I.
Growing up, on most Sundays I went to church: reluctantly exchanging my soccer uniform for a skirt and sweater, piling with my siblings into our white (then silver, after the white one had run its course) Chrysler minivan, waiting for the service to end so I could eat the donut holes that awaited us at Sunday school.
I would sit restlessly on the wooden pew bench and flip back and forth between the pages of the service program, trying to calculate what percentage of the service we’d already sat through and how much was left. I used to dread the sermons in particular: the longest part of the service but represented only by one measly line in the program pamphlet (as opposed to the Nicene Creed, which was written out in full and therefore contributed to the impression that we were making fast progress towards the last page).
This Easter Sunday I find myself missing those sermons – the dedicated time for reflection, for telling and interpreting stories, for making some meaning of our own lives. It’s the same way I miss high school English class (and note the irony of how the books I would skim just to make sure I’d pass the next day’s pop quiz are now the ones I read and annotate in my free time).
II.
I’ve been finding inspiration lately in Frederick Buechner’s writing, finding it serving the same purpose as those sermons (or would have, had I had the appreciation at the time).
“It began in the dark,” writes Buechner of the Resurrection.
I think of other things that begin in the dark: seeds, in the pitch black of soil; human life, in a darkened womb; hope, more often than not.
“The essential message [of the Resurrection] is that nothing, no horror can happen that can permanently, irrevocably quench the presence of holiness that is always there…” he writes. “No matter what dreadful things take place, that remains the heart of reality.”
Last month I wrote about mantras and now I find myself experimenting with new ones on a weekly, even daily basis. I came across my latest one in Buechner’s writings on Easter: “Resurrection means the worst thing is never the last thing.”
The worst thing is never the last thing.
III.
So I didn’t go to church this Easter Sunday –
Instead, I biked to the Pacific Ocean where, much like at church, I’m reminded of the greater forces that surround me. The sound of organs and a choir are replaced with the call of gulls and crashing waves but the sense of awe remains.
I meditate on one of my favorite passages from Etel Adnan’s “Sea and Fog”: “Look well at the Pacific before you die. The best of promised paradises have neither its hues nor its splendor.”
The waves swell, then crash and recede back into the vastness of the ocean.
IV.
It’s Easter; the wildflowers are in bloom.
After fire season a few years ago I read about “fire followers,” the plants that grow specifically in areas scorched by fire. Many of the Bay Area’s wildflowers are among them: blueblossoms, fire poppies. After the fires are out and the rains come, they begin their growth cycle, nourished by the charred soil and smoke.
V.
It turns out there’s some scholarly debate about the origins of the word “Easter.” Some say it originated from the Old English word “Ēastre” or “Ēostre,” which was the name of a Germanic pagan goddess associated with spring and fertility. The Anglo-Saxon month corresponding to April was called “Ēostur-monath,” named after this goddess.
Others claim it comes from the Proto-Indo-European root aust, which means “east, toward the sunrise” or “to shine, especially of the dawn.” The word resurrection has its roots in the Latin resurgere: “rise again, appear again.”
I don’t mind either way – both are nice metaphors.
VI.
The Earth is far better than any poet at giving us perfect metaphors.
My favorite tree on the Panhandle, for example, which sprouts a daffodil from one of its aged stumps in spring. And another one, on Grizzly Peak in Berkeley, that blooms with yellow wildflowers:
VIII.
We can try, though, to create metaphors as perfect as the ones Earth gives us.
The Giant Hand of Vyrnwy in Wales:
“It is a fitting memorial to a magnificent tree that was lost in a storm. The sculpture is also a symbol of hope and resilience. It shows that even in the face of destruction, new life can emerge.”
VII.
I don’t know if I’m remembering this correctly –
My dad said his mother loved daffodils. One year we brought some daffodil bulbs home from England and planted them in our yard, in a small patch in front of one of our cherry trees. Every season the little patch of daffodils would bloom. Whenever I see daffodils I think of how everything lives on in its own way.
In the Headlands, at the base of one of my favorite trails, there’s a small group of daffodils that bloom. I wonder if someone planted them there in memory of someone else.
VIII.
Maybe I’m too attached to the idea of darkness being a prerequisite for beauty, for new life. But as one person among many (some in church pews, some in temples, some at the feet of the Pacific Ocean) searching for faith, for hope, for meaning in their own life – I’m ok with attributing a purpose to darkness. Many of the most beautiful things begin in the dark.
Rumi: “Very little grows on jagged rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are.”