looking through me

Tag: love

April 4, 2015

good friday (and saturday)

Good Friday. Not the first one—not for the disciples—nothing good about it.

Had I been with them, how long would I have stayed in the garden before I ran? How far would I have fled? Would I have trembled in the eerie midday darkness and watched my Hope die on that tree? Or would I have cowered far away? Maybe I would have needed to watch. Or maybe I would have needed deniability as I tried to fit the shattered pieces of the past three years into some semblance of sense.

And what about Saturday? Were the eleven back together by then? Mourning? Panicking? Planning? Arguing? Praying? Or maybe they were silent. Stunned. Confused. Angry. Afraid. These were the ones who didn’t have the faith to cast a demon out of a boy or the discipline to stay awake and keep watch with Jesus or . . . or . . . or . . . the list of failures was long. What would that Saturday when their world failed have been like for them?

Today I endure Friday because Sunday’s coming, because I know the end of the story. But they lived through each agonizing minute devoid of Hope. It would have been a brutal test of faith even if they’d understood everything Jesus had told them, so how much worse was it when they didn’t get it?

I can’t begin to experience how the disciples felt that first Friday and Saturday. I can’t fathom their devastation and fear. The one for whom they’d given up everything to follow was dead and buried. Three years, their expectations, their reputations, their futures: gone in less than a day.

So this Saturday I sit in the waiting. Uncomfortable. Antsy. A little less judgmental of the fleet-footed disciples. Because I know and celebrate what they’ll learn tomorrow: the tomb is empty and Hope is alive!

 

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March 22, 2015

losing memory

“It hasn’t been the same since Uncle Ehrie died. As long as he was here, I still had my dad. Now . . . ”

The words caught in her throat as they lodged in my heart.

Marv’s been gone for almost twenty years. But his mannerisms, his humor, his presence—a piece of him—remained in Ehrie. As long as one brother was here, it seemed the other had stepped out for a moment, not for eternity. Losing Ehrie meant losing Marv all over again.

And the loss is incalculable. Our collective memory has shrunk by a generation. The empty place at the table gapes extra wide. The silence thunders.

Branches of our family tree petrify, and we lose touch with parts of ourselves we can never tap into again. I don’t know how to handle the familial memory loss. We have pictures, yes. Some albums and letters, perhaps. Mementos. But voices and stories slip away forever.

As often as I sit with Grandma and hold her hand and sift through the jumbled recollections, the memories will never transfer to me. I string together letters on a page intent on capturing her tone and spirit. But words are a poor medium for life. Some day the next generation might read them—without being able to recall her for themselves—and they’ll find the faintest representation of her, scarcely a shadow of the reality she lived. I cannot transmit her memory intact.

Such is life. Each generation can wrap their arms around only so many. But how grateful am I so many of each generation trust the same Love to surge through us and enliven branch after branch.

 

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