a patient gardener

“almost,” cries the wind
rattling the house’s walls, 
making the blooms in 

the garden doubt their 
defiant song that winter
is over, at last

march 5th, from the march haikus

Despite the snow falling outside my window, the violet muscari in my mother’s garden has burst from the frozen soil in a tumble of soft green grass, as if on cue. She signals a greeting with her cone-shaped head to the hyacinth, who opens her first pale blossoms to the frigid sky, and a lone daffodil burns like a solitary candle on an alter against the gray backdrop of the weathered, wooden fence. These small graces of another coming springtime in the microcosm of the flower beds announce what my heart refuses to understand: Holy Week—the week leading up to Easter—has dawned upon us again. She slips in with crisis and war and those every day aches, as she usually tends to do, weaving her subversive story in with the cold April rain. Open-handed, she offers hope of springtime to the weeds of doubt that have sprung up throughout the winter, persistent and stubborn. She watches the blossoms become themselves again. A patient gardener.

And I, in turn, a not so patient listener. It is hard to hear her singing in the garden, this year more than most. Do you feel this, too? Do you, too, feel distant from the humming whispers of the coming beginnings? Do you, too, feel like this is a mystery impossible to understand and impossible to feel?

This year, in the way I historically do at Eastertide, I am wishing for the realization of what this holy week proclaims, and wishing, too, that I could be swept up in the somber feelings of truth and the joyful hope that she promises. I am wishing to be closer to comprehending that elusive word, resurrection. And this year, more than most, I am remembering.

I remember Good Friday services in which we nailed confessed sins to a wooden cross. I remember hearing the story of the crucifixion read all sorts of ways. I remember services where people stood in an hour long line around the perimeter of the room to place their hands on a cross and ask for prayer. I remember trying to force myself to cry with the weeping masses. I remember not understanding why it was that I felt nothing, why I was consistently more moved by the idea of Christmas, of God drawing near to be with us, than I was by the idea of that same baby, grown now and hanging on a tree so we could be with Him, crossing the river of immeasurable, unimaginable distance between heaven and our present existence.

I remember Easter mornings in new frilly dresses and lacy socks, my long hair curled in rollers and hanging down my back, pausing for a photo next to those same daffodils and hyacinths. I remember the yearly call-and-response of He-Is-Risen/He-Is-Risen-Indeed. I remember literal bells and whistles and flowers and the proclamation of alleluia as the sun rose. And I remember singing.

But mostly, I remember that sinking feeling that something was wrong with me, thinking “when I’m older I’ll understand all of this,” that once I understood love better, those intense feelings that everyone else seemed to have around me would find my heart and swing open the gates of my garden, twirling me around in the dust. This time, it wouldn’t be pretend. I would be alive, and I would sing, and it would be real.

This time, when God showed up in the upper room, I would see it for myself.

The truth is, in my late twenties, I am still terribly afraid that I will never be able to internalize this beautiful faith I practice and believe in, that the words of this season will forever be empty and repetitive, that my own lack of feeling will never transform into a vibrant truth.

Where Easter is a time of encouragement for many religious folks, it is a time that I personally weather a storm of doubt, and come out the other side windblown and soaked. Like Thomas, so unfairly and permanently labeled doubter, (which of us would not find ourselves with that same title?), I find myself locked in that upper room of my heart, listening to the aching creaks of the walls, desperate for a stirring that would make the truth of resurrection feel real, somehow. I struggle to find the hope that I am told is lingering in the shadows that never seem to illuminate. I go to church, hear the familiar words spoken over me—he was pierced for our transgressions—wait through the long darkness of Saturday, and awaken to the light of Easter morning. In the weeping, the praying, and the rejoicing, I stand in the middle of it all as shame wells over me like a tidal wave. I feel as if my heart has turned to stone inside me, unfeeling and yearning to transform into flesh again.

Throughout this personally tempestuous Lent, my heart, tucked so deeply away, feels quiet and expectant. Poem-less, I have sat in the early mornings with my candle and my blank journal in my lap, outside the tomb, silent with hope that somewhere, within that hungry darkness, something will stir. That I will remember how to write—how to pray—and that I will feel the presence of the God to whom I am praying. That I can run headlong into the tomb, seeing with my own heart what my head knows to be true.

