“Inebriate of Air – am I –
And Debauchee of Dew – “
That’s how I felt on waking on this perfect Easter Day in Dayton - the way Emily Dickinson describes it.
And yet, and yet, I find myself in the middle of this delight, thinking of a young man who knocked at my door yesterday morning. He was about eighteen years old, a college student, who announced that he was part of a group of students who had started a house-painting business, and that he was knocking on doors in my neighborhood in search of work. He had a well-organized presentation; a printed hand-out; a hopeful, respectable manner; and that Ohio face.
I myself couldn’t use his service, for I had recently painted my house. Most of the houses in my neighborhood, which is poor, are owned by slumlords who will not put a penny into maintaining their properties unless you seriously threaten to take them to court. I tried to tell this young man about the house three doors down from me that really badly needs painting. I told him the name of the guy who owns it, a “respectable” lawyer here in the city, who made the excuse to me for the shabbiness of his property that “My wife told me not to put any money into that house.” The dearest little five-year-old girl and her mother live there, by the way.
The young man didn’t acknowledge what I was saying, and as presentable as he was, I could see that he didn’t really care what I was saying, either. He had this uncomfortable look on his face as I was talking, and most likely thought I was an eccentric and an old fool. Ohio!
My heart went out to him nonetheless. I felt for the two-hundredth time in my life that old question of how it is that anyone can bring a child into a world like this. But then, for the two-hundredth time I came to see that the message of Easter is true – “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” is followed with appreciation of how much better it is all designed than we could have imagined.
There is this simply astonishing Psalm, #22, that begins with those exact cries of those who feel forsaken, but ends with words, “They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.”
