Waiting for a Resurrection

In the springtime, we customarily think of renewal as the bursting forth of new life, a time of enthusiasm and exuberance at the end of a long winter, but in the seasons of human life there’s sometimes a fine line between renewal and simple survival. It’s not that many generations ago that it was a real achievement for our ancestors to make it through to the end of winter, as their provisions rapidly depleted, and begin planting anew for one more earthly orbit around the sun.

Today, as the world stumbles through a second springtime dealing with a global pandemic, which has claimed the lives of many, impaired the health of many more, and curtailed the normal activities of nearly everyone, we find ourselves awaiting a resurrection of sorts – not some biblical miracle, just a return to the marvels of everyday life as we have known it. A satisfactory renewal might look like a simple restoration of normalcy. We have spent more than a year, now, living through a time of unprecedented challenges. We have discovered how thin the veneer of prosperity really is, how fleeting good health can be, and how fragile our human efforts to dominate the earth when nature pushes back. For many, it has been a challenge to keep up their spirits through all the uncertainty and threats to the comfort we may have known.

“When we finally escape the darkness and stumble into the light, it is tempting to tell others that our hope never flagged, to deny those long nights we spent cowering in fear,” writes Parker J. Palmer. Most people I know are still contending with avoiding infection, the pain of social isolation, the stress of economic uncertainty, and the anxiety of not knowing what to expect in the months ahead.

 

(I say most because I’m painfully aware that some people have shown themselves to be oblivious to the danger, careless in their behaviours, and opportunistic in calculating how they might yet capitalize on the situation for their own benefit.)

I’m confident that we are nearing the final months of this pandemic, and that we will not face a third Easter gathering online from the safety of our homes. Yet, much is still unknown and uncertain, and its natural to remain anxious in the face of the lingering threats and the harm that has already been done, concerned for ourselves and our loved ones. But we will come through this and, once we have, most of us will forget our anxiety and fears (at least consciously) and pretend as though “our hope never flagged,” as Palmer suggests. In the meantime, we would do well to acknowledge the toll this has taken on all of us, even those who have managed pretty well, while we wait for something akin to a resurrection of our flagging spirits.

For the second Easter Sunday in a row, responsible Christian churches around the world have either suspended Sunday services or moved them online in an effort to stem the tide of infection. And liberal congregations like this one, which carry on the Easter tradition while vesting this ancient holiday with new meanings, have struggled with sometimes glib reinterpretations of the resurrection as a time of natural, seasonal renewal.

Whether you believe the biblical witness literally, or consider it to be a legend (as I do), the point of the Easter story is that there is hope and renewal on the other side of life’s bleakest moments. So while we’re trapped in our homes and physically isolated from our neighbours, I’m waiting for this year’s resurrection. And after it comes – as it will – that renewal, that sense of rebirth – I won’t pretend that I wasn’t scared during the long nights of waiting.

Even though it may be quite impossible for us to accept the physical resurrection of Jesus as a fact of history, we may yet accept the Easter myth as it has come down to us – a curious mix of pagan rites and Jewish festivals, Christian traditions and folk traditions – as a reminder of the everyday resurrections we experience: the constant rebirth of the world and its creatures, the cycles of life which assure us of the unending possibilities for beginning anew, our daily rising above despair and defeat and, yes, even death.

For us, the resurrection within is an everyday experience: as common as mud and as refreshing as a spring stream. We rise again – day in, day out – in the renewal of our lives, and of life itself.

Henry Nelson Wieman, a Unitarian Universalist minister who was one of the leading 20th-century proponents of process theology – a theology grounded in the natural rather than the supernatural – understood the resurrection in psychological terms, rather than either a physical event in history or a doctrinal assertion. “To be [resurrected] in the noblest sense,” he said, “is to undergo that transformation of interests and loyalties by which one can live not only for the highest fulfillments of his own time, but for the highest fulfillments of all time. It is that reorganization of the personality which enables one to live for those unexplored possibilities which transcend all time, but are nevertheless, real possibilities of existence because they can be approximated to an indefinite degree by reason of the indeterminate nature of existence and through the growth of meaning.”

While most people associate the purported resurrection of Jesus with the aftermath of the crucifixion, a final triumph after an apparent tragedy – something I consider purely mythological – I think that, to the extent we can speak of a resurrection in any meaningful way, it was a transformation that occurred among his followers before he met his tragic end. It was an experience, not an event; a feeling, not a fact. The resurrection experience was grounded in an aspiration and quality of life that were sown among his followers in the years leading up to his death.

I don’t know about you, but the pandemic has changed me. It has forced me to change many of my expectations and behaviours, and, as a consequence, I don’t think the normal I return to when it’s over will be the same normal I knew before it hit. That’s what a resurrection looks like, it seems to me. The conditions are set before the phenomenon occurs. I have experienced a “transformation of interests and loyalties” – and the effects have been more mundane than dramatic, but that doesn’t mean that the changes haven’t been significant … and wholesome, for the most part.

I’ve been working from home for the better part of three decades, so that part of life didn’t change much for me. As it turns out, having transitioned from ministry to journalism, with the presses still running and the web still operating, I found myself working as hard as ever over the past year. The ability to continue working has been a real blessing and I have written more than ever – but the temptation to overwork has been powerful.

Notwithstanding the fact that I am now a part of the news media myself, I learned to avoid obsessively watching the news. Of course, the change in presidents helped. There is less television in my life and less radio, too.

I listened to more music over the past year, having dug out compact discs I didn’t remember I had, made by musicians I didn’t recall hearing. I’ve listened to those while also viewing music videos online. And I’ve been made a little music of my own, too, although I’m not sharing.

