April 1: Saint Mary of Egypt, Holy Thursday

There seems to be a lot of conflicting details about the life of Mary of Egypt. Now, her story either comes from Saint Cyriacus or a man named Zosimus. One of them found Mary living in a Palestinian desert. By the time she was discovered, she'd been living as a hermit for nearly 50 years. According to my book, Mary went to Alexandria at the age of thirteen and worked as an actress for almost 20 years. Now, I don't know what being "an actress" in Egypt in the 5thcentury entailed, but it obviously wasn't good. Think Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls insisting, "I'm not a stripper. I'm a dancer." Eventually, Mary realized her sins and fled to the desert to do penance. A half-century of penance. Even Elizabeth Berkley didn't deserve that much time for being in Showgirls. A year after Mary was found in the desert by Cyriacus or Zosimus, one or the other returned to her cave and found her dead. Her legend was born.

I wonder how bad Mary's sin was to drive her into the wilderness for so long. If I've learned one thing this Lent it's that we often punish ourselves for our wrongdoings a lot more harshly than other people would. I would imagine a saint has a more highly developed conscience than the rest of us. For example, driving to work last summer, I hit a deer and totaled my car. Mary of Egypt would tell that story a different way. She's probably say that she was driving to work and murdered an innocent animal with her oxcart. Then she would disappear into the woods and flog herself with birch branches for about ten years. When the police officer asked me if I killed the deer, I was so pissed about the damage to my Sable that I said, "If I didn't, could you run over it a couple more times with your squad car to make sure it suffers?" It was a joke, but the trooper looked at me like I'd just confessed to killing Jimmy Hoffa. I'm not cut from the same cloth as a saint.

Last night when I crawled into bed, I noticed that the covers smelled funny. It was a strong scent that I sort of recognized. When my wife joined me, I asked her if she noticed the odor. She told me she'd found a bed spray that our daughter had gotten for Christmas and had used it on our covers. For the normal person, that explanation would be the end of it. Question asked. Answer given. Done. If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm not normal.

Because of my experiences with my wife's mental illness and sexual addictions, anything out of the routine sets off klaxons and sirens in my head. If my wife washes the sheets and blankets from our bed, an alarm goes off. If she goes to the local library to use the Internet, alarm. If she isn't exhausted at night as usual because of her medications, alarm. If she can't fall asleep at nap or bed time, alarm. If there's a hangup on our answering machine, alarm. If I see a strange car parked by our house, alarm. It isn't fun living in my head.

I think all of this is understandable, considering my past experiences, but it certainly doesn't make me a joy to be around at times. Since the night before, I had been obsessing about those sprayed bed covers, wondering if I was under- or over-reacting, getting crazier and crazier all day long. I started inflating the story, imagining the worst. By the end of work, I was almost in full-blown panic mode, which is never a pretty sight.

It was Holy Thursday, so I didn't have a lot of time between wolfing down my dinner and getting to choir practice and worship service. As I've said in a previous posting, Holy Week is always an emotional drain on me. I could feel myself becoming overwhelmed with suspicion, anger, guilt, sadness as I headed to church. Basically, I was in a really shitty mood.

As I sat in my spot among the tenors, I listened to my pastor friend talk about doing things as Jesus would have done them. It wasn't a suggestion Christ made at the last supper. He didn't say, "If you feel like following My way today, as long as it doesn't cause you any inconvenience..." No, He pretty much commanded us to follow His example of love and forgiveness. Listening to my friend's sermon, I started to feel remorse over all the dark thoughts I'd been thinking in the past 24 hours.

And then, to seal the deal, we celebrated communion. I thought about Mary of Egypt, how she fled to the desert because of her guilt. Then, I meditated on Judas, sitting in that upper room with Jesus, listening to Him talk about friendship and truth. I may be wrong, but I think Judas had a worse Holy Thursday experience than I was having. I've always felt a sort of kinship with Judas, always felt sorry for him. I mean, in the whole Jesus narrative, Judas played a necessary part. If Judas didn't betray Jesus, then Jesus wouldn't have been arrested. If Jesus wasn't arrested, he wouldn't be crucified. If He wasn't crucified, He wouldn't die. If He didn't die, He wouldn't rise. And if Jesus didn't rise, we're all screwed. Judas just represents all that is broken in the world. He represents Mary of Egypt in her desert brokenness. He represents me in my paranoid, angry, melancholic brokenness.

I thought about the legend of Judas as I stood in line for communion. We all know he went out and hanged himself after betraying Jesus. Another part of the legend says that when he hanged himself, his body split in two, and his bowels spilled onto the ground at his feet. Legend always begins with a kernel of truth (Beth sprayed our bed with some scent from a can) and blossoms into a large, crow-filled cornfield (Beth has relapsed in her sexual addiction). Funny thing, it doesn't take that long for legend to take on the air of truth in our fractured world.

By the end of communion, which I took part in guiltily, I was pretty much feeling even worse than ever, scouting around for some sandy wilderness to disappear into. I know you, dear reader, were thinking that I was going to eat the bread, drink the juice, experience some kind of soul-changing revelation, and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Nope.

I walked away from church carrying the same stones I walked in with. I went home and thought about Judas, about Mary of Egypt. I thought about upper rooms and deserts. I thought about truth. I thought about legend.

I listened to a murder of crows cawing in a corn patch.