I Took a Walk on Holy Saturday and Found Hope
Field Notes From a Religion-Less Christian
Holy Saturday, April 8, 2023
I Took a Walk on Holy Saturday and Found Hope
I took a walk today. Not long.
It was between the U-Haul Shop where I left my new car to get a new hitch installed so we could continue to transport our bicycles near and far.
On my left as I walked in the brilliant morning sunlight was the six-lane road about 1 mile from our house, a section of road I have driven maybe about 7 billion times since moving to this town 39 years ago.
On my right was what sent me. A rich and deep wetland forest where every fern, bush, tree, grass, every single plant from small to huge, seemed to be sparkling and living large, as if the torrential rain we got last night, after Orlando’s January-April 2023 setting heat records and drought records, just set them all singing.
Across the 6 lanes there is another large parcel that fronts the Avenue, not a lot of road frontage but nice, and it’s for sale and you can get Financing from Mark. His picture is on the 8x8 sign. He looks like he’s a nice guy.
For years now I have been threatening myself to try to get myself appointed to our City’s Planning and Zoning Board. My primary issue is assuring compliance with the Comprehensive Planning/Development Plan, even though such plans have been eviscerated of any significant heft by the Florida Legislature. I want to know that the “green space” minimums are for our City and not just Park and Recreation. I mean too old growth trees and sections of land untouched so that percolating water can be filtered and cleaned, CO2 can be absorbed, wildlife have a habitat, and more.
Not long ago nearby in a neighborhood the large and extending branches of 2 huge oak trees were all cut down in preparation for taking them out totally. The 4 foot wide main trunks of both trees stand there naked in the scorching heat, like anti-nemophilist (I just learned that word….look it up, it’s a good one! Or just look below *) celebrating pillars. Usually Home Owners Associations and the City both require permits to remove trees. Do we count on officials to make sure things are done right?
Back to my walk. I sat in the shade outside the Dunkin’ Store and watched the ants move across the ground and saw how the large wetland forested area extended back behind me (and I was amazed at how many people were coming in for donuts…..Saturday morning I guess). I don’t begrudge Mark for trying to finance the purchase of that land across the street for development, but I do know all of this wetland forest will be gone before too long and I wonder what we citizens will get for all that loss.
This past week I read an article by an Attorney about the 10 Commandments for Joy, including how to nurture and generate genuine laughter. People tell me that when I smile I frown. Well, I can’t help that. I have a little stone on my work desk as home that simply says “Laugh” and it somewhat taunts me as well as encourages me. But as I sat by Dunkin awaiting and after seeing the lush green I had the thought that I am continually and perpetually in mourning. It’s the planet I mourn for, and not just globally but in my “neck of the woods” (what woods….what dwindling woods). This mournfulness can’t be good. It wears on me. I still laugh, and quite a bit at times, so that’s good. But still within it all, “it” meaning my life, I carry this mournfulness. Not acute grief, but ubiquitous wonderings that all the real laughter and levity are fooling us.
And then I realize that it’s Holy Saturday. I knew that it was, but it just hit me that this thinking about the mournfulness of my life out of the blue and under the blue sky and warm sun of the morning, was happening on this day that we as Christians observe not as the dying before and not as the rising after but as the thing, death, itself. If there ever was a day to recognize the loss of life it is this day.
I prefer to think of myself as no different than the disciples of Jesus on that first dead Saturday. Many times people say we are different because we know the Rising happened. I’m thinking that I’m much in the same way as they were when they thought Jesus was dead, the experience gone, the mission over. And why? Because when I see the prayers and pleadings of the people go unanswered and the injustices done, especially in the name of God of all things, I’m thinking I have about as much to rely on as those first disciples: a promise. I’m thinking of places in the Jesus narrative where he either tells them he’ll be back or tells them their pain and suffering will be turned into joy or any number of other intimations that the end of him is not the end of them (e. g. “and on the third day he will be raised” of Matthew 16:21, passim, and John 16:22 “so you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you” and yes, I know those statements are likely put in Jesus mouth after the fact, but there they are, before the fact, and I’m working hard not to be elitist by saying my human experience is qualitatively better than the disciples because of the Resurrection).
But that promise is something. You might even say that promise is everything.
Did Jesus come back from the dead because the promise was not enough? Did he come back because they needed proof? No, he came back because God had to make it clear that the way of self-giving love that Jesus lived into his execution was the only thing that constitutes life. The resurrection was the vindication of the way of love as the way of true life, it was not a proving ground for the promise of his presence. If it had been that proving ground, don’t you think he would have hung around longer? Just why did Jesus take off after a few weeks, never to be seen again (to this day!)? They had the promise before the Resurrection and they had it after the Ascension (“lo, I am with you always….” Matthew 28). The Resurrection did not make it any easier to live by the promise, it simply sealed the deal as to seeing and knowing the only way of real life is the realness of unconditional love (again, Resurrection as vindication of Jesus’ life and ministry).
The promise is everything.
I cannot show you Jesus today and thus try to bring you hope for a better day by looking at any number of good things happening or being done both by good people and by bad people. This “show me where God is at work among you” approach to church life today is popular but misguided. Misguided, of course, because we all can show just as much or more where God is not at work or has seemingly left the building (maybe by saying this “show me where God is at work” church folk are not trying to shore up an argument that church life and the Christian faith are valid and true, but it often feels that way when it’s not coupled with the truth that all around us we can show each other where God is not at work).
But I can tell you of Jesus and his love. Yes, that love is actually lived out and shown by many, and I can tell you of them and we can be encouraged by them but they are not proof of the Resurrection. They are simply, and profoundly, experiences of love now that bring resurrection (to our hearts and minds and abundance to our empty food pantries) now, not later. Jesus’ Resurrection then means self-giving love as Resurrection now.
After all this rambling, just what is my point? Good question. Those first disciples had to live in the Promise of life given in Jesus Christ after his Ascension just like we do. The Resurrection gave them no special pass to hope just like it gives us no special pass. Their prayers went unanswered and injustices lived on just like it all happens to us. What the Resurrection did was solidify the way of love as the way of life.
And so on this Saturday whereas I mourn the loss of green space (to say nothing of the atrocities of war and anti-democratic fascisms) and find myself dead on Dead Saturday I do have hope. Not hope because I think we’ll all escape the demise that all of these pressures and evils bring, but hope that because the love of Jesus Christ was vindicated once it will be vindicated again.
That’s a promise I can live by and live out.
It’s not too early to say it: Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed!
This gives me courage and hope and maybe even I’ll see if I can be appointed to the Zoning and Planning Board or do something else that will make a positive difference.
*noun: One who loves forests.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek nemos (grove, woods) + -philist (lover). Earliest documented use: 1860. (source: A. Word.A.Day)
