Just Journaling Here
Woke up late this morning because Easter Vigil kept us up way late. This is the least of the many excellent things about the Vigil.
As if the whole victory-over-death bit isn’t enough to get worked up about, the aesthetics of the Vigil are amazing. It’s the night we initiate adult converts and annoy the hell out of the fire marshal. Also, I’m a bit personally invested in this mass too. Four years ago was my first Vigil. I went because a girl I had met at college asked me to sponsor her confirmation. She decided in the end not to join the church, but not before introducing me to this cute, energetic guy in the class.
The girl is still one of my best friends, the guy is now my husband, and God! The Vigil is the highlight of my year. Yeah, college was all right, apart from all the classes. :)
Last night's had a few firsts for me. Our new parish is pretty small and well-knit. The biggest division is language--there are usually separate English and Spanish Masses--but last night's ceremony was bilingual. There was a genuine sense of coming together, too. I was impressed. It helped from the start that it was so windy outside when it came time to light each other's candles. Instead of spreading light, we got spreading laughter (and jokes--"Where is the lumen Christi?" "Look, the deacon's is still lit. That's what seminary will do for you!") Another funny moment came when one of the catechumens answered our very casual priest's question of "Do you want to be baptized?" with a very earnest but very military, "Yes, sir"--as if he wasn't already the whitest guy in the group. People were pretty euphoric as they departed that night. We walked home about the same time as the notorious Isla Vista party crowd, and I think it was hard to distinguish between the two demographics.
I’m not too great when it comes to expressing joy, love, peace well-wishes-you know, sincerity. So I’m going to resort to stealing other people’s art:
Got home last night and started a poem. (Goodbye, Antinanowrimo!)
Churls
Dunces, fools, and dullards, us city rats were called,
For we were stult and stuffed underneath
A teacher’s gaze, a caseworker’s survey,
The averted eyes of bosses
And the stares of prison guards.
This went on some generations.
This went on some millennia.
The world went round, and we went down,
It turned but never, lamented our betters, we learned.
We scarcely could grasp when they said the stars were falling and the seas were rising
Were working too deep underground
Didn’t know till walls were knocked round
(But we hear every last one of them’s drowned.)
Windy and wild, but they gave out in the end,
Submitted to our ankles in the end, licking and lapping,
In the end it washed away the grime,
Cleansed our flea-rid sores, caressed our bruises,
Scoured the cuts of many a knuckling and many a rapping and many a beating and many a flogging,
The beatings we took from our betters for not being better,
And left us stung and raw
And ready. At the end.
The sunfloods came, the hills all fell, and golddust rode the winds.
Our memories are cured since then.