Part Three: The Old Story
Return to the site of burial
I made these plans a few days ago and it didn’t occur to me until I was putting on my trail runners that I was joining the company of ancient women to return to the site of burial at dawn on the first day of the week. They weren’t looking for resurrection, or maybe they were, but of the sort they were likely unsure. I wasn’t either, really. I just needed to actually be present in that place because I wasn’t the week before, not in the way I wanted to be or needed to be. The boys on my left and their dad on my right made it difficult to be fully present to the moment and even to myself. So while it was still dark and the full moon was high and bright, I started my car entered the old story.
It was surreal to be doing this. Was I foolhardy to to venture off alone into the forest? Call it intuition or Holy Spirit, it was what I had to do. I was hoping to arrive in enough time to see the sunrise above the Blue Ridge. I was heading West when all I wanted was to look East. I was actualizing that feeling of rending my heart and my mind, knowing what I must do while being tugged by logic. It is a feeling I know well, but this time I didn’t give in and kept moving toward the place where the sun wanes because I wanted to turn around and see it rise again.
I arrived at the perfect time. The sun was still hidden behind the peaks and the sky, oh the sky, it was beautiful! Purples, pinks, hints of yellow, orange, and blue expanded before me. It was cold so I sat in my car in front of the visitors’ center and waited for that glorious moment when the sun resurrects and a new day begins again. I was watching so intently and still, when it finally happened, I gasped. I was told that resurrection will take your breath away.
Water always leads to the lowest points on the terrain and opens out into wide spaces of possibility. This brook was no different. I went down to visit death. I hiked in silence with Mary Magdalene. I bet she was heartsick, in shock and grief. Did she fear the return of her demons in this moment of vulnerability?
When I arrived at the site, my heart was heavy and full. What might happen? Would I feel nothing again? I wondered what Mary thought would happen. I sat and listened to the water rush down to the fall. I just sat in the moment, thinking of River and Rowen and the excruciating hours of loss and the sacred moments of burial, of letting go the death that I have kept close for eight years. Mary sat in Jesus’ death for a mere three days. So short.
What about the people who were still trying to take in the fact that Jesus had died? Where are they in the story? What about the person who has a deep need to get to the bottom of their sadness before they are able to climb back out? Where are they in the story? Maybe that was Mary.
I needed to drink it all in so I could solidify the memory. I needed to feel the cold air, hear the water and the birdsongs, see in my mind how we poured out the tiny particles of death and spread them out on the water.
I kept thinking, hoping, I’d see a the little yellow ball from a craspedia caught in a rock or a branch in the water. But that’s not how resurrection comes, not by the remnants but by newness and transfiguration. Maybe it wasn’t just out of custom but an act of self-care for Mary to return to the site of burial, a way of self-soothing and remembering,
re-membering
her-self.
Putting
her-self back
together in a way, a co-creative act of transfiguration.
The angel asks, “why do you seek the living among the dead.” Such a curious question, because as I know in my, life what is most living is always among the dead.
I reached to the bottom of my sadness for the day and I began my ascent. Healing begins in the depths where no excuses can be clutched, where the pain has no where to be passed, but only realized and offered. And then comes the slow climb. Step after heavy step. Tired muscles, a thirsty throat, laboring breaths. There’s a lot of weight in being well.
Resurrection hits differently this year. I chose to be alone. I’m acutely aware that this intentional solitude flies in the face of all tradition and expectation for how one ought to commemorate the new life born out of death. It felt foreign, but right for me today. I wonder if in the wake of witnessing the resurrection, Mary felt alone. How did she become acquainted with how her life changed from that moment of recognition? Was it always overflowing joy or was it also a sober confidence because of her deep knowing and being deeply known and fully seen and loved anyway? Maybe sometimes celebrating resurrection is not about shouting from the mountaintops. Maybe sometimes resurrection is about a quiet and solitary confidence, keeping our eyes open to find the truest living that is always among the dead.
On my hike back I saw a moth brooding her wings. A sign of transfigured life and more life to come.
Mm thank you for this. It provokes so much much! When you ask, “Did she fear the return of her demons in this moment of vulnerability?” — lately I’ve noticed how often people in Biblical stories were instructed to not be afraid, including Mary, after meeting Jesus in the tomb and he told her to tell the others about His resurrection. I never thought about what she might have been afraid of until now.
Martina- Thanks for sharing this. This particular sentence stood out to me: "keeping our eyes open to find the truest living that is always among the dead." How true. Hope your week is off to a great start (and you're still finding the truest living). :)