As I sit in silence each morning, empty and waiting, I wonder if maybe my chronic inability to grasp hold of this violent and sacred mystery is because the whole truth of Jesus’ death and resurrection is a wildly unbelievable concept that our fleshy brains cannot actually fathom. Maybe we aren’t supposed to be able to grasp it, or maybe, the grasping is supposed to be a slow waking, rather than a yearly epiphany. As the season draws near again, and my body is splintered into fractions of dread and shame and desperate expectation, I want to make space for those feelings I try to cover up. I want to pay attention to the small ordinary truths that are echoes, tangible ambassadors of the greater truth that feels out of reach, and count them as more than enough. After all, isn’t that just like Jesus—an ambassador of an unreachable kingdom?

In her wonderful book, Send Out Your Light, Sandra McCracken writes, “How much do we miss that comes to us as a slow beauty? How much of God’s beauty is still waiting to be revealed? How often are we aware that the shadow view we see is not yet full sight? Patience is the path. Not-seeing comes before seeing.”

Every Easter, I am overwhelmed with my shadow view, forgetting that it is, as Sandra writes, “not yet full sight.” As I listened to her read this quote in her audiobook, walking my dog with my scarf pulled tight around my neck, I came to a screeching halt on the sidewalk as the truth of her words washed over me with the cold breeze. Perhaps God isn’t looking for a five paragraph essay of how and why I believe in this bold story, or why I don’t, I thought to myself. Perhaps the stories of Good Friday—which is the story of love—and Easter—which is the story of hope—are meant to be slow beauties that unfold as our own hearts dare to bloom. Perhaps, as my pastor said to me a few weeks ago, God is less interested in me figuring everything out, and more interested in being with me, watching me the way I watch the wick of the candle stewarding the flame each morning, captivating my attention as it flickers softly in the lonely darkness.

This month, I’m teaching an acting class to a group of elementary school children, and at the end of each class, I ask them to close their eyes and think of one good thing they imagined, created, or participated in, the way my own acting professor did for me. I tell them, with their eyes squeezed tight, that even if the whole class felt hard or impossible or stupid or terrifying, the one good thing they think of is more than enough.

Which, in my opinion, is another way of saying: “have grace for yourself.”

This uninhibited grace is the opposite of shame. As unfathomable love pours out on us in the stories of Easter, grace is the river by which it flows. It is the orange light that slips in through the dirty window as the darkness falls asleep, tracing the textures it touches with its soft, slow fingers. It is the way the dawn becomes the day, the way the petals of our heart lean towards the sun’s distant beams, the way the moon waxes and wanes, the way we are never finished with our own process of becoming.

This Eastertide, after a season filled with silence, grief, major decisions, and a delayed springtime, I want to cling to that one good thing—that grace offered to me—whether it is one clear realization, one truth, one lyric, one glimpse, one connection, one touch, one scent of mystery. I want to let it be enough and trust that this story—my story, our story—is ever unfolding. I want to let myself throw off the weight of shame that so easily tangles about my ankles and come again as a child, filled with wonder and delight, at peace with the magic of not-knowing. I want to sit in the presence of a God who simply wants to be with me in the silence of the night, in the fears and doubts and not-feeling-ness. The process of becoming is in the collaborative work with God, and I want to make sure the garden gate is unlocked.

To close, what I want to say to my heart and to yours is this: the grass is re-turning to it’s lush green and the forsythia is igniting into her own burning bush, and they are transforming into themselves at their own slow pace, whether or not we choose to notice. And so too are we.

In our reluctance to wait for the feelings of love to grow in us, in our hurry and anxiety, may we lean in instead of leaning out. May we learn to ask honest questions of each other, and of our Maker. May we pay attention to our painful growing and gentle opening. May we learn to watch for the sun to crest over the hills and shine into the dusty corners of the tomb we are weeping outside of, which, indeed was empty all along. May we look with a particular grace into the face of our unbelief and sing a defiant song, even so. Even so.

—alyssa

planting a garden

a beautiful rebellion (for the feast of the annunciation)