April 7: "Passing the Unworked Field," Good Friday, Queen Anne's Lace

Mary Oliver praises ordinary loveliness . . .

Passing the Unworked Field

by:  Mary Oliver

Queen Anne's lace

     is hardly

          prized but

all the same it isn't

          idle look

                        how it

          stands straight on its

thin stems how it

          scrubs its white faces

               with the

rags of the sun how it

               makes all the

                    loveliness

                         it can.

Queen Anne's lace always makes me think of that time in the summer when everything momentous has already happened--the parades and fireworks and vacations are over, and the world is baked and ready to be taken out of the oven.  All the bounty of color gives way to scrubbed faces of August Queen Anne's lace in ditches and culverts and weedy fields.

It is Good Friday.  Once more, I returned to church this evening, listened to yet another recitation of Christ's Passion, this one culminating with the tomb.  The scourging and hammering and nailing are over.  Now, it's all darkness and waiting.

Tomorrow night, in the Catholic church, fires will be lit, candle flames passed from person to person, and that darkness will be chased away until the entire sanctuary is blazing.  It's quite a sight to behold--all the faces in the pews glowing like Queen Anne's lace.  It's one of my favorite moments in the Easter season.

But I won't be at the Easter Vigil Mass this year.  I will be home, coloring eggs and waiting for the Easter Bunny's midnight visit.  And that's okay by me.  I've experienced enough darkness this past year.  I don't need to sit in a church after dusk, waiting for someone to pass me a little light.  I know that there is something beyond the darkness of the grave.

As I type these words, it is past midnight.  Everyone, including my injured puppy, is asleep.  I should be asleep, too, but I'm struggling with insomnia.  I get really tired early in the evening, but I'm wide awake at 2 a.m., my mind unable to switch off.  Sometimes, I take a sleeping pill.  Other times, I  swallow a gummy from my local cannabis store.  I don't generally endorse alcohol or pot as a coping mechanism, but these nights of anxiety are very long.

In a couple days' time, I will be sitting at a keyboard, playing songs filled with alleluias and celebration.  People will be greeting each other with the words, "He is risen!"  There will be chocolate and lilies and ham and pastel eggs and mimosas.  I will be surrounded by the people I love.  

For a few joyful hours, the unworked fields of Saint Marty's life will be filled with rags of sun.