A young pastor sat next to me on Thursday
as we remembered the last supper, the betrayal
and we ate soup together in silence,
the agape meal it's called
he was there for his dose of old church
his feet were washed by our priest.
On Good Friday,
young Coleman, my oldest,
went through his yellow belt test,
an hour and a half of suffering for a little guy
but at the end, I got to tie a yellow belt around his waist
nice and tight, proper, it's one of the only things
I'm really good at.
On Saturday Christ lay dead in his tomb,
the apostles scattered in fear and doubt.
He was descending to the dead
while I spent all day putting new brake pads
on my fussy little German car,
with metric hex bolts and no room for error
I was on my back for a lot of it,
inhaling the fumes of brake cleaner.
I missed the vigil that night and turned down
an invitation to drink home brew with my friend
because I wasn't done with that project
until 9 o'clock. My hands ached.
On Easter Sunday, we went to the church
and sat in the packed pews. Many were there
out of cultural tradition or obligation.
Next week we'll be back to the regular numbers,
the boys will wonder where the kids they met went.
Our priest delivered a sermon
about how we are colonized by the imagination of the world
and Jesus was God's imagination
colonizing the world, inviting us into the great story.
He lost about ninety percent of the room
but they weren't there to hear about discipleship
or dying to the world.
When the choir sang, before the Eucharist,
my youngest sat on my lap with his hands in prayer
and told us, "This is how God hears us,"
he's always been spiritually gifted, and prone to ritual
it's why he's good at karate at such a tiny age.
That night, we ate an Easter dinner that I cooked.
When we prayed over the food,
my youngest held his eyes closed tight, with strong virtue
"Let us be always mindful of the needs of others,"
I recited.
