A Meaningless Easter Sunday

Journal Excerpt: April 12th, 2020

I am once again struggling to find some solid ground. My friend asked me if I could text her sentences that answered the question “Why did Jesus die,” and I couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t dark and depressing.

This Easter, I’m remind of a Jesus who held his life so lightly, with so little attachment that letting it slip through his fingers was a natural progression. He died to remind me that it is okay that nothing has a purpose or meaning. That it’s okay to lean into this brutal truth because it teaches us that no one is more important than anyone else. That we all battle this sense of meaninglessness. That most of us cling to order, organized religion, the ego trip of needing to save everyone just to make it through the goddamned day.

Of course, we do. Of course. Can I blame them? I am starting into the abyss and it’s enough to make me want to give up.

But Jesus died to show me I don’t have to. That my life can be joy instead of striving, that I can trade my aching desire to leave something behind that matters for freedom, hope, joy, peace… hope that perhaps it’s only an abyss on this side of it. Hope that perhaps this sense of meaninglessness is the thing I’ve been searching for so long. Have I finally arrived?

It has always been my ego that has wanted “to leave something behind,” “to leave a legacy,” “to do something with my life.” Because if I live this long life, at the very least there will be something left of me when I’m gone.

But Blaire, there is nothing you could leave behind that could possibly last. This is such a fragile existence, so small against time and space and the eternity of God. I mean, it’s nothing. Nothing, do you hear? So it’s okay to stop. You can give yourself to the flow, content to live and die.

To live and to die, and nothing more.

What am I grateful for this Easter Sunday morning? I am so happy that I’ve tasted freedom for now I know that whatever lies around the brutal corner will be more freedom. The voice has never failed me, it has always pushed me forward with the utmost tenderness and love. I’m so grateful to it for being the steady surety in a world… in a life with very little surety, very little steadfastness.

……….

The voice: You are here because it is my great joy for you to exist. Eventually, you will remember it and it will become your great joy too.