Easter Eve

I wrote this last night, but (in keeping with the tenor of the day) it wouldn't publish. Happy Easter, friends!

A day of muddy thinking and half-hearted desires. Wanting to want, but not quite being able to pull it off. Left my third pint, barely tasted, on the bar, and wandered home. Walked around the reservoir with Martha. A beautiful day, but I barely saw it.

And now evening. Tomorrow is Easter. Is there a name for this day? Maundy Thursday, Good Friday -- but I don't have a name for today. Easter Eve scarcely sounds right. Maybe it signifies, that this day should not have a name. The only anniversary of God's death-day. I mean, the only day when he was dead all day. Friday is the day of horror and tragedy. But on Saturday it sinks in. Saturday his heart-students must have started thinking "Now how do I live, without him? Why do I live without him?" And then the panic: "I can't do this on my own. It seemed so easy, so obvious, so real when he was here. And now it's all impossible, tortuous, unbelievable."

I've written before about Jesus's rebuke to Thomas -- his praise of faith, faith without or even against evidence. I had forgotten, really, the circumstances. Thomas wasn't being asked to have faith in a story or an abstract credo. He was just being asked to keep faith with his heart-teacher. He had seen this man work miracles -- could he not hold his faith, keep (as we Vajrayanists would say) his samaya, his devotion to his teacher, unbroken for even three days?

No. Nor can I. I can picture myself stubbornly insisting, to my living teacher, that he must be dead. In fact I do it all the time.