For much of my life, the ‘Easter Season’ has been a major focal point of my life. Lent, Holy Week and so to Easter…….. a yearly recurrence with ecclesiastically structured prompts of silence and solitude to stop, review, reflect, assess and reassess …… meeting myself……..who I am…… what I am……… where I am at …….. Not an easy process, and rarely a comfortable or enjoyable undertaking. But, sure as light follows darkness and eggs is eggs, this time of year seems to require of me a certain engagement with the essence of mortality…… a kind of ‘head to head’ with fundamental reality.
For me, this Lent has involved a looking back over my shoulder, whispers from the past, glimpsed shadows of The Loved But Lost who have passed on to eternity …….. renewed recognition that Water Passes Under The Bridge, and the twigs and ‘Pooh sticks’ of everyday existence catch in the reeds for a moment, then swirl away out of sight and into the far distance…………. The hopes and dreams of what the future just might hold fading in the harsh glare of Time’s headlights.
And so we reached Palm Sunday last weekend, then on into Holy Week.
Today we approached the Maundy Thursday liturgy. Stark contrasts of a rich sung mass (this year to be the Rheinberger setting) with the slightly embarrassing simplicity of feet being washed; the clash of fancy ornate robes and vestments with the everyday action of taking, breaking and sharing bread and wine. So much Big, Bright, Shiny and Lavish……. and then the shocking and harsh removal of all our accustomed church furnishings and embellishments …….. the solemn procession to a symbolic garden……. and then a darkened, chastened church…… and silent vigil …. the waiting for the end of it …….
So it would be, as so many times before. The rituals stirring up the hearts and minds and feelings of the assembled congregation in so many ways……. some engrossed in the act of worship……. others just there for the music….. some appalled at the time it was all taking……. others perplexed by the sheer drama……. Tumultuous, as at Gethsemane.
So it would be, and, I guess, so it was.
TH has been floored by an ‘upper respiratory tract infection’ for the last two weeks or so, sore throat, hacking cough, sleepless nights, papertrail of tissues…….. not a chance for him of singing the glorious Rheinberger this time.
Ten days behind him, finally feeling flesh succumbing to the inevitable last Sunday, I thought I would at least manage to be a part of the assembly tonight. Rehearsing tonight I realised this hope was futile. The voice was strained, and though in tune (so far as the dull deaf ear could tell) was probably not particularly pleasant and doubtless far from reliable. Risk assessment for the occasion indicated strategic withdrawal was mandatory.
So I took the dog out to romp with her canine companions in the gathering dusk, marvelled at the beauty of first-laid eggs from our junior hens, and moped with my husband.
Head to head with the disappointment and devastation of not being where I wished to be, nor doing what I wanted, and not even feeling up to returning later on to creep in to the dim and desolate silence, finally sheds yet another perspective upon fragile Mortality.
