Easter Postscript

On Friday, I wrote about how the instruments of municipal authority had conspired to ruin Easter for a number of God-fearing folks throughout the five boroughs.  The missive gave me the opportunity to rail against several of my white whales in one shot: godless bureaucrats, the annual horror movie that is the Five Boro Bike Tour, and the permanent hole in Creation that is the BQE.      

With those feelings off my chest and onto the page, Friday evening started to brighten up.  By that time, we were getting ready to go to church for Good Friday services, which is always a solemn and meaningful experience.  We were also blessed that our oldest son arrived home from college just in time to join us to go to church that night—after months apart, there is nothing more special than having the whole family together again.   

For those unfamiliar with the Holy Friday night service in the Orthodox Church, the highlight is the outdoor procession around the church.  Everyone leaves the church and walks outside behind the Epitaphios (Plashchanitsa in Russian), which is a wooden altar adorned with flowers.  Inside is a rectangular cloth symbolizing the tomb, or shroud, of Jesus after the crucifixion.

Since we are in Brooklyn, and there are hundreds of people who attend church that night, the procession extends for several blocks in each direction.  While we were in the middle of the mass of people walking through the neighborhood streets, everyone holding candles, my oldest son walked besides me and asked me a question:

It looks like they closed a good chunk of 3rd Avenue, huh?

Yeah, at least three or four blocks.

And 86th Street, too?

Yes, why?

Well, because I know you like to write about how the city closes off streets and everything...

Touché.  He’s applying for law school in the fall.

On Saturday, despite a fulfilling Good Friday experience, some of the bad feelings started to reemerge.  It started when I was watching the news that morning and they reported on how Sunday was the annual Five Boro Bike Tour.  The line that really set me off was this: 

“Bike New York, the nonprofit that manages the tour, says it’s the largest charitable bike ride in the world, with the proceeds funding…

[Wait for it]

free bike education programs.”

Free bike education programs?  They close the whole city for that?! And what the hell does that even mean, “bike education?”  You get on the bike and you pedal!

During the afternoon, we started to hear about a lot of people we know who had their Easter plans ruined because of the road closures.  Our neighborhood, Bay Ridge, is right on the Brooklyn side of the Verrazzano Bridge, which connects Brooklyn to Staten Island.  Almost everyone was either going to visit — or have guests visit from — Staten Island.  This includes my brother-in-law.  Guess what they close for the Five Boro Bike Tour: the Verrazzano Bridge.

The blood started the boil.

At 11:30 p.m., we put on our Easter suits for the last time and walked to church for the midnight service.  I was tired and worn out—well past my bedtime—but looking forward to eating an Easter meal after church.  It’s one of my favorite Greek traditions, right up there next to leaving church right after midnight (to eat). 

Lent and Holy Week do take it out of you, especially if you engage in some combination of fasting and going to church.  As one of my favorite writers, Paul Kingsnorth, has observed, “A feast without a fast is a strange, half-finished thing.”  Those Greek meatballs (Keftedes) were going to be delicious. 

Then it happened.  The massive crowd had gathered outside the church.  The lights went off inside.  One lighted candle emerged from the church and that flame was passed along to the hundreds of people outside.  The priest, Father Gerasimos, stood at the top of the stairs and read from the Gospel of Luke.  “Why do you seek the living among the dead?  He is not here, but is risen!”

Father Gerasimos cried out, “Christos Anesti!”  “Christ is Risen!”  The people cried back, “Alithos Anesti!” “Truly He is Risen!”

Father Gerasimos, always naturally wired to lament the state of the world, spoke to the crowd.  He was ebullient.  He was hopeful.  Instead of openly wondering why the hundreds of people who show up to church on Easter are so rarely in church during the rest of the year, which is not necessarily wrong but would have been out of place, he remarked how beautiful it was to have everyone together, how only by seeking and experiencing the love of God could we hope to approach fulfillment and joy in our lives, and that if we truly love our children and want what’s best for them, which we do, that we allow them to experience a spiritual life in the Church.       

Then the best part.  It was already well after midnight.  Certainly everyone who wasn’t an Orthodox Christian in the neighborhood was already asleep.  But that didn’t stop anybody. The fireworks went off.  Boom!  Boom!  Colorful fiery lights shot off into the sky over the church.  Boom!  Boom!  Just like it happened in the Bible.  They echoed throughout the neighborhood, setting off car alarms on distant blocks. The Grucci Brothers would have high-fived each other.    

My family all looked at each other and laughed.  What on Earth must everyone else be thinking right now?  And then my wife said, almost to herself “that’s for the bike tour.” 

This was indeed a pyrotechnic “fuck you” if there ever was one.   Countless exploding middle fingers vaporizing into the night sky.

Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!

Христос воскресе!

Christ is Risen!