He Is Risen Indeed

I slipped into sleep last night watching the fire-patterns in the stove, methodically releasing my hold on old hurts and old grudges that had been bedeviling me all evening. Reading earlier in the afternoon in Holy Week: The Complete Offices in Latin and English, I had latched onto a section from the Second Nocturne in Holy Saturday, a selection from Psalm 26:

I believe to see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.
Expect the Lord, do manfully, and let thy heart take courage, and wait thou for the Lord.

How often are men exhorted in this day and age to “do manfully?” The rarity of such a command made it all the more bracing, and it rode on my shoulder the remainder of the day.

Then at end of day, for a reason unknown to me, several things came to my mind. As I mentioned above, these were old hurts and old grudges. And in examining them, in turning them over in my mind and watching the light play over them and feeling their jagged surfaces, I realized that to nurse such resentments after asking God to forgive me my trespasses “as we forgive those who trespass against us” is childish and unmanly. At that moment, trust and faith and relief and a sense of consummation flooded into me, and I dropped these things into the sparking ashes in the stove just as surely as if I truly were holding them in my knotted hands. I saw, suddenly and clearly, how to do this.

And so when I awoke this morning to JInx and his nerve-shattering yawns, I thought, He is risen. And then I thought, What you have forgiven, leave alone. Take hold of this day, for there will never be another like it. And I rose up and took hold.

While we walked, Jinx had his nose high in the air, his scythe of a tail slashing left and right, and he seemed to float over the ground. I looked high and saw the half-moon suspended on its string over the Clinch Mountains and wondered how the Earth looked from way out there. We continued on down one narrow lane, and at a certain point, I stopped and thought, as I often do, how solitary I am when out on these walks. Away from any other human, and in the company of those who cannot speak my language back to me. And then I thought, How many angels and unseen beings are around me now? And it seemed that I could feel some of them around me, as if I had suddenly awakened from sleepwalking and were standing in the middle of Union Station, with countless bodies streaming past me. I stood for some time in the middle of the little lane, motionless and aware that I was not alone. Then I moved on.

Walking back home, I noticed a couple of vapor trails in the sky over one pasture. The sight got me to speculating again, wondering if angelic beings leave vapor trails in their dimension as they streak over the face of the crumbling earth on their assignments? And what would that look like if I could suddenly see them and the effects they have on the natural world?

Then I reached the driveway. Jinx was not with me, so I turned to look for him, and there he was, as predictable as a train in the pre-computer days, trotting up over the ridge behind me and headed straight for me. I walked on up the driveway, smiling to myself, thinking of the hornets nests that will be built in the high tulip poplars above me, and Jinx went trotting past me with a squirrel hanging out of his mouth, delight in his eyes and determination in his spotted heart, his tennis ball-sized heart. I shrugged and went on to the house where coffee and wife waited.

Happy Easter to you, my dear friends. He is risen.

He is risen indeed.

~ S.K. Orr