What’s the deal with men and Flannery O’Connor?

Also, what’s the deal with Coldplay? So much wailing and beats I can barely think straight.

Today is Easter Sunday. A beautiful, hopeful, beautifully hopeful day of TANGIBLE happiness.

No more of this “I vaguely remember happiness existing once in my life…I think it sort of feels the way I feel when I have a pound of baklava and a new fresh book about South America with a killer cover…is this what happiness is? Was it this anticlimactic?”

No. Now happiness has a smell (incense) attached, a sound (“Jesus Christ is Risen Today”) attached, a feeling (hope) attached.

Hope takes up a lot of energy, and it’s been frustrating to me lately.

YEAH I KNOW IT WILL GET BETTER, GUYS!!! BUT HOW ABOUT MY LIFE RIGHT NOW!!

I want to feel better NOW.

NOW!!!

But today it felt effortless. 50 days of Easter, whether I want it or not. 50 days of tangible hope. 50 days of hope as not something abstract in the future, but as happiness right now.

NOW!!!

Guatemala was a week of tangible happiness for me. Such a delightful foretaste of Easter’s hope. I felt as alive as I possibly could. I felt the Mariest Mari can be. I felt heavy with possibility, with wonder, with promise for all the lovely life that lay ahead.

Once upon a time I went to Italy and met a magical woman who lived in a little red house that used to be a stable and now has a kelly green kitchen where the woman makes tea. One day I went to her house, sad and weepy, frustrated and lonely, homesick and crestfallen. She made me some soup out of beans and held my hand and hugged me in her big warm sweater. I felt so good in her big warm sweater arms, and I felt a wave of relief when she offered to pray for me.

She prayed for me, and she prayed for my friend Megan. For both of us, for both our sorrowful hearts. At the end, she told us that she got visions of us while she prayed.

For Megan, dancing before the Lord!

For me, she thought it might be embarassing to hear. I said “No please tell me anyway.” And she finally revealed, “I saw a peach! A big ripe succulent juicy peach!”

Every moment wherein I feel Mari to the Max, the most Mari I can be, the Mari wherein I am not wishing I were skinnier, prettier, smarter, faster, more graceful, better at Spanish…these are the moments I feel heavy like that big ripe succulent juicy peach, heavy with all the blessings God continously lavishes me with in abundant quantities. I feel all those juices and all that delight just ready to burst out to delight the partaker, who wants nothing else than a peach while beholding it. Who wants even a CHEESECAKE when you have a peach of the ripest, most succulent variety? If a peach is all that a peach can be, who would want anything else? What else would a peach want?

In Guatemala I felt very peach-like.

This morning I felt very peach-like.

Wanting nothing. Being everything.

What do Guatemala and Easter have in common? I must find it, and find a way to put it in my everyday life.

Perhaps it is good food. For one thing.