Things are always better in the morning. Harper Lee
It is in this difference between returned and replaced that the price of renewal is paid. And as it is for spring flowers, so it is for us. Daniel Abraham
There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter. Rachel Carson
When this ultimate crisis comes… when there is no way out – that is the very moment when we explode from within and the totally other emerges: the sudden surfacing of a strength, a security of unknown origin, welling up from beyond reason, rational expectation, and hope. Émile Durkheim
It is by means of our own victories, if we are not regenerated, that the work of Nemesis is wrought: doom breaks from the shell of our very virtue. Joseph Campbell
We become influencers, leaders and teachers in this world, by performing within ourselves the purging that we wish to see take place in others. C. JoyBell C.
Let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new. Anglican Book of Common Prayer
In the northern hemisphere, there are indications that, as obstinate and habituated as we have often demonstrated ourselves to be in both personal and institutional contexts, renewal is in the air. Flowers adorn parks and gardens. The songs of migrating birds enrich the spring cacophony. And our religious communities once again determine to maintain their relevance as the world groans under burdens of hunger, violence and virus while public institutions in too many instances encourage the mistrust and misinformation we need them so desperately to counter.
On this Easter Sunday, we in the Christian community have a special obligation to look ourselves in the mirror, to ask (as we would of all our institutions) if we are actually being faithful to both our founding spirit and the specific, concrete needs of our constituents; indeed if our institutions are able to “get over themselves,” rendering the services and promoting the hope and conduct which are in large part the point of having such institutions in the first place.
And when reforms are warranted (which they almost always are) such that our personal and institutional life can prevent more effectively and respond more efficiently, we must ask if we up to that task? Or do we take the path that we see so very often during personal counseling, individual leaders and their institutions willing to consider only the changes they are prepared to make, not the changes they need to make?
In addition, again with analogies to counseling settings, how many of us are actually willing to engage in the “purges” which we are quite certain are required for others? How many are committed, paraphrasing Christian scripture, to removing the log in our own eyes such that we can better see the specks in the eyes of others? How many of us are sufficiently committed to vigilance and renewal as doom threatens to break, yet again, “from the shell of our virtue?”
These are two of the impediments to a renewal that is more than rhetorical, that is more than a tepid commitment to close the gaps between expectation and performance, between the people we are capable of being and the people we have become too comfortable being. We are collectively too comfortable with acts of discrimination against the categorical other, too comfortable with lifestyles that imperil survival both current and prospective, too comfortable with institutions, even churches, that are wrapped so tightly within their bubbles, that continue to justify protocols and practices that have long lost their relevance, that have become as some of us used to sing during childhood, the “chewing gum which has lost its flavor on the bed post overnight.”
Part of renewal for our time must be about recovering those bursts of “flavor” when we metaphorically bite into a sacred or cherished pursuit; appreciating and sharing those bursts of color and fragrance as the blossoms of spring almost magically return to life and our sunrises signal yet another chance for us to grow and change; magnifying those acts of human courage and capacity which now sadly tend to manifest themselves mostly during times of crisis, when our backs are truly against the wall, when there is no more wiggle room for us, no more opportunity for a sane and rational dismissal of what our collective narcissism and indifference have literally brought to a boil.
We are in such a moment of boil now. Our human community has backed ourselves into places where we no longer have the room to maneuver we once imagined ourselves to have; where our self-deceptions about who are the good ones and who are the evil doers serves only to magnify evil and suffering; where our institutions mostly play at renewal, moving some of the pieces around but not changing the game in any significant way, not sufficiently reassuring those crying out for assistance that help is on the way, a “help” that is more predictable and which leads to peace, health and self-sufficiency, well beyond the stasis of mere survival.
We know we can do better. Even in protocol-saturated institutions such as the UN, we know that we can renew what is now holding us back. We can demonstrate with our time and treasure that we are determined to honor the trust that other still place in us, fulfill the expectations that we have led constituents to anticipate from us. We can pull some of the “weeds” that choke off some of what promised to be a verdant garden; eliminating more of the numerous unfulfilled financial pledges, both institutional and humanitarian; the misguided applications of consensus that constitute de-facto vetoes, the habit by some states of sponsoring resolutions that they have no intention of honoring; the actual vetoes and threats of veto by permanent Security Council members which have become tools of politics not of statecraft, tools which do not prevent mistakes in conflict response so much as inhibit conflict response itself.
There are times when it seems as though numerous states don’t actually want the UN to honor its many promises, don’t actually want it to take the leadership we rhetorically bestow upon it to anticipate and then prevent the tragedies that take such a huge toll in blood and treasure in our world. SG Guterres noted this week in an interview that “multilateralism has no teeth.” I won’t belabor the extent to which the SG has insufficiently pushed back against this longstanding reality, but I do know that metaphorical dental implants are at the ready if and when states and stakeholders decide to commence the procedure.
For those of us who delight in this Easter Sunday we should also acknowledge a responsibility beyond predictable family dinners, religious rituals, egg hunts and bonnets; a responsibility to incarnate the renewal which anchors the promise of this season, to manifest the hope in all our worldly undertakings, including in our institutions, that “things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new.”
If Jesus were once again to emerge from the tomb to which his body was once confined, scanning the current terrain of our flailing human commitments, he might face temptation yet again, this time to head back inside the cave, fire up the Neflix, and just forget about this whole renewal thing. Except that he knows us, knows the complexity of our hearts, knows what he had willingly gotten himself into from the dawn of time, knows as well what needs to happen in this current moment — what can with grace happen — such that the promise of renewal, indeed the fate of our species to which renewal is now tethered, can stand a reasonable chance.
We are quickly running out of time and space to turn the promise of renewal into a discernable reality, to raise up those many people and species which have been cast down, to infuse those institutions which have lost their way with fresh energy and care, to revitalize a global public which has grown so weary of coups, displacements, discrimination and deprivation, a public increasingly gloomy regarding the prospect of institutions that can truly help restore communities beyond the edges of their own bubbles. We can’t wait for recognition of some “ultimate crisis” in order to release our better selves into a world starved for relief and reassurance. Indeed, that “crisis” is likely already at hand.
The bursting buds in our northern parks and gardens remind us that renewal is possible, that color and life can return to even the most barren of personal and institutional landscapes. May this Easter serve up portions of energy and grace sufficient to keep on track the renewal our times so desperately require.
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