The Reconstructed

This year Easter feels weird to me. I don’t know if it’s because last year Easter was 3 weeks earlier or what, but it just feels like it literally came a little late. Like I’m catching up to it. It’s also odd that there is a fair and rodeo this weekend near Charleston and Wrestlemania is this weekend. It’s almost like a large segment of society was like: we can skip this one. It’s not like its Christmas. It’s just some dude who claimed to raise from the dead and said he would come back but instead is letting the world to suffer and celebrate the same ways it always has.

I don’t claim to know what has grind your gears most this year, for a lot it’s just the election and for many people the uncertainty of things has been an effective place for fear. And I have compassion for that, but for some people I know grief and loss has been a place where pain has met them in such a way where they have to face it. I’ve had several friends lose a parent or guardian this year and I’ve been reminded of two things when I think about a celebration surrounding Jesus’ death and resurrection.

1. The most natural response to death is grief. The most natural response to losing someone is feeling the loss often because of the space they’ve occupied in your life. When loss happens, grief comes in moving around inside allowing us to feel, and hopefully in griefs mercy, it allows us to remember some beautiful things in the process. Anyone who tries to push you out of grief or demonize grief or try to correct your grief likely doesn’t understand the purpose of grief nor is interested in genuine compassion.
   
2. As someone who has experienced loss and sat with countless families that have had a loved one die and sitting in the room with those actively dying, I’m confident that the most valuable thing you can give to a person hurting is a less anxious presence while maintaining positive regard. To sit with someone and offer a gentle touch, to be moved to offer your tears combined with theirs, to say little to nothing, while keeping the person who is hurting in the most positive light you can, not pitying them or looking down on them but honoring their humanity and believing they will make it through without your coaxing, is a gift. Whenever I think about my friends who have experienced loss or scary moments, I genuinely wish I could be there to sit with them.

But isn’t there a better way to spend time than being sad? Sure, you know sure, in Heaven if you believe everyone gets that or only a few people get that, when you are there you don’t have to be sad. But this ain’t it. This world we have, though at times exceeds our imagination in its beauty, also levels us with the reality of unmet expectations, broken promises, crippling failure, and always untimely death. There is never a good time to die. Unless, I guess your Jesus because then your death and forthcoming resurrection means salvation for the world. And that is why Easter is celebrated, why it’s on the calendar, why Christianity even exists in the world and for that I can celebrate, have to celebrate.

But it’s also a celebration of a different kind. It’s not a birthday or your team won a championship or your stool is no longer liquid or you got a new pet or a baby is on the way (that was Christmas). It’s still kind of an unrealized celebration. Those who celebrate are all just kind of hoping, faith-ing it, talking about it like the evidence is so undeniable, how could one not.

And I get why one could not. It feels like the evidence of lived experience runs contrary to a one day perfected world. I think there was a solution for that too but it’s in the wind, and no one knows from where it comes or where it goes. And hopefully, this momentary affliction, and shared experiences of collective or individual suffering will also one day blow away.