the dragon or the foe and then lives a different life adventure that benefits humankind.

This is also the message of Holy Saturday. The fulfilling lives of Jesus followers have been torn away. Nothing is the same. Everything is ruined. They have gone into hiding and fear that they meet a horrible end. But out of that darkness and despair, grief and emptiness, come light and new life. This mystery is unfolding for each of us. At some point we are drawn to a place where we would rather not be. It may be brought on by stress, tragedy, illness, death of a loved one, or addictions. It may happen at 15 or at 60 but it will occur. We are called to find out who we really are, to struggle, to deal with it, and then to emerge as a new person with a broader and more compassionate vision. What had been excruciating becomes exhilarating. Nothing will ever be the same.