Messed-up Lent and Messed-up Pascha

This has been a messed-up Lent and now we’re headed for a messed-up Pascha. There’s no other way to say it. I have been frustrated by a lack of sources of inspiration for how to deal with a Lent and Pascha like this one, stuck at home, not going to church, not going to Communion. Most years as Pascha is approaching, people start sharing “Pascha in Dachau,” a first-hand account by an Orthodox prisoner in a German concentration camp liberated a few days before Pascha in 1945. It’s an inspiring story of coming together to celebrate the Resurrection no matter what the conditions. Greek, Serb and Russian priests and monks turned towels in to vestments and sang the Paschal Matins from memory. Most years that story gives me chills with how amazing it was, but this year not so much. And the problem isn’t who had it worse (they, obviously) but’s it feels like an apples-and-oranges comparison, with me feeling like an ugly, lonely turnip. A theme of coming together no matter what doesn’t help much in a year when your priest and bishop are telling you to stay home no matter what, no “heroes” allowed to “tough it out,” as they’re warning that the church’s liability insurance could be revoked if we hold a gathering and then we would lose the property to a lawsuit if the bug went around.

So what are we, recluses and hermits? No, monks are only allowed to engage in that kind of struggle after years in their monasteries and only under the supervision of the abbot.

Are we catacombs Christians? During long services, I used to look around at other parishioners and wonder how many of us would stick with it if we were persecuted, put to flight. I looked over them and thought some pretty judgmental thoughts: This recent immigrant is here for Old Country nationalism, that new convert likes the priest who educated him but will be gone the instant a new one is assigned. This woman, dressed up like she could host Good Morning America is here to be the most stylish in church, that extrovert is here because it’s fun to talk people’s ears off at coffee hour. Take away their superficial reasons for coming to church and what’s left? In me, not much. I’ve become despondent, having a difficult time praying, feeling darned grumpy about being stuck in my cluttered bedroom watching services streamed on-line. I’d make the worst catacombs Christian ever.

Are we disaster helpers? That’s one of the things that helped establish the early church, that Christians fed people during famines when the Romans had given up on them. In this disaster, shouldn’t we be visiting the elderly, the sick? Three weeks ago, I called one of my college professors, who’s retired and in his 80s. He spent the whole call trying to convince me to come visit, but I kept saying, sorry, prof, I’m not supposed to, that’s why you’re getting the phone call. Last week, his daughter died of COVID-19. And I’m still not visiting, but sending flowers, hoping the FTD delivery person wears a mask.

A statement I’ve seen go around on social media lately is “This is the Lentiest Lent I’ve ever Lented,” which I don’t find inspiring at all. I’ve been to church three times this Lent and haven’t been to one Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. What were these people who call this “Lentiest” doing last year, having rock concerts of 300 people on their front lawns on Sunday mornings where people licked each other’s faces? No, this is a messed-up Lent and a messed-up Pascha, and I’ve spent a long time trying to think of something that compares.

And, I have, sort of, and that’s why I’ve written this essay. And it’s this: Baptism is our personal Pascha (dying and rising again) and Chrismation is our personal Pentecost (the gift of the Holy Spirit). And I know someone who had a messed-up Baptism: my son. Born at 22 weeks and 6 days of gestation and weighing 1 pound, 6 ounces, I baptized him myself with a syringe of sterile water in the delivery room. I read the “Brief Form of Baptism” from page 34 of the Small Book of Needs. It was the only time I’ve baptized someone and I have ever since been worried I’d messed it up somehow. There was no priest, no choir, no cake, no godparents, no special suit for the baby. It was a messed-up personal Pascha.

And then the thing we had to look forward to was his Chrismation, his personal Pentecost, which we knew would be many months away if it happened. And in the meantime, there was no Communion for him. If he made it, we could celebrate and have a cake, and dress him in a suit and have godparents.

I’m hopeful for some kind of change to the social distancing rules over the next seven weeks so we can do something on Pentecost. Or for St. John the Forerunner. Or Peter and Paul. Or Dormition. Or Exaltation of the Cross (although that might not be as fun on a strict fast day). Or whenever it is that darned “curve on the graph” starts to go down. But the point is we have to stick it out to the end, whenever that might be.

Our son did eventually get to have his Chrismation, although it took the priests a while to sort out the service order for an infant who’d been baptized five months earlier. And now he’s an active reader and bicyclist, proof that it is possible to have a messed-up Pascha and a good Pentecost.

