Easter approaches, shelves layered with eggs and bunnies of all shapes and sizes. Chocolate and more chocolate. It’s Good Friday as I write this, a very particular day in Christian terms. The agony of the crucifixion is remembered and revered for the great sacrifice offered out of love, for love, by love. The person of Jesus. It is a time of year and particularly this day that resonates with me. We all know how precious life is, giving it up is never easy, we cling on tooth and claw to stay. Betrayal and humiliation coupled with execution represent something so much bigger than I am and yet so very human, not mystical at all. This day contains all the fear and anger of the world, not as an historical act, but now in the present day and in that is mixed all the love too. The greatest love. Isn’t it the greatest sacrifice to lay down one’s life for another?
I saw a piece of footage on Instagram recently, posted by a friend and relative of BB. She was widowed far too early and shockingly so in the suddenness of his leaving. She is a fan of Lindy hop and the short film shows her dancing, it’s her birthday celebration. She is not alone. The dance floor is empty apart from her and a male partner, they hold the floor and move with such ease in the space. Perfectly in time, their bodies harmonising with the rhythm of the music and each other. Then in seamless flow he passes her hand to another male friend and they continue the dance together. Different but the same. The music doesn’t change. This continues until she has danced with perhaps 5 different partners. Each of their styles is uniquely their own and she makes tiny adjustments to accommodate this. Each of them picks her hand up and they articulately steer her around the space. It’s beautiful. At the outside of the dance floor other friends watch and clap the beat. The room is lit in blues, purples and pinks.
I watched it for a second time the next day. There is something very special, very tender, in it. This dancing is not wild, it’s measured and it’s all about her. What we’re seeing is a metaphor for life. This network woven round us is love and is contained in the friends who stand with us and support us. Like a spider spins a silken web as strong as tensile steel, so was this. When life hits so hard it knocks the breath from us and we don’t think we’ll ever take a deep breath again, let alone dance, then these others, our friends who know and feel our pain with us, breathe deep for us until some balance is restored. Until our chests can expand fully with an inhale of a life containing absence. They move us round the daily business of living till we can walk alone again.
It is especially moving to watch because we often think of our women friends as the ones who lift us up, carry us and keep us steady in times of crisis. In this film, it is the men who so gently but with great skill and very obvious love hold her in their arms and by the hand. Extending an arm and letting her out, but not letting her go. They each step up to take their turn with her and the transitions are seamless. It’s love pure and simple. There is no attempt to guise it as just brilliant dancing, although it is, hearts are out and on show. She is much loved. Held.
The next morning, in my meditation time, (I spend my time gazing at whatever is in front of me) I thought of the scene again. Replayed it in my head, my heart contracted and I found my eyes fill with tears. Love always connects us. It seemed deeply right in Holy Week to have this experience. It felt divine. We see and find what we look for.
I think I look for love in everything.
We flower ladies at church had a discussion about our Easter arrangements. I had been percolating an idea to make crowns of thorns for the window sills with a living plant growing out of the centre. I love symbolism in flowers. What we can say without words, instead allowing petals, buds, stems and leaves to speak a story. Marguerite (aptly named) and our chief agreed to this idea along with traditional arrangements of purple, yellow and white on the various altars. Excellent
I set to work and went out foraging in the worst weather imaginable. Cutting bramble, briar, thorn and spike to make five crowns. Collecting in 50 mph winds and torrential rain was a penance. Appropriate for Lent….especially as I discovered I’d left my secateurs at home. I went out several times. On this occasion I’d parked at a spot closer to the area I wanted to collect from, gales howled and I questioned my sanity. No cutters, how was this going to work? I looked down at the mud and strewn right at the car’s wheels were broken stems of Blackthorn, lots of them. My job was done. I collected and walked further along to see if there was more. There was none. Only in that spot, exactly where I’d parked, and I’d changed my spot to move the car further up in the parking bay. Divine intervention, yes, I think so. That great hand had been there before me, moved me to the very spot and provision was made. I felt loved and it made me smile. Coincidence? Fanciful thinking? No, providence, the clue is in the word. A perfect gift and just when I needed it
Working with these materials is a challenge. However three are done. I love them, but also question whether they will be understood, they are quite ugly. I see beautiful too. My fingers have been pricked and hands grazed despite gloves. I found I couldn’t work the stems with gloves on. It has made me feel the crown of thorns. Feel the pain of love in the wearer. A splinter of it at least.
Whether we realise it or not, the crown of thorns, the dance, are both elements of the same thing. Life. Love felt and expressed with extravagant abandon. Not always beautiful, floral and fragrant, but thorny and sharp. Present from the first day the earth took a breath in all its burgeoning glory. Is breath love in its most intimate form? You can’t make breath, it’s autonomic, and the precise gas we require for it, is all around us. A gift. Provision.
Wishing you all love at Easter. Plenty of chocolate of course but not forgetting the love behind, in the middle and in front of it. We love because He loved first. Till the next time,
A