(no subject)
So this is Part Two of my long Holy Saturday. This is really the more exciting part. It's got God, a cute girl and me getting literally weak in the knees.
When I stay awake for too long, there is a very specific progression of ailments that afflict me. The first thing I feel is a dull ache in my ankles and wrists. This started to set in at about 2pm. It's nothing big, a long day at Disneyland can give me the same ache in the ankles. After this, though, especially without proper nutrition, the muscles in my upper legs and arms begin to get extremely tired. I started feeling it at about five or five thirty. These muscles get progressively more tired until, as I get out of the car, fifteen minutes before Mass is to start, I discover I am unable to jump.
It's a strange discovery to make. My legs are fine with the standing and the walking and even some limited running, but they absolutely refuse to make me go up. I discover that my legs refuse to jump halfway through a jump. My left leg is in the air, and my weight is on my right leg which is bent and ready to propel me up and onto the curb. It is in this precarious position that I realize I no longer have the capacity to move myself along the y-axis. I tumble forward onto the lawn, mustering enough balance to keep from falling down completely and getting grass strains on my pants. I decide to take things easier.
As I enter the sacristy, I see that T., the cute lector about whom I've written before, is also to be one of the lectors. Easter Vigil is a big, important Mass, and there can be as many as eight different readings from the Bible, not including the Gospel reading. Tonight, we only have four, there are two other lectors in addition to T. and me.
I should mention another side effect of staying up late, light-headedness. It's a lot like being slightly drunk at a party. I do not know whether or not this helps me to initiate a conversation with T., but I don't think it hurts. We stand around joking for about fifteen minutes, waiting for the Mass to start. The main subject of many of the jokes was me being liable to collapse at any moment. Since we were standing around a big fire holding the Book of the Gospel, this would have been bad. I found out that she's actually twenty-seven (I would have sworn she was younger), and went to CSUN. We we also confused about who read at last years Easter Vigil Mass. Both of us remember reading, but neither of us remembers the other being there.
The conversation was relaxed, between two people who, although they don't know much about each other are used to each other's presence. It was a nice conversation. A good conversation. A non-cowardly conversation. All is good.
Eventually the Mass began. The entire church was dark and the congregation entered slowly and silently, each member carrying a lighted taper. A brief song, a brief prayer, and I was up.
Now, you may not know this, but the Bible is old. Really old. Even the new parts have almost two thousand years on them. Old words have a lot of power in them, and I was reading the granddaddy of them all. If you're not part of the tree of Abrahamic religions, if you you've never seen the Bible in your life, you still probably know the highlights of this reading. In the beginning . . ." "Let there be light!" "Be fruitful and multiply." All of the big guns in one reading.
The church was still dark, lit only by the many candles. I was full of adrenaline, which undoubtedly helped to keep me from falling down. At the lectern, a small booklight had been added so that I would be able to read. I opened the book. The bookmark had been laid at the beginning of the "short form" of the reading, which excerpt reduces the whole of creation to "God made Man in the image of God." I page back to the "long form," Genesis Uncut. I think that I vaguely hear someone whisper, "Aren't we supposed to do the short form?" and I begin.
I'd practiced the reading, but as I was standing in front of scores of people in the dark reading these old words, standing up on adrenaline alone, still slightly buzzed from staying awake and talking to a cute girl, I started to get carried away. I could feel the excitement, the joy, the wonder of creating the entire universe, and then seeing that it was good. From a slow, somber, important beginning, BEGINNING, VOID, ABYSS, LIGHT!, I started to get faster, and faster. Each day brought more and more things with more and more variety. halfway through I noticed I was using "the ladder," raising the pitch of my voice a half-step every time I reached an important change in the text.
Certain revelations seem to only come during "the moment," whatever the moment happens to be. As I led this great crescendo of birth, I could see how it all connected. Each day, more complex, more magnificent things, until finally, the ultimate, Man, in the ancient, capitalized, every-sentient-being meaning of the word. And then, showing the extreme wisdom of God, He kicks back for a while and just goes, "Cool."
I sat down, and everything after that kind of compressed into one very long, not very well organized blur. T. read the epistle of Paul, and did a very good job. My friend Eric was baptized, prompting him to shout WOO! as he got deluged with three heavy buckets of holy water. And the Mass went on and on while my family and friends amused themselves watching me and keeping track of how well I stayed awake.
When the end was finally reached, I made sure to say goodbye to T., who seemed to be very amenable to the idea of getting coffee together. If I hadn't been so completely wiped out when I asked, I probably would feel confident enough to drive over to where she works and ask her out. For that matter, if I hadn't been so completely wiped out, I would have gone to the reception and chatted her up a bit more. As it was, I got my father to drive me home, where I fell onto my bed and slept.
