Easter for the likes of us
I've been looking for images of resurrection as spring creeps across the Midwest and winter disappears. And it seems each year those images are more and more difficult to find.
When I was a kid, there was so much mischief to occupy my mind, and most of it had to do with new life.
I remember traipsing up and down Main Street on my paper route dumping the news at each place of business and moving south toward the river. When I got to the creamery where farmers brought their daily supply of milk and Frank the butter maker waited by the big churn for his newspaper, I knew the next step was the rickety old bridge spanning the Shellrock River.
Just a block or so from the creamery, the river flowed muddy and polluted. The only fish that survived in those waters were fat carp that fed on the bottom sludge. Few fishermen sat along the banks -- just old men with cane poles and too much time on their hands.
I would stand on the bridge and look for signs of ice breakage, small cracks on the surface or lines running out from shore. Because I knew when the ice began to break apart it happened rapidly. Huge chunks would come thundering down the water and throwing the soft bottom dirt into the air.
Some of those big pieces of ice carried precious rocks and hunks of wood from miles north. When the froth died and the ice was gone, all kinds of new things, agates and smooth shiny stones lined the shore. I walked the edge and watched for rocks and driftwood. In my newspaper bag, I carried big sticks of wood home and dumped them by the tool shed.
In a matter of days all the drama was gone. We knew the next year would bring basic script but with a few scene changes. One year the ice just wore thin over a matter of days until, wafer thin, it began breaking up and left a haunting sound like pieces of glass knocking together -- tinkling.
Another year, a pair of raccoons got stranded on a flat island of ice and people from town got long poles, ran along the river and tried to knock them off for sport. Finally the raccoons jumped ashore and scattered into the woods.
It was all new and full of promise. An entire world filled with possibility and excitement for young boys.
Then my mother would drag me downtown and get me fitted with new clothes: a pair of trousers and a fresh shirt. And the church would begin to look like a garden, with white lilies and tulips growing outside against the brick walls.
Everything living, it seemed to me, was conspiring to bring new life into the world, and even the devil, dressed in holiday red, could not stop Easter from coming. Of course, we knew some of this was a result of human effort, but on a deeper level it seemed good and evil were locked in a great cosmic battle for our souls.
All the years I delivered newspapers for all those people, the drama happened every spring, and sometimes I would step onto a porch knowing the person, my old customer, had died. I would hand the newspaper to a relative and look at the floor as I quietly left the property. And in those moments, the resurrection became an ordinary thing, a story that erupted in average people's lives.
By mid-April, it was taking longer and longer to get the route completed every day. I was wading in the river looking for beautiful stones or hauling rocks to make could run through the streets. And every afternoon I would arrive home with muddy shoes and pant legs covered with burrs.
And that is the Easter picture, or perhaps the resurrection image, for every religion: We come in muddy shoes, covered with burrs, and God sweeps us clean. There we are, the messed-up people of God, and he recognizes us and welcomes us home.
There is not a church on earth where Easter morning arrives and the roof of the chapel breaks open to reveal an army of angels. The whole theological system -- the darkness of
Good Friday and the glory of Easter -- are there for ordinary people and not for saints. Saints don't step in mud, don't see burrs. But we are just people, struggling for a glimpse into the inner world where God kindly and faithfully waits for us.
There you have it -- Easter for the ordinary person. Resurrection for the likes of us.
Clark D. Morphew
4-22-00
