I've had many interesting conversations this week, from explaining the story of the Passion to someone who knew far less about it than anyone I've ever met, to being told that I'm not the anti-Buddhist, but am actually the premiere Buddhist, to a lot of talk about love and suffering. I've also been in church a lot. I clocked four and a half hours today alone, which included six sermons and Stainer's The Crucifixion. Holy Week is landing in a very powerful way this year, partially because of the focus on spiritual development of the past year... but also because it serves as a marker for me. Last year I was stage managing a show during Holy Week, and so I couldn't go to even a Palm Sunday service, let alone Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, or Holy Saturday. It was Good Friday last year when I sat doing my own little makeshift service in my dorm room that I realized that my priorities were mixed up and I needed to put weight on my spiritual life.
Now look at me.
I've been rather emotionally involved in Holy Week. The Stripping of the Altar on Thursday was particularly devastating, particularly the processional cross enshrouded as the clergy and choir processed out. The altar bare, and with barely any light to see as we left, it felt like all life had left and we were now this scattered, hopeless few among millions. I shaved my head again after that. (Generally whenever I shave my head, it's for religious reasons.) I have been struck by the power of this story. It started to hit me when it was read at the end of the Palm Sunday service. It is an incredible story. I mentioned earlier that I've found myself telling the story (or recklessly piecing together bits of it) for someone who didn't know a lot of it, and he was legitimately surprised at parts. Mindboggling for me, having grown up around people for whom the Denial of Peter and the suicide of Judas are simply another part of the story, and forget that these are actually shocking.
On Thursday, I found myself in one of my teacher's offices, talking about love and suffering. (There is nothing surprising about that sentence except possibly the word "office".) And how I so strongly believe there is no love without suffering, and that we must learn to suffer fully if we are to learn how to love fully. And I think it's because fully loving is an extreme, and we cannot go to extremes without pain. Just like we cannot do extremely physical things without pain, we cannot do extreme emotional things without emotional pain. Connecting that to my recent posts about the stones singing and needing a thousand tongues to sing... I think when you love so much, it MUST cause pain because it's the most extreme thing we know. There is a limit to what we can express, physically, emotionally, but I'm not sure if there's a limit to what we can feel, and when we feel more than we can express, the result is pain. I often hurt, in a way, because I am so grateful or so joyous that I cannot express it. When I try for years just trying to find the way to express something, even positively, there's a huge pain in that, a ripping, a tearing, a wringing. And in a way, I love the pain, because it is the most accurate way to express it.
What if you loved so much that the only way to express it was pain?
What if you loved so much that the only way to express it was to die?
I think somewhere in there, which I hope I'll find a better way to articulate soon, is the beauty of the Crucifixion. It is the strongest expression of human love. And out of that arises the strongest expression of divine love... but I best not get ahead of myself.
I've wept today. People have asked me if I'm okay, and I said it's Good Friday, and they generally didn't really get it but they smiled and nodded and occasionally said, "It is?! I'm such a bad Catholic." My Lord is dead and I have killed him with my sins. And yet, there is a beauty to this, the most dramatic of all days of the church year, in love uncomprehendable and inexpressible.
My love is too great for anything but the most devastating pain.
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