What’s in Carey Mack’s Pocket?: Peeps and a Ham
April 15th, 2007 by Carey Mack
Editor’s note: Due to a technical glitch on our end, this week’s “What’s in Carey Mack’s Pocket?” is running a week late. Enjoy.
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This week, I have peeps and ham in my pocket. I never promised that my pockets were neat and tidy.
Easter is a tricky holiday. It’s hard to explain. David Sedaris made this point better than anyone I know when he wrote about it in his book, Me Talk Pretty One Day. In a chapter titled, “Jesus Shaves,” Sedaris writes about a discussion in his French class. The conversation happened in France, in a French class, and thus in the French language. Sedaris translates the conversation into English and shares it with us. Oh, the empathy I have for him and his classmates. When I was in college, I got a D- in French. And I’ve never worked so hard for a D- in all my life. Unfortunately, the bulk of my work happened in the waning days of the semester as I frantically tried to make up for weeks — or months — of half or undone homework and vocabulary memorization, in the thin hope I could pass the class. I would, in my next degree program, take Greek. And my professor would write, “this was supposed to have been translated into English” on my final exam. Again, I might have done better if I’d spent more time studying Greek and less time watching Little House on the Prairie. To summarize, I am in no way making fun of the people in David Sedaris’s class. Sedaris writes:
The . . . class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm . . . ‘He weared of himself the long hair and after he die, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples. He nice, the Jesus.’ . . . Part of [the challenge of explaining the cornerstone of Christianity] had to do with vocabulary. Simple nouns such as cross and resurrection were beyond our grasp, let alone such a complicated reflexive phrases as ‘to give of yourself your only begotten son.’
On Easter, my job, as a preacher is to explain this — to explain this to people who are in deep grief, or are waiting for a huge epiphany, or are dragged to church by a mother who threatens to cry if they do not, or are thinking about their sister-in-law and whether or not she’s bringing the rolls, or are very jacked up on Easter candy. It’s not easy. Believing in resurrection, in life after death isn’t easy. It’s the most meaningful thing that I do, however. Die and rise. Good Friday and Easter. I’d like to say I do it every day, but I usually have to mess up a lot before I remember that that’s what works.
I like to think of it as a twelve-step program for being human. “I admitted that I was powerless over the ways in which I am human.” I need sleep. I feel things. I lose my temper. Stuff makes me laugh sometimes. I get sick. I get distracted by cute boys. And I have all these plans on how things are supposed to go.
For example, when I was in college (which I completed in four years and received a B.A. in American Studies), I was an Elementary Education major for a whole year. People who know me now find this, rightfully, appalling. Don’t get me wrong. I like kids. But it would kind of be like putting the paste eater in charge of the paste, if you get what I’m saying. I’m not a great authority figure. There would be a lot of recess. I also don’t like details. I worked as a substitute teacher for a year and, not once, did I get the milk count correct. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
I had to let that plan die, so that I could major in American Studies, which was right up my alley and allowed me to write a paper for three credits (the equivalent of a whole class) on A Prairie Home Companion. I still feel like I really got away with something huge. But it was a big deal to major in something that didn’t really have a clear vocational direction attached to it (save for academia). I needed to do it, though. And it went along with the idea that I “made a decision to turn my will [and my humanity] over to the care of God as I understood God.” It all worked out. And I didn’t feel tempted to poke out my eye with a blunt-edged scissors.
When I was in elementary school, our teachers used to ask us what we’d do if we were President. Inevitably, one person would suggest that we have soda (or pop, depending on your geography) running from the bubblers (or drinking fountains, again, depending on your cultural monikers). I am pretty sure that I was in favor of re-writing the national anthem, and giving this task to Weird Al Yankovic. I guess what I’m getting at is this – sometimes, our will isn’t what’s best. I think about this, politically, these days. As much as I want to light bags of dog poop and leave them on certain politicians’ doorsteps, and I want to do this really bad, I remember that I am a person of peace. I turn my crazy will over to God’s will. Who is really more in favor of dialogue and forgiveness.
Anne Lamott, who says more true things than just about anyone I know, and is very familiar with the recovery process, writes:
You have to give up some false stuff to get to the true . . . and you come to with that having happened. You come to. This is the Easter message, that awakening is possible, to the goodness of God, the sacredness of human life, the sisterhood and brotherhood of all . . . maybe you’ll find that it wakes us up to exhilaration and discomfort, makes us more aware than usual that we’re alive; that grace abounds and that we can cooperate with that.
And that, my friends, is the best way that I know of to explain what Easter means to me.
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