<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">Seven Stanzas at Easter</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">Make no mistake: if He rose at all</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">it was as His body;</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> the amino acids rekindle,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">the Church will fall.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">It was not as the flowers,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">each soft spring recurrent;</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> eleven apostles;</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">it was as His flesh: ours.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">The same hinged thumbs and toes,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">the same valved heart</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">that--pierced--died, withered, paused, and then regathered</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> out of enduring Might</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">new strength to enclose.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">Let us not mock God with metaphor,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> credulity of earlier ages:</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">let us walk through the door.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">not a stone in a story,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> time will eclipse for each of us</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">the wide light of day.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">And if we will have an angel at the tomb,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">make it a real angel,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> the dawn light, robed in real linen</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">spun on a definite loom.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> by the miracle,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">and crushed by remonstrance.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- John Updike</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;" class=""><br class=""></div></div></body></html>