Easter Sunday 2026

Another day in the Bonus Round

There are many of us who have been dead and are now alive. I’m not one of those, but I was so close during the first weekend of March 1996, thirty years and a month ago. I know that Everyday Junglist knows what it’s like to be dead. I too had an event that convinced me that I was, in fact, dead and was experiencing what would have happened had I not died - a rather disappointing and ordinary “afterlife” as it were. That was in the summer of 2022, if I remember correctly. All of this reminds me of Revolver by the Beatles, as well as the movie Volver starring Penelope Cruz from the naughts.

Ah, but it’s Easter Sunday and getting another run at things is part of what we are doing today in the “Christian West.” There’s something fundamentally wrong with those who are calling themselves Christian and then going to war, inflicting so much suffering instead of using the tools available in our prefrontal cortexes to negotiate peacefully. We have to learn, as a species, to stop competing and start cooperating. When we cooperate, we go a lot further together than when we compete against each other. Violence is definitely not the answer. In short, we have got to get ourselves back to the garden:

When Joni Mitchell wrote this, she was not wrong. We are stardust. We understand that now. We didn’t understand our own biological chemistry until just recently, in fact. When I stroll through the gardens that are here in Washington, DC, I think about how everything that I am seeing is an effect of the DNA molecule doing it’s thing in infinite variety. I think of PRONOIA - the fact that everything in the universe has conspired to bring about this moment in time.

Let’s ponder the miracle of being for a while.

What are the chances that the two people who met at the Virginia State Archives would bring myself and my sister into being in the early 1960s. They did. It has made a difference. Here’s a short, AI-generated, biography that I posted a couple of days ago as I mused on the last days of my father two years ago.

An early post from the Harold B Gill Foundation, LLC )of which Harrowings is the publishing arm) touched upon the contributions of both of my parents:

I am, if anything, a living legacy to these two people. I remember well the Easter mornings when my sister and I were little. Finding coloring books and chocolate bunnies wrapped up in foil along with coloring easter eggs was an event every Easter Sunday. My parents were really good at meeting the expectations of kids in the 1960s. They also insured we attended Sunday School at the United Methodist Church. Things evolved in the 1970s away from such traditions as we grew up. I just remember the gentle coming of spring in Williamsburg and the exuberance of the flowers - along with the yellow fog generated by pine trees.

Now I have wandered a bit from the current state of affairs. We were insulated from the way in which our country was conducting itself in the world. We watched the news but having it contained in that box, much as our experience is now on screeens of smart phones, laptops, and TVs, somehow compartmentalized the effects we were collectively allowing to transpire. We are living now with the results of our complacency.

That may seem to be a harsh judgement, but if we are not responsible for the world we perceive, then who is? If we refuse to take meaningful action to transform the world, who will? These are not rhetorical questions.

The pleroma just served up “Bargain” by the Who:

I’d gladly lose me to find you
I’d gladly give up all I have
To find you, I’d suffer anything and be glad

I’ll pay any price just to get you
I’d work all my life, and I will
To win you, I’d stand naked, stoned and stabbed

I call that a bargain
The best I ever had
The best I ever had

I’d gladly lose me to find you
Gladly give up all I got
To catch you, I’m gonna run and never stop

I’ll pay any price just to win you
Surrendered my good life for bad
To find you, I’m gonna drown an unsung man

I call that a bargain
The best I ever had
The best I ever had

I sit lookin’ ‘round
I look at my face in the mirror
I know I’m worth nothing without you
And like one and one don’t make two
One and one make one
And I’m lookin’ for that free ride to me
I’m lookin’ for you

I’d gladly lose me to find you
Gladly give up all I got
To catch you, I’m gonna run and never stop

I’ll pay any price just to win you
Surrender my good life for bad
To find you, I’m gonna drown an unsung man

I call that a bargain
The best I ever had

The best I ever had

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Peter Dennis Blandfor Townshend

Bargain lyrics © Spirit Catalog Holdings, S.a.r.l., Fabulous Music Ltd

The key line here for me is, “I know I’m worth nothing…without you.” Knowing how Pete was inspired by his devotion to Meher Baba, this tune seems like a prayer to me. Very appropriate for Easter, it is. Yesterday, I posted an article from my iPhone that quoted a post that I saw on Facebook:

When one of my many friends on Substack mentioned that she’d known someone who started a community around the teachings of Meher Baba, I shared this with her:

From the last studio album from The Who, this has a critical line in the chorus:

….I just know that we shame Him when we kill in His name.

This can’t go on forever, this war in a ring.

Gotta bring us together, like beads on one string.

If you have read this far, I thank you for that. I hope that you will consider subscribing to Harrowings and supporting my ongoing work with a paid subscription. If not, free subscribers are welcome too. What is really helpful is amplification of my signal by restacking or quoting, particularly when accompanied by a note to your subscribers and followers. I’ll be returning the favor, to be sure!

Onward!

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