For those of you within the Christian persuasion this is Holy Week, the week between Palm Sunday and Easter – the ‘Triumphal’ Entry of Christ into Jerusalem this past Sunday, the crucifixion of Good Friday and finally resurrection on Easter. But did you know there is a name for Saturday? That day of loss and confusion – of shattered dreams – of no idea where to turn? In some traditions it is called Black Saturday. And in some lives it seems to be playing on an endless loop.
Loss comes to us in so many different ways. I once would not have believed that there are as many shades of loss as there are shades of color, as many facets of grief as there are facets of sunlight, as much depth to mourning as there is height to love. I once would not have believed it because I had not yet experienced it.
For me it comes in the loss of my children – both literally through death and figuratively through estrangement. Different shades, different facets, different flavors, but all loss.
And the same lingering question – what now?
In the case of Easter, we have the luxury of hind sight. The whole story is already well known. Saturday only lasted Saturday. We can talk about how lost the disciples must have felt, but we talk about it with Easter Morning already established.
When you are languishing in your own Black Saturday, you have no way of knowing if it will last 3 days, 3 years, 3 eternities… no way of knowing if anything you do will help or hurt, no way of knowing if each new day brings hope or scar tissue, no way of knowing if you are allowed to seek joy alongside the grief, no way of knowing if there is an Easter for your endless loop.
Usually at this point of a blog posting, I would make a point. Offer a thought for resolution. Try to make the turn that both surprises and comforts. I even have one in mind…
In the realm of live music there is also the occurrence of an endless loop. it is called feedback. We have all heard it, that tremendously loud squawk that occurs when a microphone is in front of a speaker creating an endless loop of sound entering the mic to be amplified through the speaker to enter the mic to be amplified through the speaker to enter the mic to be amplified through the speaker, etc etc… endless loop. To end the feedback, all you need do is alter the endless loop – one inch to the left or right and the feedback stops.
But here is the rub. Here is the problem with bumper sticker answers. Here is where it just doesn’t hold up. Your Black Saturday might become Easter Sunday, it might. My endless loop might stop if I can only figure out how to move an inch to the left or right. It might.
But it might not.
Parker is not coming back. Watson might, but not as of yet. And I am tired of Black Saturday.
Confessions of a Beta Dog 