Bewitched,
Bothered and Bewildered
First off, the title is certainly an apt one
for the wordage that follows. I could have entitled it – “Conflicted,
Confounded and Confused” but Lorenz Hart (of Rodgers and Hart) did a much
better job with his alliteration plus his title is much more sing-able.
Those of you who have been kind enough to
read my semi-annual meanderings are well aware that I write an Easter “letter”
every year and have done so for several years. And I had planned to do it again
this year but I’ve been experiencing the very challenges indicated by the
title. No focus, no ideas, no inspiration, no time – in other words I’ve really
and truly been someone in the “no”, these recent days. This, of course, is not
the best state of mind to create something positive and uplifting.
Then I started toying around with a notion.
It was a notion that began to evolve piece by piece in my feeble, underused
brain. And piece is the correct word. What I’ve come up with is very much like
a patchwork quilt with oddly shaped, peculiar designed, multi-colored pieces
that may or may not be that lovely to look at – so make of it what you
will.(Pun very much intended.)
I have four distinct “patches” to offer and
here they are – Bed bugs, Hosanna, Bad men and a Mother’s love.
Bed bugs – I’ve had them recently and they
are a scourge, an abomination, a nuisance, a plague, an annoyance and that’s
being kind. (Great Gagliardi, sorry to hear about your woes but let’s get back
to Easter, shall we, hm?) Yes, oh voice that scolds, you’re right in bringing
that up. So here’s my take on it.
My apartment is like a world, in a way,
because it’s my world. It’s where I live a good deal of the time. And bed bugs were
truly an invasion, a kind of evil that was not invited or welcomed or
encouraged and yet there they were. (Happily it appears I can, for now, use the
past tense.) So here we have a real,
active curse of evil in my “world”. And suddenly I need some help, big help –
the kind of assistance and rescue I cannot do for my self because I’m not
equipped to handle it. (By the way, does this begin to sound familiar regarding
God’s involvement in individual lives?) Is it that far a stretch to say that
just maybe this was a kind of living parable in action? (Albeit an unpleasant
one.) I don’t think I’m that far off the beam on this. You decide for yourself
if it is. I will say this -- when I hear that old children’s couplet, “Sleep
tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite”, I now have a very different take on what
that means.
Speaking of children, my heart was nicely
warmed hearing our Wilshire children on Palm Sunday sing Hosanna at the
beginning of the service. And what struck me was how simple it was, how basic,
how cheerful. There’s something about a child singing “save us”(which is the
definition of hosanna) that is moving. They don’t wonder, necessarily, if God
will or can or might they just assume he will because He’s God. And maybe they
don’t understand the full impact of those words but then again, do we?
Bad Men – Okay, does it bother anybody else
out there or has it ever bothered anybody else that Jesus went through all he
went through – suffering, agony, shame, abuse, death --- for the “bad guys”
too? I mean the guys that you just wish would evaporate or get “taken out”, ala
the Mob. I mean, there some horrible things being done to people by people I
can see no good in whatsoever. (Can you say ISIS?) And I’m supposed to
believe that Jesus died for them too – and rose again for them too, not just
folks who are nice and good and kind?
Well, I have to say that really is not an
easy pill to swallow. But much like medicine that tastes like a mixture of
turpentine and liquid chalk, when we take it, it eventually helps us get
better. Now I sure don’t like to take medicine even when I have to. If it was
up to me, the “bad guys” would certainly not be eligible for God’s love. Does
that sound harsh? It should because it is. Then again sometimes it’s very hard
for some of us to say we’re sick and need to be healed. Thank God, He’s the
Great Physician.
A Mother’s Love – I was in our local IHOP,
eating a late breakfast, not thinking about much of anything when I glanced up
and saw a mother and her little boy leaving the restaurant. The child was
holding tightly to his Mom’s hand and I noticed, with some sadness, the child’s
left hand was deformed, it hadn’t grown to the right size. Then I saw the young
boy smiling as he and his Mom left. And I felt the Spirit speak to me.
The young boy was smiling because his mother
was holding his hand -- he was safe, he was okay, he was loved. If that wasn’t
a picture of our Father’s love to us then I don’t know what is. How many times
have you and I felt ugly, ashamed, fearful, disheartened until we realized who
was holding our hand. And in that moment we somehow knew we’d be okay. He
wasn’t going to abandon us and maybe even when we thought we’d let go of His
hand, it was only an illusion because He never had let go of ours.
What does the preceding have to do with
Easter? Maybe nothing then again, maybe everything. For if Easter doesn’t
belong in the seemingly ordinary stuff of every day life then maybe it doesn’t
belong anywhere. Easter has got to be more than a one day purple and gold,
happy hallelujah, wear my “Sunday best”, trumpet blaring, organ triumphant,
chorale of joy and celebration that happens once a year. Yes, it needs to be
all that and more but we need to work at allowing it to flavor our lives every
day so that Jesus gets raised up all over again every day that we live.
I guess if any of this introspection has any
value this Easter for me it’s this -- may be it’s this simple. Go on and let
Jesus jump out of the grave, surprise me, fill me with wonder and get me all
excited about it today, tomorrow, and the day after. Maybe every day is
supposed to be Easter… You think?
George
Gagliardi Happy Easter, Ever After
