WHO NEEDS RESURRECTION?

     Sometimes it is too hard to believe in resurrection. Even though we see it every single spring, even though we celebrate the birds returning in April-May. And even though we can come back from a bad haircut which exposes our thinning gray hair and leaves us looking like an opossum without a tail---wait. Maybe that's not resurrection?

     As a believing Catholic and a woman of faith, I hold fast to the idea of an actual physical resurrection. Especially now as I am skidding towards "old age," although I prefer to think of myself as "seasoned," as in a well-salted and marinated piece of prime rib. As a writer friend has said, "80 isn't old age, maybe 90 is." Since she is almost 81, I totally trust her judgment.

     I refuse to contemplate retiring to a one-floor condo in Northampton for "Independent Living," or, as my hilarious husband calls them, "The I-Give-Up-Condos." Two days ago, looking out at the beautiful blue mountains bordering the Pioneer Valley, I told Rick, "I just can't leave here. I am never leaving unless it becomes impossible to live here anymore."

     Today I am in sore need of resurrection.  My body is not cooperating. Does that happen to you, too? Suddenly I have this ginormous hematoma (8" long x 3" wide and sore) on the inside of my upper right arm. What the hell caused this? And no, I am not taking Ambien, and no, I did not have sex while sleep-walking, raid the fridge, or even get into the car and drive, as my younger bro told me can happen with this drug. Could be what they call an "echymosis," which is a big bruise caused by burst capillaries, maybe from my Autonomic Nervous System disorder. (Can't you just picture Gilda Radnor doing a skit on this, racing up the wall?)

     So, in looking for resurrection in writing and the natural world, I found this wonderful piece about bats, in my favorite book to read aloud; "All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings," by Gayle Boss, illustrated by David G. Klein (Paraclete Press, 2016).

     Did you know that bats' wings are "thinner than the thinnest-spun silk?" When they huddle together for warmth in a cave at about 42 degrees, every 3 weeks they rise up from their almost-dead torpor and fly around the cave, ridding their bodies of toxins and licking water drops from their fur. Then, "They settle back into a furred mass and fall again through the shaft of stillness, stopping just shy of oblivion's floor." Now THAT is good writing!

     Doesn't this make your heart almost stop and breath stutter with the sheer, utter tensile beauty of these words?  Sometimes I find my will falters to keep going, be brave, suck it up and kick ass. Sometimes a sob fest in the car with nose blowing and a compassionate husband is just what you need. But beauty sustains me, reminds me of God's creation, and the shimmering wonder of this world we live in. We are not held in Trump's corrupt hands; we are held, nourished, loved, and created by our God.

 I think God may well be a very large black woman in purple robes looking at us with compassion, sighing, and saying, "Honey, I did something remarkable when I made this ball of sea, land, fog, and sky. And you. You are remarkable as well. I am holding you right now, can you feel me?"