I’ve been making masks this week. The sewing machine and ironing board took over the living room and dining table, along with bags of fabric, spools of wire, and thread, and elastic. Sewing is almost always a pleasure for me, and I tried to make it so this time, but I’ve never sewn something for such an ominous purpose. Underneath the cheerful bright fabrics lurked the searing images we’ve received this week from New York City, the UK, Europe, Africa, India. Images of human beings trying to protect themselves and others, often with the flimsiest of barriers between the invisible but potentially deadly: my breath, your breath.
This is also Holy Week, the solemn culmination of the reflective, penitential season of Lent. A season that got blindsided by a worldwide pandemic that seems nothing if not Biblical, forcing the religious and non-religious alike to give at least a passing thought to the questions, “What is going on? Why now? Why us?” The past two months have presented all of us with images and descriptions of suffering we will never, ever forget, if in fact we are fortunate enough to survive. One iconic image of this pandemic will certainly be the mask, and, if we are willing to look closer, at the eyes above it, filled with fear, exhaustion, and too much knowing.
Lent, and the journey of Holy Week in particular, is a time for Christians to face ourselves with as much honesty as possible. A time to unmask, to look within, to admit our shortcomings, to see how we can perhaps do better, and summon the courage and determination to actually do so. My own response to Holy Week always varies, and I can never quite predict how it's going to hit me. Sometimes I fight against it, feeling too weak or too belabored to be immersed in such a depressing narrative. I'm often angry at the way the story is interpreted, rejecting the evangelical notion of being "saved by the cross" and the atonement theology the Church has laid on this very human, very political story of an innocent man unjustly accused, condemned, and cruelly executed by the authoritarian powers who were threatened by his message of justice, love, inclusivity, and freedom. Other years I am swept away by it, unbothered by the parts I cannot accept, caught up in the parallels between then and now, deeply moved by the liturgies and music, willing to face the questions about human responsibility that I believe it asks of me. Occasionally, if I am able to stay within that meditative and receptive space, new insight comes. The mask with which I protect myself, the mask I always wear and present to the world, falls away, and a new face is revealed: vulnerable, expectant, grateful, willing and ready for change.
We’re all on such a journey right now, whether we are religious or not. Before we get to spring, before we get to resurrection and renewal, we are on an extremely slow, collective journey where the fundamental fact is death, and we are being forced to stop and look at it. Death stares back at us, and we tremble because we know that -- whether tomorrow or years from now -- it eventually comes for us all. But can we also fail to be humbled by the eyes that look out at us from the masked faces of the health care workers, the delivery people, the transit drivers, the janitors, the grocery clerks who continue to risk their lives on our behalf, while we shelter in our homes -- or to be humbled by the unprotected faces of the poor?
Most of us are unmasked by this experience: our leaders cannot hide their priorities and true natures -- some for better and some for worse -- and neither can we. But the question asked by Holy Week, as well as by the present situation, is not what we will do with death, when it comes, but what we will do with our lives in the midst of the uncertainty, injustice, and selfishness that are actually always with us: today, tomorrow, and every day we are here on earth. For a brief span, our masks are off, everywhere. What will we choose?
I'm always baffled by this. Pilate says he has examined Christ and has "found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him" However, it's traditional to release a prisoner at the time of the Passover. Which is it to be: Christ or the insurrectionist Barabbas? An - alas - undefined multitude chooses Barabbas.
Pilate is, apparently, well aware that "for envy... the chief priests had delivered (Christ) up" for these proceedings but that his (Pilate's) role is to act as a sort of honest broker regarding popular opinion. It could be said that this is a very light-handed form of tyranny. Yet Pilate and, by implication, the Romans are seen as domineering or, at least, connivers in the wishes of an anti-Christian priesthood. Presumably the multitude is priest-driven.
Modern-day politics wastes an awful lot of time on blame. However, given that blame plays a significant part in the rationale behind the launch of Christianity, I would appreciate a little more clarity on who deserves disapprobation. Is there, in fact, an "official" view.
On the other hand, perhaps this the wrong time to ask.
Posted by: Roderick Robinson | April 10, 2020 at 11:02 AM
Beth, your post deeply resonates with me, too deeply to express in this box but I hope we'll talk again in real life when this crisis time passes....may it pass soon! I wish you and Jonathan a peaceful Easter and much love always.
Your masks are terrific! It would lift the spirits of anyone wearing them.
Posted by: Natalie | April 12, 2020 at 08:32 AM
Thank you for this post, Beth. Thinking of you and yours.
Posted by: Rachel Barenblat | April 13, 2020 at 07:42 AM