The Easter season has only just begun. It will go on for another seven weeks, and then it will go on for eternity. This poem, for me at least, captures both its magnificence and its munificence, its great grace and its hilarity. There is a laughter that comes when we are deeply relieved at having escaped a calamitous situation, at being saved from peril. The joy of Christ’s resurrection is palpable, riotous, and full of mirth. What a coup! What an outrageous upset! All is well after all!
To grind on in grim exertion, really believing that we can and must wrest the victory out of the hand of a divine opponent whose win would mean our loss, is to misunderstand everything—to have eyes that cannot see and ears that cannot hear and a heart that cannot understand.
(The poem is by Hafez, a 14th-century Persian Muslim, but the Light in it is real.)
A Thousand Serious Moves
What is the difference
Between your Existence
And that of a Saint?
The Saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God
And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move
That the Saint is now continually
Tripping over joy
And Bursting out in Laughter
And saying, “I Surrender!”
Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.
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