Theologians are supposed to have things to say about Easter. But my faith life has felt complicated, small, fragile lately; it has made me feel like a much older person; it seems to need protection, not to be prodded and ransacked for the right words. Theologians say too much.
Among all the made-up Easter words, only this song by Andy Gullahorn, introduced to me by David Dark, has mattered much to me this year. It’s called “Even Hell is Not a God-Forsaken Place,” based on the Eastern Orthodox tradition that Jesus spent Holy Saturday emptying hell.
In the afternoon I went to see Everything Everywhere All At Once. It’s a movie about a lot of things. For me it was about things falling inexplicably apart; about getting way too tired of trying to make it all make sense; about the Internet and the fracturing of our selves; about losing each other, about losing hope and going on anyway, about becoming humble, about what is impossible and what is merely improbable.
It was a melodramatic film and Easter is a melodramatic day. For my own melodramatic part, I feel quite often lately that I’m dropping into various universes where I’m supposed to agree that certain things matter—suppressing a sneaking suspicion that those things are actually rather arbitrary and that particular universe is on the verge of imploding.
I love the conclusions of the film, but it’s not the rebirths that are compelling to me this year.
It’s the sometimes-quieter truth that even Everywhere All At Once is not a God-forsaken place.
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