I watched more movies, figuring that it was better to binge on cinema than reliving the news on an hourly basis. Some movies have been distracting, some deepening, some inspiring. I tried to avoid the apocalyptic horror genre, which felt a little too close to home.

I read books and magazines – again, some volumes I forgot I had – finding comfort and wisdom in their passages, which offers meaning and hope during these difficult days.

I’ve attended more online meetings than I can count – so many that I often experience screen fatigue at the end of the day – and they have multiplied geometrically. As has my social media footprint. Through it all, I have reclaimed a fondness for the phone call over the Zoom meeting or the Facebook post.

Last year, I told people I was planning a garden. This year, I’m actually going to plant one! My wife, Cindy, has several trays of plants already started, so there’s no backing out this time. After many years of doing little more than tending a few container plants, we will raise flowers and vegetables outside, even though it’s likely that the deer will eat most of them.

I’ve gone for walks just to get outside, but in hindsight, I haven’t walked enough – mostly because all my years of travelling ruined me for Winnipeg’s winter weather. Looking ahead, I plan to wean myself away from my computer and its endless demand for Zoom meetings and social media posts in order to make the most of the springtime and restore my body, which while avoiding the virus, has succumbed to the ravages of physical inactivity.

Through it all, I have developed a new understanding of time and its value, a new awareness of the things I wish to do and the things I want to avoid, a new appreciation for things that matter. That has been my resurrection of consciousness, which now awaits the resurrection of nature – the season of spring – for its fulfillment. “Things are going to change around here,” I say to myself. I have declared the pandemic to be a sabbatical, of sorts, and now I’m ready to embark upon a new way of living. I’m waiting for a resurrection.

Each of you could undoubtedly offer a similar list of things you’ve done differently over the past year, as well as things that haven’t changed much at all. I expect that each of you has experienced a “transformation of interests and loyalties,” whether it has been a deepening of existing ones or the emergence of new ones. And I suspect that each of you, like me, is also longing for the change of seasons and the promise of spring.

“I will wax romantic about spring and its splendors in a moment,” wrote Parker J. Palmer, “but first there is a hard truth to be told: before spring becomes beautiful, it is plug ugly, nothing but mud and muck. I have walked in the early spring through fields that will suck your boots off, a world so wet and woeful it makes you yearn for the return of ice. … In my own life, [he continues] as my winters segue into spring, I find it not only hard to cope with mud but also hard to credit small harbingers of life to come, hard to hope until the outcome is secure. Spring teaches me to look more carefully for the green stems of possibility: for the intuitive hunch that may turn into a larger insight, for the glance or touch that may thaw a frozen relationship, for the stranger’s act of kindness that makes the world seem hospitable again.”

Whether we realize it or not, we are entering a hard-won time of renewal this year and, as always, Earth will have its way. We have been humbled, to be sure, kept at home more than we’ve been accustomed to because even the tiniest virus can command us if the conditions are right. It has been like the mud that sucks our boots off in spring, and it has lasted for more than a year, but the green stems of possibility are showing themselves. Or should I say green shots? This year, resurrection looks something like vaccination.

Over the past month, I’ve been watching the snow disappear, as the days grew warmer and sunlight grew brighter after what seemed to me to have been a milder winter than usual. Perhaps I just didn’t get out enough to experience the cold. As always, I’ve been heartened to see the rabbits and squirrels become more active, while the deer wandered about, envying their ability to stay in touch with their own kind. Over this past year, I have found myself racing to the window to watch people walking their dogs – or their kids – strolling along with more enthusiasm than in the past. In fact, I’ve seen more people out and about on foot than I can ever remember. While automobile traffic seems about as heavy as it used to be, I’m still seeing more people go by – sauntering or strolling, power-walking or jogging – looking up and around, even as they keep their distance. The number of birds in the yard grew with each passing day and I am sometimes lured outside – alone but not quite alone – to enjoy the fresh air and wave to passing neighbours. Living under a flight path, as I do, I’ve been struck by how much quieter my neighbourhood has been, leaving space for the sounds of the nature that are so often drowned out by the sounds of human activity and technology. Even though the planes are increasing in frequency again, they’re still infrequent enough for me to notice and I stop to pay attention to them as though they were some sort of mechanical bird. The thought has occurred to me that the earth has renewing itself while we took a time out.

Of course, after all the snow had melted, it snowed again. That’s how we know it’s spring in the Upper Midwest and not yet summer. And even though I had grown fond of the still-brown grass and blue skies that precede the arrival of spring, in earnest, it was nice to see the crisp, white snow like a clean blanket over the ground. You’ll note that I refrained from calling it the last snowfall of winter, since I know better than to tempt fate. But during the coming weeks, I look forward to seeing the brown grasses slowly turn to green as the earth takes its tentative, wobbling steps of seasonal rejuvenation.

We would do well to watch closely and treasure the Earth for its never-failing renewal in the spring. This is resurrection enough for me.

There’s a prayer in The Beacon Hymnal, a Unitarian collection from a century ago, that says: “Everything in Nature makes ready for the great awakening. The cold winds cease from blowing; the warm breezes, gentle rains, and radiant sunshine clothe the field and forest with new splendor; and the birds sing again their happy songs. Life is always renewing itself, and we belong to life. May our hearts be glad as we join in Nature’s song of praise. May we strive to be worthy of this great Life that out of the old brings forth the new, and that every spring fills the world with springtime joys and glories.”

A sermon delivered online for the Unitarian Church of Underwood, Minnesota.