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I have one and only one story to tell about Easter*:
Once upon a time in grad school, round Eastertide, I came upon a shop display in a small town in Alabama featuring an old wooden cross made of unlacquered 2x4s. Shit was made to look real rustic. We are talking ANCIENT TIMES.
Once upon a time in grad school, round Eastertide, I came upon a shop display in a small town in Alabama featuring an old wooden cross made of unlacquered 2x4s. Shit was made to look real rustic. We are talking ANCIENT TIMES.
We're talking splinters just looking at it. At first, because the cross was so big, all I could see was a rather standard (for the region) display of Jesus torture à la mode in the spot where you might usually see a blouse somebody thought was cute but like, strawberry print.
The custom, for an agnostic, is to pass such displays by with mild amusement. The custom for a deprogrammed survivor like myself was sprint in the other direction. Reader, I did not stop. Not at first. Not until I saw the first hop.
This was my Facebook entry to mark the occasion, dated April 6, 2012*:
"EVERYONE: There are baby chicks cowering in a bed of hay at the foot of a cross made of an unlacquered 2x4s. In a store display window downtown. We must document this occasion."
"EVERYONE: There are baby chicks cowering in a bed of hay at the foot of a cross made of an unlacquered 2x4s. In a store display window downtown. We must document this occasion."
But I did not document it. There's a photo somewhere, and I can't find it. I was not the ~highly professional~ nonfiction writer that I am today. You're just going to have to believe me. I am asking you to make a leap of faith.
Listen when I tell you this was something special.
Listen when I tell you this was something special.
The baby chicks (I think there were about five or six) turned this tacky display into Art.
They were SO SCARED. They were SO SCARED OF JESUS AND EVERYTHING HE REPRESENTED.
It was like looking in a mirror. You just think, Jesus Christ! You know?
They were SO SCARED. They were SO SCARED OF JESUS AND EVERYTHING HE REPRESENTED.
It was like looking in a mirror. You just think, Jesus Christ! You know?
They wouldn't go near that old wooden cross. I felt pained, watching them. The way they were forced to just sit there in that smallish display and try to ignore this gigantic towering SYMBOL OF DEATH, like it was some wooden fence that stood up and announced its intentions...
...intentions to murder.
But it also felt sweet? Like the shop owners wanted to find a little softness, originality. Because yeah, we see little yellow chicks and think, Oh PEEPS! I hate/love those!
Though I doubt they had any clear thesis statement. I couldn't find one.
But it also felt sweet? Like the shop owners wanted to find a little softness, originality. Because yeah, we see little yellow chicks and think, Oh PEEPS! I hate/love those!
Though I doubt they had any clear thesis statement. I couldn't find one.
I stood there a long time. And yeah, most of the time I was laughing in a kind of obnoxious way that is probably shameful and VERY grad school era for me.
I don't know what I got out of it. A shock, maybe, after years of not being shocked by intense Jesusy desplays.
I don't know what I got out of it. A shock, maybe, after years of not being shocked by intense Jesusy desplays.
I mean I was around people who visited Hell House. Nothing shocked me about the cruelty of Christianity and its cloak of softness, meekness, which tried to hide all of that. Which is like, what Easter is for me, most of the time.
Raise your hand if that rings a bell. Yeah.
Raise your hand if that rings a bell. Yeah.
But I think what was interesting about the chicks cowering at the foot of the cross was that the full over-the-topness, mixed with symbols which seemed somehow to fit together (how?), drew me back to that state of awe, that religious feeling, which can be felt as dread.
Dread for some mystery which makes the human experience so unfathomable and strange. Dread for our colonizing future. Dread for the endless march of time, which distorts and blends all. Dread for a world that has such sweetness (chicks, lambs) and terror (cross) at once.
It's impossible to grasp, which is what Christianity, at its best, captures.
But whereas in the past I'd have found myself even more lost, & therefore open to influence, the chicks trembling in terror at the foot of the cross made me feel light, like something had been exorcised
But whereas in the past I'd have found myself even more lost, & therefore open to influence, the chicks trembling in terror at the foot of the cross made me feel light, like something had been exorcised
Like the chicks had taken on that burden for me. The sacrifice was all in the chicks. The chicks were little cute mindless Jesuses. I don't know
Thinking too much about this will make it false. It is HARD to track religious experience in narrative. That's why my memoir is weird.
Thinking too much about this will make it false. It is HARD to track religious experience in narrative. That's why my memoir is weird.
All of this is just to say:
There's only one Easter story now. Write a children's book about it. The little frightened chicks trembling at the foot of the cross, displayed for all the South to see like it was for sale, in a house of commerce Jesus would have tore up.
There's only one Easter story now. Write a children's book about it. The little frightened chicks trembling at the foot of the cross, displayed for all the South to see like it was for sale, in a house of commerce Jesus would have tore up.
It is day [insert number] of the quarantine. Easter. This one, I will not forget to document.
*the stars in this thread just mean all of those statements are ~heavily qualifiable~
*the stars in this thread just mean all of those statements are ~heavily qualifiable~
