Happy Easter
From the continuing series, “Love in the Time of Corona.”
April 12, 2020
Today is Easter Sunday.
Don Fulsom was the former UPI White House bureau chief but early on he was a newsman at WKBW, Buffalo where he got fired for broadcasting, “Today millions of Christians around the world are celebrating the alleged resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
In national news during the time of Corona, celebrating Easter Sunday is once again getting its fair share of controversial news coverage for a different reason.
Some Christian fundamentalists and conservative politicians want churches to stay open for Easter services, despite the risk of spreading Covid–19. Easter, a holiday about renewal, begs the question, what will renewal look and feel like after this is all over, if it ever will be.
Maybe it’s a little early to think of the other side, not necessarily when life returns to normal, but when the imminent threat of mass death abates.
There’s an old expression, “Man plans, God laughs.” Mann Tracht, un Gott Lacht — in Yiddish
I can’t imagine God doing anything but crying lately. Certainly, the uncertainty of our collective and individual experiences, fears and hopes seem to put aspirations and visions of the future at bay.
Everything seems smaller and bigger at the same time. This Easter, we’re focused on staying healthy just one more day, then the day after that and the day after that. Will we have enough olive oil to last the week (a throwback to Hanukkah, perhaps)? Did we disinfect the mail? Will we have enough money to pay the rent, the electric bill? Does my mask fit right? Can we get more toilet paper?
Gone are thoughts of the next family vacation. Now we’re wondering when we will get to hug our families again.
I think we’re coming to the common realization that we have no clue what the other side will look and feel like, nor when we will get there and even if there is another side or just a slow evolution from the status quo.
In the Hebrew Bible, there are plenty of references to time that seem completely out of whack to today’s notions. Noah lived to be 950; Moses, only 120. Sarah gave birth to Isaac when she was over 90. And the future Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years.
Clearly, the way they measured the passage of time must have been different from our standards. But the people who counted and chronicled these events certainly felt those years.
Now, a week ago seems like a month ago. Three days feels like a week. Silently, if you’re our age and you figure out that this may go another year and half until they may have a vaccine that you make the calculation of the percentage of “quality time remaining.” Time. Time is different if you’re young, you can wait it out. The irony is that impatience was a hallmark of youth. Now it’s the elders that see their lives sifting through an hourglass.
Easter dinner is usually at our house where Peggy’s siblings and our nieces and nephews gather for hunts for jellybean-filled plastic eggs. Dinner is a grilled butterfly lamb cooked on a grill (and always challenging to meet everyone’s cooking temperature requirement).
Pretty typical but filled with warmth.
Today was typical of the times, too, and, also, warm. We had a Zoom Easter — as we had a Zoom Seder earlier this week. The family gathered around laptops, iPad and phones. The conversations have matured since the early Zoom calls two weeks ago which were all about coping. We talked about food, Saturday Night Live skits, Tommy’s new dog. Patrice talked about finding old family videos. Katie’s making earrings. There was some talk about hair color and investing in Supercuts. And yes, we had concerns about Timmy, experiencing Covid symptoms and is expecting results tomorrow.
Easter, of course, for Christians, celebrates the Resurrection and the hope for a rebirth — today those thoughts ring true like church bells that ring around the world through empty streets and alleys.
