John Updike: Easter

John Updike: Easter
“The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.”                John Updike, Seven Stanzas at Easter

John Updike not only gave us this poem reminding us of the real bodily experience of the Easter story, but among other things, one of my favorite resurrection short stories in The Afterlife and Other Short Stories called, “Short Easter,” about the occasion when daylight saving time begins on Easter Sunday. I first read the story in volume 2 of Listening for God, a series of short stories selected by Paula Carlson and Peter Hawkins, the first then from the department of English and the second a professor of Religion and Literature, both at Yale University. The four-part series includes a DVD about the author of each contemporary short story which can be studied especially in a book group to use literature as an icon to hear and see God.  

 In “Short Easter,” this high holy day for Christians becomes one hour shorter when the clocks are jumped forward and an hour of sleep is stolen. “Church bells rang in the dark.” Updike goes through the day of a well to do man named Fogel (“Fog” is God spelled backwards.) who keeps wanting to attend church services on Easter Day but puts it off until at the end of the day, he has never gone. At the story’s end, Fogel wakes up from an afternoon nap “amid that unnatural ache of resurrection.. the weight of coming again to life” and realizes that “although everything in his world is in place, there is something immensely missing.”  

This is the moment of clarity that God continuously reveals to us. I regularly need to remind myself and spiritual friends to try to be open to that moment that is often fearful as it was for Fogel. It is like the fear of the women at the empty tomb on Easter Day. It is resurrection.  It always speaks to something more that we have missed.

We have put something else in our “God hole,” and whatever it is, prestige, money, marriage, work, family, fame, beauty, it will never fill that hole inside of us where only God is large enough to live.  

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

Nouwen: Easter Message

 Nouwen: Easter message

“When you forget your true identity as a beloved child of God, you lose your way in life. You become preoccupied trying to please others and you lose the confidence to be yourself. You work hard to avoid rejection, or abandonment, and you may cling to people more from fear than freedom. In making compromises you may please people but lose touch with your original blessing, the connection to the deep and everlasting love of God.

Jesus announces to us, "Do not be afraid. I dwell in you till the end of time." Henri Nouwen, Henri Nouwen Society, Daily Meditation. From Bread for the Journey, Henri J. M.  Nouwen, 1997 HarperSanFrancisco.

Jim and his grandson

So many spiritual friends I talk with so well understand Nouwen’s Easter message to us.  For a multitude of reasons, often fear based, we lose our true identity. We stop becoming the person God created us to be. We become insecure, fearful, frightened and look for relief in power, addictions, fame, money, attachments to others and become dependent on what others think about us, or we may become paralyzed and unable to make any decisions. We eventually become very aware that we have lost our connection to God. Where can we find help?

 My experience is that it is in community where we are helped. We talk with others who can share their connection to God. In recovery groups this is known as “sticking with the winners,” “staying close to those who still have their lights on.” Eventually we are healed, and we stay connected by reaching out to others in need who have gone through a similar experience.

As the alcoholic or addict in recovery stays sober and clean by sharing his or her story, we talk to someone else who is seeking recovery and tell them our story of Resurrection from Good Friday.

Some may not call it Easter, but that is what it is. I was reminded of this by a dear friend, Jim Waldron, who now lives in the resurrection, who indeed did become sober on Easter Sunday many years ago.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

Easter Vigil

Easter Vigil 1

“Dear friends in Christ: On this most holy night, in which our Lord Jesus passed over from death to life, the Church invites her members, dispersed throughout the world, to gather in vigil and prayer.” Book of Common Prayer, p. 285.

Episcopal church of the Messiah, Santa Ana California

For the church, the Easter Vigil is one of the most complicated and beautiful services of the year.  The difficulty is that it is only once a year so it is hard to remember all the tiny details from year to year, so sometimes there is more chaos than the church would like. But this is also what adds to its beauty, light and creation coming out of chaos. The service starts with the lighting of the pascal candle from a fire, usually outside of the church and its entering inside into the church in complete darkness.

The deacon carries the pascal candle in as he or she lights the congregation’s candles while singing, “The Light of Christ”, three times, each time a little higher pitch. This is followed by the deacon chanting the beautiful Exsultet.

It is time for me to turn the Exsultet over to someone else. I have loved chanting the Exsultet for over seventeen years. It has been a privilege.  A newer deacon singing the Exsultet this year has been practicing it for two years and so lovingly and beautifully chants it from her heart. The Exsultet is followed by Old Testament readings about God’s history with God’s people. Next come baptisms, crying babies, curious toddlers escaping from their parents still in the dark. Finally, the cacophony of the great noise of bells of every size announce that Christ has risen indeed as all the lights come on, and we see all the flowers of Easter surrounding the inside of the church. Then we celebrate the first new Eucharist of the Easter season.

The service may have some similarity to what the spice bearing women experienced when they came to the empty tomb on that early Easter morning and saw one or two angels in dazzling white telling them that they were the first to know that Jesus had been raised from the dead!

Joanna joannaseibert.com