OK, Easter. Now What?

This is another in the continuing series of literary confessions that are not only embarrassing, but would lead the reader to wonder why in the world s/he would want to wade through the scratchings of anyone with such a plethora of spiritual dysfunction. Fortunately, the written page is a better screen than any I’ve found in the reconciliation box, and as long as I don’t selfie myself into the text, I will remain shamed and unnamed.

I did the 46-day Lenten thing—including suffering on Sundays—giving up and/or avoiding those distractive food, drinks, and pass times that I felt were veering me off the path that the great Navigator had in store for me. Not that I was power shifting into reverse and sprinting away from my vocation and ultimately my intimacy with the Good God. I just had so many side trips on my daily journey, that sometimes the route seemed to be quite blurred.

At last, the closing bell rang on the sacrificial period, and though my humanness was ready to jump back into the old ways, I deliberated and selected those privations which would be least harmful to deactivate during Eastertide—on a limited basis, of course. That took up one day of the 50 Easter days facing me. Pentecost wasn’t even a tiny dot of light at the end of the tunnel, and I began wondering, what’s next?

I guess the big question is what in the heck has this trip down Lenten Lane been all about? And I don’t give me the standard pat answers that we hear from those people who are supposed to know, but who can only answer platitudinally. Please let us also avoid the jeopardy of the answers being questions.

I know why I did or did not do what I did or did not. What I am clueless about is, what did it do to me? How am I changed by the 6 ½ week adventure with Jesus that led to the tree, the tomb, and finally to the truth that death is dead? If I metaphorically microscoped my pre-Lenten and post-Lenten selves what would be the glaring differences, if any? I’d like to think after dozens of repeat performances of this passion play, that I am celebrating, not only my Savior’s resurrection, but mine as well. What I need to know is this: how was I dead before Resurrection Day, and is my tomb empty afterward? Is there any chance that those close to me might not recognize me (ala Mary of Magdala and the risen Christ) after my spiritual exhumation? Let me perform a little exploratory soul surgery and see if there is any part of God’s territory within me that I don’t recognize, or any part that is missing that I didn’t really miss.

One Eastertide oddity I’ve noticed in a being not exactly famous for being “normal,” is that I keep expecting to see Jesus. As strange as that sounds, just consider it for a moment. Every day in church, I hear about some actual physical encounter with Jesus in the flesh. We are celebrating that he is not dead. Those more connected with the supernatural than me (and that covers a considerable population) tell me that Jesus is everywhere. And though about 41 days after Easter he’s going to be ascending off this mortal coil, I think I should be able to encounter him in the meantime.

In a lame attempt to look as if I’m doing something about this Easter ennui, I intensify my old Lentenitude, and step up the prayer, meditation, and listening silence. The problem is just when I think the moment is right, the spirit is willing, and I’m ready for the curtain to open, something else interferes. My clunky cloister is easily violated by voices in the vicinity or from beyond. Beeps, bumps, rings, dings, throat clearings, or even the racing of my own cranial cavity jars me loose from my grip on the hem of His garment.

It would be different if these were disembodied distractions that I could slip away from by sinking further into the spiritual ether. This cacophony consisted of daily demands, duties, responsibilities, awakenings to awareness of needs for comfort, transport, prayers, errands, etc. Now, supposedly good Christian that I am, I couldn’t put everyone and everything off because the Savior and I were going to do lunch—with, I suppose, Him cooking the fish. It doesn’t take Agatha Christie to figure out where this is going. By the time I attended to immediate demands, I lost the connection. My spiritual battery had discharged, and there were no jumper cables. Close encounters with practicality fractured my divine encounterability. By the time this happened several times, I felt that the Lord’s hem had slipped through my fingers.

Then the penny dropped. Actually, it was more like a gold ingot, since I would never have noticed a subtle cent. I was suffering from a case of empty tomb eyes. Unlike Mary, however, I didn’t even recognize the Risen One when He called my name. Regardless, He kept calling and calling and calling. And in spite of my great talent for looking beyond the obvious to a more obscure, complex, and usually wrong conclusion, I finally realized that I kept seeing and hearing the Son, but not in the way I expected to.

So now that I’ve told this humiliating tale, I guess I can finally figure out what is resurrected in my poor old “weak and short-lived” countenance: I am now paying more attention. Not to the distractions of sound, color, flashiness, tastes, smells, etc. that those Madison Avenue web spinners are draping about me. Now I listen more intently for the voice calling me to aid, to listen, to comfort, to care.

I’ll likely need another Lent/Easter combo next year to put me back on track, based on my tendency to drift. Maybe next time I’ll see the subtle lesson without having to be hit repeatedly by the divine hammer.