Sunday Sermon

I found the joy that I have been looking for, keening for really, on the back of my father's harley on Easter Sunday. I have ridden those roads a thousand times. They are all grey now, in this season. Grey grass, grey bare tree limbs, grey houses, grey birds, grey squirrels, yet this time of year has a special gift to be discovered. Looking through the tree branches, without leaves, allows one to dive completely into the sky. The view is expansive only in this time of year. I held onto my father's thin ribcage as he accellerated to 70 miles an hour.  I could speak into his ear, and he could turn his head against the wind and give me short replies.

I told him how angry I am about everything. I see injustice and brokeness piling up higher and higher around me. In everything I see unfairness and suffering in others. I am not blind to the suffering of others. Instead, I am deluged by it. Injustice has become a crashing, directorless symphony, banging on cymballs and sawing on cellos.  In observing the ant I see the suffering of carrying a weight ten times greater than the small ants whole body. I see unfair in the road, in my shoes, in the passing cars...injustice, robbery, pain, rape. Why is the universe like this? Why have I lost my ability to ignore it enough to breathe and laugh and discover joy?

We climb higher up the mountain, and we have to slow down because the road reveals gravelly curves. More dangerous. The houses, like anything else on the planet, fall away and are being reabsorbed by nature. We pass herds of goats in front yards. We pass cows. I hurt for the cows.  Who ever gave a passing thought to cows while speeding by on a motorcycle? Who on earth hurts for the cows on a sunny Easter sunday?

Maybe my ache is a bad habit I cannot break. I was taught at one point that one must focus on the positive, not the negative. Maybe I have felt negative so much that even on a lovely day I am attracting negative static like a magnetic human radio tower. Maybe I just need to quit, like biting nails or smoking cigarettes.

Under leaveless branches, we climb until a spectacular vista unfolds before us. I can see into the next state. I can see more than one mountain range. I can see tiny houses with tiny solar panels. I can see that I am trying to control something that is not mine to control. I am trying to steer a ship that is too large for me even to conceptualize, yet alone steer. I am trying to fix what is not mine to correct.

It is not my job to right all of the wrong, to feel all of the pain, to stop all of the injustice. It is my job to extend compassion to my own capacity. Stop. Take that in another time. It is my job to extend compassion to my own capacity. That is all.

I relax into the next curve. The sky is strong and securely above me. The spring is coming without any help at all from me. The sun and wind are exhilerating and nature is in full celebration of the new season's arrival. My father is driving, and I trust in him to keep me safe. That is enough. Yes, all the suffering is still there, but so too is the hooray of the tiny flowers my father calls,"Spring Beauties." On the back of a motorcycle, on Easter, I rediscover faith.