graveyard shift

& three days at the edge of the abyss

I love Easter weekend—especially the empty, quiet days, marked by the stripping of the altar & the ringing of no bells, the in-breath of waiting for the deepest darkness. It starts now, after supper. Happy Holy Thursday.

I don’t know how I feel about what happened in that tomb, although I’m reading a fascinating book called Rainbow Body and Resurrection, which details the 1999 dissolution of a Tibetan monk’s corpse—down to the hair and nails!—proof, perhaps that certain mystics attain such purity that their flesh dissolves into light. Could that have been what happened Jesus? Maybe. I’m open.

Proof doesn’t matter to me much, honestly. But I know there’s an afterlife, and I’m comfortable with the metaphors that get me to it. I love churches because they remind me of my father, Pappy. When I’m in them, he’s with me, and that’s enough. His were always Catholic—he thought the protestants were ‘amateur’—but the last few years, we’ve been attending an Episcopal church. It’s in the woods where we hike. God and nature give me the same feeling, (I suspect they’re the same thing) and I want to pass that on. Clyde was baptized in the river that runs through the church woods, an unorthodox (yet totally orthodox…?) request I suspect our Catholic priest would’ve declined.

Our new church has a tradition on Holy Thursday, which the Episcopalians call Maundy Thursday—where parishioners keep vigil through the night, starting after the altar is stripped, changing guard every hour until morning. It’s called Gesthemane Watch for the time Jesus spent in that garden, awaiting his death. The first year I got the 4am slot. My graveyard shift.

I didn’t know the church well, didn’t know there was a jewel-like vestry room in the back with a gilded fresco of an eight-winged dove on the ceiling, and stained-glass windows, where we could sit in warm silence and think about dying. I poked around, but couldn’t find my way into the locked building, so I wandered the acres of ancient gravestones thinking the vigil must happen out there.

The cemetery is dotted with short trees, angled and wizened, and in the shadows, under the moon, I imagined them growing olives. An owl went, ‘Hooo.’ It was cold. I found a not-too scary spot to sit in for an hour thinking sheesh these Episcopalians are even more serious than the Catholics, how you like ‘em now, Pappy?

The next year I learned about the vestry room where, during my more manageable 11pm time slot, I experienced one of the most profound meditations of my life. Profundity is all but guaranteed when you sit with an empty church at your back, its altar bare, the crosses draped in black cloth, no flowers, no lights, thinking—“how would I feel, if I knew I’d die tomorrow?”

We don’t often enjoy such solemnity. We’ve all got a big hole, many of us don’t even know it. We feel the magnetism of its ache, but we skirt the edges. That avoidance makes it scarier, I think.

James McNeill Whistler // Nocturne in Black and Gold — The Falling Rocket

But in the dark quiet, the chasm opens. You get to see—wow, my pain is big. I miss Pappy. I wish I’d stayed with him longer, the last time I visited. Did I even say, “I love you?” I was rushing to meet a friend. He smiled when I left. He looked frail. But not frail enough to die.

It's good to sit with that open hole for a couple of days. Especially alone. Especially when the emptiness feels total. I enjoy remembering the way Pappy used to say, winking, “You can’t get out of life alive!” Death is our only guarantee. It’s scariest when we pretend otherwise, shirking the idea of that inevitable abyss. But if you’re into looking, well… this is the weekend for you!

It’s getting less scary—for me—because I know what’s on the other side: a time when the hole is filled to overflowing and I’ll never miss anybody again. I’ll look back at my days on earth and smile at all my pettiness and flailing and think: “I was only ever in a sea of love.” I picture myself figuring that out, shaking my head, weeping.

I don’t know about the tomb story. But I do believe in the love that’s coming. Just writing that, I could cry.

Your friend,

Isabel