(1,477)
It’s the Saturday part that always interests me. Looking at the days of Easter, from the arrest of Jesus through the crucifixion and on to the resurrection, we often leave out that twenty-four-hour period when he’s dead, beginning to stink and absent of any prospect of life.
Yes, for one day evil has won. Oh, shoot–that’s too dramatic. It would be easier if it were evil. Then we could take a gun out and shoot it, or send Navy seals over to exterminate it. But no. That Saturday between the crucifixion and the resurrection was a day when much more common, but sinister, concerns were given free rein.
It was a day of dreadful dullness. Because when you turn out the light what remains is darkness. Unacceptable. Yet time passes, your eyes adjust and it suddenly gains plausibility. Adaptation. Yet still, dreadfully dull.
It is a time when the consequence of extinguishing our possibility taunts us in our foolishness and inefficiency, leaving us to either repent in great sorrow for our short-sightedness or stubbornly insist, “It was my choice.”
Yes, it’s the Saturday that fascinates me–a Saturday when the street cleaners of Jerusalem are scraping up the bowels and remains of Judas Iscariot, who has hung himself and has fallen to the earth, gushing in all directions.
It’s a day when a disciple named Peter realizes that he has chosen his own bodily life over the spiritual life he gained from his friend. For denial, after twenty-four hours, reeks of betrayal. And unfortunately, there is no way to recreate beauty by removing truth.
It’s when a woman named Mary, from Magdala, is trying to figure out how in the hell her friend has been snuffed out by a religion she had honored all her life, and also how she was going to be able to roll away a stone to prepare his body for burial.
It is the Sabbath Day, a day of reverence in the midst of a season of redemption–Passover–a day when Caiaphas, the high priest, has symbolically given absolution to a race of people when he, himself, has blood on his hands from slaying the promise of God.
It is a day when people huddle in their houses of worship to commemorate the great deeds of the prophets of old, who were slain by their fathers and mothers–and now they, too, have followed suit, eliminating the greatest possibility.
Nicodemus has to wonder whether he said enough to defend the young man he came to visit by night, who told him to be “born again.” Perhaps he should have heeded the advice.
And Pontius Pilate has clean hands but a cluttered mind, wondering whether his latest decision might have eternal consequences.
But sanity often demands that we escape our conscience through the back door of excuse. The only recourse is to find inane activities that generate a dreadful dull–to anesthetize the guilt and leave us absent sensation.
It was a long day. It was a day when the world was without a Prince of Life and the Light of the World.
I’m not so sure we would have survived two of them–more lies and deception would have been needed to keep us from wondering if we were wrong.
- Religion–without God.
- Politics–removing purpose.
- Friends–breathing, minus love.
- And dreams–vegetating, devoid of fulfillment.
‘Twas a dreadful dullness–a warning. For resurrection loses some of its sweetness with the memory of indecision.
Only Mary Magdalene and her female companions could tout the glory of victory–having remained each step of the way, faithfully observing the unfolding of the magnificent plan. All others have the aching memory of twenty-four hours of dreadful dullness.
Victims? Perhaps. But also culprits … in a crime against the universe.
**************
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Sitting One
I died today.
I didn’t expect it to happen. Then again, I did—well, not really.
No, I certainly didn’t expect it.
I’ve had moments of clarity in my life. Amazingly enough, many of them were in the midst of a dream. For a brief second I would know the meaning of life or the missing treatment to cure cancer. And then as quickly as it popped into my mind it was gone. I really don’t recollect dying. Just this unbelievable sense of clear headedness—like walking into a room newly painted and knowing by the odor and brightness that the color on the wall is so splattering new that you should be careful not to touch it for fear of smearing the design. The greatest revelation of all?
Twenty-five miles in the sky time ceases to exist.
The planet Pluto takes two hundred and forty-eight years to circle the sun. It doesn’t give a damn.
The day of my death was the day I became free of the only burden I really ever had. TIME.
Useless.
Time is fussy. Time is worry.
Time is fear. Time is the culprit causing human-types to recoil from pending generosity.
There just was never enough time.
Time would not allow it. Remember—“if time permits …”
Why if time permits? Why not if I permit? Why not if I dream? Why not if I want? Why does time get to dictate to me my passage?
It was time that robbed me of my soulful nature. It was time that convinced me that my selfishness was needed.
I didn’t die. The clock in me died, leaving spirit to tick on.
So why don’t we see the farce of time? Why do we allow ourselves to fall under the power of the cruel despot? Yes, time is a relentless master—very little wage for much demand.
I died today.
Actually … a piece of time named after me was cast away.
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