Emptiness

Lafayette Cemetery #1
New Orleans LA

But at daybreak on the first day of the week they took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb; but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were puzzling over this, behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them. They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, “Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.” And they remembered his words.

–Luke 24:1-8

With all due respect to a certain member of the Koenig clan, this image has been persistently arising as I meditate upon the above Gospel passage during this first week of the Easter season. Encountering this empty tomb, and others like it, during a week in New Orleans last June was somewhat unnerving, yet also an unexpected exercise in resurrection faith. If I do believe in eternal life and something quite distinct from, yet somehow continuous with, the mysterious blend of body and spirit in this earthly life, then this scene shouldn't be entirely macabre. If anything, I should have identified with the puzzlement of the women referenced in Luke's account of Easter morning... they find something quite unexpected, yet recall that they had been told about this ahead of time.

My desk, sans laptop

The same sense of surprising emptiness struck me as my gaze paused upon my desk while I was back home for my lunch break, stopping in my room to brush my teeth before returning to work. Although I try to keep my desk at home relatively organized, it tends to get covered by a variety of articles– a sacramentary (for purposes of study and prayer), my running log, a few mementos, a picture of my goddaughter– in the long intervals between dusting its surface. The empty area typically occupied by my laptop– on my desk at work at the time– suddenly seemed as shockingly gaping as an empty tomb, a space from which something was missing, although in another (reasonably) expected place.

Our society doesn't seem to like emptiness. We fill our roads with vehicles (and expand them to accommodate more traffic), we fill communication devices with text and images, we fill time (often scheduling it accordingly) with activity in a way that seems to value busyness over rest. An empty shelf in the fridge or the pantry, an empty space on a desk, an empty wall in a room or an office– these all seem to suggest something not just missing, but lacking, a void to be filled. There's that old adage about nature abhoring a vacuum, and plenty of examples from the natural world to prove it true.

Flowering crabapple
College of the Holy Cross, Worcester MA

Yet everyone acquainted with Mr. and/or Mrs. Koenig, and with Jesus, would surely agree that filling the void of their respective tombs is not the ideal situation. Rather, it's the emptiness of these spaces that speak of the power, influence, and presence of those who no longer inhabit them. He is not here, the angels say to the women entering Jesus' tomb. What the emptiness yields is of unspeakable value, stirs joy that cannot be fully expressed in words and gestures alone, and accomplishes wondrous deeds. To a much smaller extent, the ideas that find expression in what I compose from that space on my desk– be those writings electronic or in the flow of ink– have some potential to enrich the lives of those who consider them. The emptiness need not be filled... for it has the paradoxical potential to fill those who find nothing there.

Ninety Seconds

Central Park South, New York NY

God seems to enjoy testing and shaping my faith by means of tight connections at Boston's South Station. Last winter, the last transfer along a return from Chicago to Worcester involved dashing into a three-minute window between the arrival of an airport shuttle and the departure of a commuter train. Yesterday, the bus I took from New York to Boston left Manhattan late, encountered some heavy traffic, and ultimately took a longer (but delay-free) route. Fortunately, at the end of my hustle from the bus station to the commuter rail platform, the train waiting there was indeed the 3:05 to Worcester, and I gladly hopped aboard with (it turned out) ninety seconds to spare. Though not quite an experience of getting caught up to heaven in a cloud– after all, I was heading to Worcester– I did experience a great deal of relief, knowing that I would arrive home in time for Mass, the community Easter dinner, and the celebration for those in the house with April birthdays.

This episode concluded, with dramatic flourish, a wonderful six-day visit to New York City for Holy Week, as well as a side trip to South Jersey to surprise my parents for Easter dinner. I'll share stories from that stretch of time soon. As those memories echoed in my thoughts and prayers during yesterday's homeward journey, I was struck by how much I enjoyed them– not only in themselves, but also as experiences that I could never have scripted. Which brings me to the major grace and insight of my latest quasi-maddening travel dash– it would have been far less fun, meaningful, and insightful an experience if I had known the outcome in advance. Think about it: would you willingly choose an itinerary that you knew would include an airport terminal steeplechase right out of a movie? Would the sense of relief that attends the successful accomplishment of a frighteningly tight connection be as strong if you knew that you would make it? And, more to the point of the trajectory of Holy Week and Easter for Jesus' disciples, would their experience of Jesus rising from the dead and appearing to them in subsequent days be as powerful, lasting, and faith-inspiring if they had known that his crucifixion and burial was not the end of the story? Paul and the other New Testament writers, in readings heard during the Easter season, speak often of God's set plan for Christ's salvific death and resurrection– a series of events suggested by prior prophecies, and also mentioned by Jesus himself both publicly and privately. Yet these same events– in all of their drama, pathos, violence, and anguish– were experienced first and most intimately by those who never read the script. Whatever they may have believed, whatever they may have felt, it seems abundantly clear that they did not know how the story would end, and that they doubted the potential for any continuation after events so stark and final as those of Good Friday.

As much as I try to schedule my days and bring order to my life's activities, I'm regularly gladdened by the surprises that God generously pens throughout the weaving plot of my spiritual journey. The varied, fluid, and sometimes messy vicissitudes with which God fills my days are far richer and more vital than their containers– the somewhat rigid structures of habit and routine that I strive to keep so neat and crisp. Thankfully, I'm the kind of person who can increasingly relish the excitement of adapting to wrinkles in my plan imposed by forces beyond my control. This Easter season, I also pray that I'll continue to become the kind of person who recognizes, with humble gratitude and cooperative acceptance, the providential influence of a wiser author whose flair for the dramatic rarely fails to instruct, entertain, and amaze me.

Holland Tunnel Entrance, New York NY