Shredded for Easter

I am in shredded condition this Easter—not shredded as in abs or physique, but in the way of old or sensitive documents: mutilated, destroyed, ripped apart, and stripped of essence. I have been affected physically. Spiritually, I am not far behind, as the two are connected. That, after all, is the point of Easter.

The shredding doesn’t involve me personally, but rather my belongings. It stems from a funeral I recently attended and a prized Arabian saddlebag I’ve had for years—crafted from goat hair and adorned with small decorative conch shells. You know, there’s something comforting about being reminded of the sea when you’re baking in the desert. I plan to leave it to one of my lucky daughters when the time comes.

My son-in-law’s mother passed away unexpectedly, so I went to the closet to retrieve my dark wool Italian suit. I wear it only for funerals or for meetings in Washington, D.C.—though I don’t actually have meetings there. But everyone in D.C. wears dark suits, even in summer, as if they were part of the Secret Service. So, it had been a while since I last wore it.

For some reason, I had stored the jacket in a cedar-scented closet, which I had learned to do with wool, but kept the pants elsewhere. The jacket was fine. But when I pulled out the pants, they hung in tattered shreds on the hanger, devoured by moths that apparently couldn’t resist dancing too close to the flame.

As Marlene Dietrich asked, “Who is to blame?” Well, I am. Why I didn’t store the entire suit together is anyone’s guess. A friend of mine believes I like to sabotage myself, but I’ll leave that alone. Whether true or not, I was still left with half a suit. Let’s call it a pair. I had to improvise but pulled it off without a hitch.

Speaking of hitches, the saddlebag, while still a shredding, wasn’t as calamitous. I was able to rescue it in time. I kept it in a cool, dry place in the in-law unit in the backyard. Still, I noticed insect waste on the floor, worn threads, and even a tassel that had fallen off the bag from being chewed. Yes, tassels–you can’t have little conches without tassels.

I swept up the remains of the day left behind by the fiendish lepidoptera and set the saddlebag out in the sun, recalling something about Vladimir Nabokov. Moths fascinated the famous author. I like to think it was because he could collect them and impale them on a corkboard. I admit, I could be projecting here. That’d certainly be my motivation, if not exactly his. In any case, the saddlebag is also headed for a rapid cedar embalming. Cedar rapids embalming?

Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten.

James 5:2

In addition to the New Testament warning in James above, other scriptural references address moths, worms, shredding, and corruption. Some of my favorites include: “I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten” (Job 13:28); “Behold, they will all wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them” (Isaiah 50:9); and “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy… but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:19-20).

As good as these are, you can’t beat Psalm 22:6, which raises spiritual self-deprecation to an art: “But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people.”

Nice to see the spiritual and existential corruption of my soul laid bare in painful clarity. It mirrors the physical corruption wrought by a swarm of gluttonous lepids flittering about in the dark, crunching away at my woolen trousers. Had I thought to investigate—flashlight in hand—I suppose I would have heard the damage being done in real time, as they say.

The symmetry between the spiritual and the physical is unmistakable; except I no longer contort my body, squirming through the soil like a worm. I can stand. I have been redeemed. I am a new man, even though I have only half a suit. That’s better than the kid in the garden—he had no suit and ran off naked (Mark 14:51-52). I’ll take it, especially since I still have a saddlebag and can pack it with enough provisions to last me through the next shredding. And—make no mistake—there is always a shredding.

Christus surréxit!

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