Cherry Blossoms

Come, see real
flowers
of this painful world
– Matsuo Bashō

In Japan, April is the season of hanami – the ancient tradition of “cherry blossom viewing.” This past spring, however, the parks of Tokyo were encircled by official signs that urged visitors not to indulge in the customary pleasures of eating, drinking, laughing, playing, and reading poetry under the blossoming trees. Rather, they encouraged citizens to find other, more solemn, ways to welcome spring in order to mourn properly for the 25,000+ people who had been killed or were still missing as a result of the devastating tsunami.

Inevitably, there was a counter-movement by those who believed that appreciating the spring flowers was not only an obligatory, even sacred, ritual, but an exceedingly appropriate way to respond to the tragedy. One Japanese word that speaks to this point of view is hakanasa: the sensitivity to the poignant fact that cherry blossoms – like life and beauty – are transitory, and that nature produces tsunamis, tornadoes, floods, and diseases as well as budding leaves, luminous blossoms, gorgeous sunrises, and newborn babies. A school teacher interviewed under the fragrant petals explained why she was in the park celebrating spring even in the midst of grief: “Beauty and pain exist together and can’t be separated. When you look at the cherry blossoms, there’s hakanasa in their beauty.” Many of the great Japanese haiku poets, such as Bashō, wrote about this co-mingling of beauty and sadness, and of the human yearning to not only endure it, but to perhaps even rise above it.

This spring, in our community, several Christian congregations sponsored a Lenten program on the Psalms presented by the Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann. Although he did not use the word hakanasa, Dr. Brueggemann reminded us that the experience of this co-mingling resonates throughout the Psalter. “In the Psalms,” he noted, “We ask that God do for me, for us, what God always does with chaos: God’s spirit hovers over the chaos, and blows life into it!”

The Bible is full of hakanasa stories. Consider the death of Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha. By the time his friend Jesus arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had been rotting in the tomb for four days. Martha greeted Jesus with sobs: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!” Then she added, “But even now...” In the midst of the most excruciating pain and loss, Martha sensed the possibility of a blossoming beyond her wildest hopes.

In the Church, Holy Week is our supreme moment of hakanasa. In the time of cherry blossoms, Christians meditate on the co-mingling of beauty and sadness in Jesus’ story, and ours. We begin on Palm Sunday, welcoming Jesus into our fair cities with songs, parades, and the waving of palms; but the reading of the Passion Gospel dramatically brings us face-to-face with the gathering, malevolent darkness. In the weekdays that follow, we hear stories – like Mary’s gentle anointing of Jesus’ feet with aromatic ointment, and Judas’ biting condemnation – that hold beauty and ugliness together in almost unbearable tension. On Maundy Thursday we remember the night when Jesus broke the bread and shared the cup with his friends, and knelt to wash their feet; then we recall his betrayal, arrest, and abandonment as the shadows deepen. On Good Friday, we witness and lament the humiliation, torture, and execution of Jesus, while naming other manifestations of suffering, evil, and death that haunt our world to this very day. Finally, after Holy Saturday – the “day after” of gray, washed-out nothingness – we come together one more time, on Easter Day, drawn by a flicker of hope... not that chaos and death will magically disappear, but that its power over us will somehow be swallowed up by life...

The Book of Common Prayer gives voice to our yearning: “Grant us, Lord, even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure.” God is in the midst of us as we bring our lives – just as they are, in all their wonder and all their pain – and offer them alongside the lives of our brothers and sisters. “Come,” Jesus beckons. “See real flowers of this painful world. Follow me, and you will experience for yourself the mystery of hakanasa: the way of the cross is the way of life.”

A world of grief and pain
Flowers bloom
Even then
– Kobayashi Issa