Rey's backstory (lots of spoilers)

I went to the premiere of Star Wars and felt like I was 12 again, in awe of this children's hero adventure story. And then I got home at 2 a.m. and woke up the next morning with an awful headache and a sore throat and remembered that staying up late is not as easy as it used to be.

The question that the movie leaves everyone with, however, is, who is Rey? She's an awesome main character, but her family background is unknown. She doesn't have memories before a certain point in childhood, but she simply believes that her family is coming back to the desert planet where she scavenges parts from crashed Star Destroyers.

There's all these hints throughout the movie as to whose daughter she is. In the first half, it seems to be pointing to Han Solo being her father and Leia being her mother, and there's several reasons to think this:

• He seems to recognize her once she says her name, they get along great, which is interesting because at first he thinks she's stolen his favorite spaceship. 
• She's a whiz at fixing the Millenium Falcon, no small feat considering that an entire movie was driven by its mechanical failures. 
• When Kylo Ren is interrogating her with the Force, he says, "You feel like Han Solo is the father you never had." 

But, then, the second half of the movie tries to convince you that Luke is her father and an unknown Mrs. Skywalker is her mother:

• She touches Luke Skywalker's lightsaber, and has a vision of what appears to be Luke's memories. 
• When she's getting interrogated by Kylo Ren, he says she keeps seeing an island on a huge ocean, which is, indeed, where she finds Luke Skywalker at the end of the movie, implying a connection. 
• When she takes the lightsaber to fight with Kylo Ren, John Williams' amazing score overlays Rey's theme on top of Luke's theme.
• R2-D2 perks up at the end and displays the remainder of the map only when Rey is at the Resistance base, making you think that he has recognized her.

In either case, she's got amazing abilities in the Force despite the fact she's never been trained, so she's got to be some famous Jedi's daughter.

So, which is it?

I think, neither. I contend that both are Red Herrings. I think Rey was a student in Luke's Skywalker's Jedi academy at the time of the massacre, and the memories that were conjured up by touching the lightsaber were actually hers. The connection between Luke and Rey is teacher-student. Her parents were likely not major characters we have seen before, they're probably dead, and Luke likely used the Force to suppress her memories as he dropped her off on his way to exile. Maybe at the time of the massacre, she did something Dark to save Luke and prevent complete destruction, and Luke thought that wiping her memories was the only way to keep her from developing on the Dark side.

Here's why I think this:

• Given her skills with the lightsaber and using Jedi mind tricks, she must have had some training, she just doesn't remember getting them. Not even Anakin and Luke were that good with the Force before meeting other Jedis.
• When Leia hugs her at the end, it's warm, I think she recognizes Rey, but she most definitely does not look like a mother seeing her long-lost daughter. Or niece, for that matter. And, I really don't see Leia leaving a relative isolated like that.
• I just don't see Luke violating the Jedi rule of celibacy. 
• The parent-child thing has been used twice in the series already, and it's been pretty good, but I don't see it working well a third time.
• Kylo Ren seemed to recognize her, too, but didn't have quite the family-complicated-issues attitude he had with Han, which makes me think they were classmates.

Ok, so what do others think?

Unrelated complaint: Being suckered in by the marketing juggernaut that is Star Wars, I ordered the John Williams soundtrack on Amazon to come to my house. Which it did. But my absolute favorite musical moment from the movie, which I mentioned above, was not on it. Track 20, "The Ways of the Force," does include the music from that last lightsaber battle, but not the part where Rey takes the lightsaber and her theme is overlaid on top of Luke's theme, which was awesome. ARRRGH! The rest of the soundtrack is awesome, but I think I deserve at least $.50 of my $13.99 back for that.

p.p.s. The part where James Bond is fooled by a Jedi mind trick was awesome.

Here's a talk I gave at the beginning of the month on our experience and preemie policies:



For more information, please visit my main blog at http://theydontcry.wordpress.com

Preemie Blog!

My primary blog these days is http://theydontcry.wordpress.com

There, I write about premature babies and the bioethical dilemma faced by preemies born at the very edge of viability. In our case, our son was born at 22 weeks and 6 days of gestation, and the doctors did not want to treat him. I've been organizing a letter-writing and article-writing campaign to get hospitals and doctors to be more willing to treat him. Click on the above link for more information on that.

Onion Dome article!

Here's a humor article I wrote that The Onion Dome published called "Rules for Dating Our Orthodox Son."

For those of you who don't know, The Onion Dome's intent is satire / parody for Orthodox Christians who like humorous writing on religion, so it's not meant to be serious.