When I stay awake for too long, there is a very specific progression of ailments that afflict me. The first thing I feel is a dull ache in my ankles and wrists. This started to set in at about 2pm. It's nothing big, a long day at Disneyland can give me the same ache in the ankles. After this, though, especially without proper nutrition, the muscles in my upper legs and arms begin to get extremely tired. I started feeling it at about five or five thirty. These muscles get progressively more tired until, as I get out of the car, fifteen minutes before Mass is to start, I discover I am unable to jump.
It's a strange discovery to make. My legs are fine with the standing and the walking and even some limited running, but they absolutely refuse to make me go up. I discover that my legs refuse to jump halfway through a jump. My left leg is in the air, and my weight is on my right leg which is bent and ready to propel me up and onto the curb. It is in this precarious position that I realize I no longer have the capacity to move myself along the y-axis. I tumble forward onto the lawn, mustering enough balance to keep from falling down completely and getting grass strains on my pants. I decide to take things easier.
As I enter the sacristy, I see that T., the cute lector about whom I've written before, is also to be one of the lectors. Easter Vigil is a big, important Mass, and there can be as many as eight different readings from the Bible, not including the Gospel reading. Tonight, we only have four, there are two other lectors in addition to T. and me.
I should mention another side effect of staying up late, light-headedness. It's a lot like being slightly drunk at a party. I do not know whether or not this helps me to initiate a conversation with T., but I don't think it hurts. We stand around joking for about fifteen minutes, waiting for the Mass to start. The main subject of many of the jokes was me being liable to collapse at any moment. Since we were standing around a big fire holding the Book of the Gospel, this would have been bad. I found out that she's actually twenty-seven (I would have sworn she was younger), and went to CSUN. We we also confused about who read at last years Easter Vigil Mass. Both of us remember reading, but neither of us remembers the other being there.
The conversation was relaxed, between two people who, although they don't know much about each other are used to each other's presence. It was a nice conversation. A good conversation. A non-cowardly conversation. All is good.
Eventually the Mass began. The entire church was dark and the congregation entered slowly and silently, each member carrying a lighted taper. A brief song, a brief prayer, and I was up.
Now, you may not know this, but the Bible is old. Really old. Even the new parts have almost two thousand years on them. Old words have a lot of power in them, and I was reading the granddaddy of them all. If you're not part of the tree of Abrahamic religions, if you you've never seen the Bible in your life, you still probably know the highlights of this reading. In the beginning . . ." "Let there be light!" "Be fruitful and multiply." All of the big guns in one reading.
The church was still dark, lit only by the many candles. I was full of adrenaline, which undoubtedly helped to keep me from falling down. At the lectern, a small booklight had been added so that I would be able to read. I opened the book. The bookmark had been laid at the beginning of the "short form" of the reading, which excerpt reduces the whole of creation to "God made Man in the image of God." I page back to the "long form," Genesis Uncut. I think that I vaguely hear someone whisper, "Aren't we supposed to do the short form?" and I begin.
I'd practiced the reading, but as I was standing in front of scores of people in the dark reading these old words, standing up on adrenaline alone, still slightly buzzed from staying awake and talking to a cute girl, I started to get carried away. I could feel the excitement, the joy, the wonder of creating the entire universe, and then seeing that it was good. From a slow, somber, important beginning, BEGINNING, VOID, ABYSS, LIGHT!, I started to get faster, and faster. Each day brought more and more things with more and more variety. halfway through I noticed I was using "the ladder," raising the pitch of my voice a half-step every time I reached an important change in the text.
Certain revelations seem to only come during "the moment," whatever the moment happens to be. As I led this great crescendo of birth, I could see how it all connected. Each day, more complex, more magnificent things, until finally, the ultimate, Man, in the ancient, capitalized, every-sentient-being meaning of the word. And then, showing the extreme wisdom of God, He kicks back for a while and just goes, "Cool."
I sat down, and everything after that kind of compressed into one very long, not very well organized blur. T. read the epistle of Paul, and did a very good job. My friend Eric was baptized, prompting him to shout WOO! as he got deluged with three heavy buckets of holy water. And the Mass went on and on while my family and friends amused themselves watching me and keeping track of how well I stayed awake.
When the end was finally reached, I made sure to say goodbye to T., who seemed to be very amenable to the idea of getting coffee together. If I hadn't been so completely wiped out when I asked, I probably would feel confident enough to drive over to where she works and ask her out. For that matter, if I hadn't been so completely wiped out, I would have gone to the reception and chatted her up a bit more. As it was, I got my father to drive me home, where I fell onto my bed and slept.