There is no brighter day than this, silver morning shot with clouds white and thin, brilliant birth, His, mine and ours. I close my eyes and see the curves of you by moonlight, the hollows of mysteries, the definition of muscles. I open my eyes and see your eyes across the cafe from me, worn by a stranger. They are, as always, cold bright sharp and I know forever that I will always find blue eyes as Woman, green eyes as Friend, and every brown eye as Savior. My world is untamed wilds with a single path paved with these crystal absolutes.
Thank you, Christ, for opening my eyes. You're right. She is beautiful. This only green world.
“I will walk along these hillsides
in the summer, 'neath the sunshine.
I am feathered by the moonlight,
falling down on me, I said...”
And yes, the lyrics tumble and roll into each other and I do like that. I had forgotten how much I love that feeling of unending music. I think of the waves, of course, the shore, the horizon endless, stretching to infinity, and I think of deep, dark trails into ageless forests bent and bowed by wind over those self same waves, and I look all the way through existence to the face of my Lord and I know He understands intimately the complexity of this life, this heart, this gamer grrl who rarely seems to be given anything in small doses.
“Do you still wear it?”
"Every day.”
“If you never saw me again?”
“Still.”
“If I never...”
“Still.”
“Because?”
“Of what we had.”
“That night?”
“...”
“Not that night then.”
“Creation. Birth."
“Rebirth.”
“That truth is always there.”
And His mortal body hung on that cross. It was a symbol like we no longer have universally. A sign of death most cruel and base. Painful and tearing. The woman who loved Him more than any other catching His tears and His blood in a chalice that would inspire and romanticize these horrors. It may not have even existed. But her pain, as helpless witness to His pain, was... is... most certainly undeniable. Mother of my Lord, on her knees, *not* begging Him to lie and deny the truth of His divinity. Her tears like the tears of no other.
Because she carried Him.
“Through this womb cometh the Lord, our Christ. My Beginning and my End. Transforming me forever from woman to Mother. Transforming this world, now then forever, from empty to overflowing. He will walk this only green world, be loved and hated, laugh and cry, exist among us, touch our hands, our eyes, our hearts, and we will know the truth and see it everywhere.”
The children selling street jewelry outside the Catholic church look no different today. I could lift these children from this place and place them in almost every city I have ever visited. They could be on any continent. They could be any color or age or speaking any language. I have been walking for six miles. I have passed fifteen churches. I have passed eighteen children. Three sold oranges. Five sold jewelry. Some of the others sold wares they knew I would not buy. But for all of them I push back my headphones and meet their eyes. Blue... green... brown. Some of them were minors, most of them were not. Some of them wore crosses, most of them did not.
“I am not worthy of this, my Lord.”
“You are.”
“You do not need to be washed in the water, Lord.”
“Wash me then in the blood.”
And the dove appeared.
And the Lord spoke.
And the stone was rolled away.
And the women knew that He was risen.
“Go tell it on the mountain,
over the hills and everywhere.
Go tell it on the mountain,
that Jesus Christ is born.”
“I wanted to bring them something. It is traditional, yes. But more. I wanted to leave a talisman there with you. Oh, how it grows harder to have you away from my embrace, from within the reach of my fingertips...
“An Easter Lily. The trumpet of it heralds birth and triumph. They could not fell Him. They brutally killed Him but He neither bent nor broke. He did not crumble to the will of man. He did not step into their denomination. He did not shape Himself to their desire. He was, is, will always be desire.
“The white petals are firm, thick, textured and fine. Life, purity, hope, spirit. First brought to America by a World War I soldier from their native Ryukyu Islands. Only available commercially for two weeks. The fourth largest potted crop. They are the traditional flower of Easter. I would have settled... I could have settled... so many times... but I didn't. I wouldn't. I waited. For you. Should I have worn a Promise Ring all these years?”
After they stopped the mortal heart in His chest, but before He rose again as savior and End Time soldier, there came to be found, in the Garden of Gethsemane, lilies as white and pure as moonlit snow. They were glorious in the morning sun. They were blinding beneath starlight. Some remembered then Christ's Sermon on the Mount, "Consider the lilies of the field...”
“Consider what I have left for you. Not the verse man will write upon dying parchment. But rather this undying world that evolves and transforms for you, revealing every mystery that I ever shall need of you to know.”
And those men who followed Him, who would later write His (and their) words and stamp them divine, did not believe that He stood before them. They were, they thought, the perfect examples of mankind. Doubting. Unable to believe without proof.
Some of us do not need the words.
We have here *tapping my heart* the Word.
“Easter lilies are called, sometimes, the White-Robed Apostles of Hope. Mercy, compassion, kindness and unconditional love. Beloved? I do not have a 'hope' for this, our love. I have a *knowing.* And though it is an unconditional love, and love laid with kindness, and love gentle with compassion, even when I ask for it, you rarely show me mercy. You meet my gaze and every pretense falls away. I am stripped bare before our Christ. The growl that rises in my throat, the muscles that jump across shoulders and neck and arms and belly, have nothing to do with mercy. This is a primal divinity. Christianity untamed and burning. I worship on my knees.”
When leaving Eden, Eve cried repentant tears and those tears became lilies. Her repentance was true and pure, and lilies have since been always associated with women.
“Why do you weep?”
“They have taken the body of our Lord.”
“He is not here.”
“He has risen!”
There is one child selling lilies. I see the cardboard sign before I see his small, single-bloom plants with roots wrapped in Dollar Store tissue paper. I turn the corner to him. I stop. These are far from Easter Lilies. There is no white-washing here. And brown boy meets eyes with brown grrl and I realize we are probably the same age. And not so very different.
“But then I see them. The brilliant burning orange. The dusting of chocolate brown. The petals open like palms, the stems deep and strong. These are the flowers of my Christ. Not white-robed and scrubbed clean. These are the fire of passion, the untamed wild, the survivors after brutal winters, the lovers tussling together among lush green leaves. These tiger lilies draw my gaze and my touch and my devotion. Here is our love. Here is true Easter.”
I wear a cross not because I worship death. I wear a cross (from my neck and inked on my body) because even this could not bring down my Lord. Even this could not tame His wild. No weapon of man could silence His voice.
And today? On this fine silver-skied Easter, rain falling like baptism, I sit in a room surrounded by thirty tiger lilies, their roots wrapped in Dollar Store tissue paper. And today, I hear His voice clearer than ever.
EJ
