Alright, so Easter Day has come and gone. Maybe you had a really inspiring, new-life, yummy-feast, trumpet-and-lilies kind of a day. Maybe you didn't. Maybe you just barely got through it. Maybe it was a mixed bag. Whatever your "maybe" may be... now Easter 2008 is history.
Or is it? Is Easter just a day, or could it be something more? Could Easter be a powerful energy that ripples out, moving and shaking, disrupting and quaking, until nothing looks the way it used to? until all that used to look dead and hopeless has had a serious face lift?
Could Easter be a second chance? a dwi record wiped clean? another shot at planting a beautiful spring garden? a story with a dramatic twist that changes everything and keeps on going?
I don't know the answer. I just ask the questions.
Well, ok. I do know one answer. My answer. And that is, for me: well... yes.
Yes. Easter's not just a day. It's a Way (as you no doubt figured out after reading my title). It's a way of living that takes death seriously but life-from-death more seriously still. It's a way of finding the hope-out-of-hopelessness in my own little existence and daring to tell my story to someone who just might need to hear it. It's a way of reaching a hand out to a friend (or better yet, an enemy) who might not make it without the lift.
Easter's a Way of following Jesus.
Following Jesus means staring down the powers-that-be when those powers are crushing the life out of the defenseless ones. It means taking the heat, loving when it hurts, giving everything you have... so that someone else might be connected to a source of Life and Energy that just doesn't quit.
Following Jesus means allowing myself, all my self-oriented schemes and deadly games, to die at the end of each day... so that when I open my eyes again, it's all new, it's all good, it's all God.
So those are some of my thoughts on how Easter can be a Way, not just a day. What images come to your mind, of how life peeks up out of death? What stories to you have to tell? And who will you tell them to? Feel free to use this blog to get your word out, if you like, because, to tell you the truth: Lots of people read it. Don't ask me how many (ask Steve, he knows) or who they are (even Steve doesn't know that), but there are lots who pop by here, looking for who knows what... maybe looking for what you and only you have to say.
Be it by blog, by email, or facetoface over a cup of coffee... share it, tell it, live it... that Easter Way that echoes on and on and on.
New Life to you in the days ahead...
~Kari Henkelmann Keyl~
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1 comment:
Great post Kari.
I do think new life has a way of growing from the ashes that death leaves behind, even when that death is tragic.
When my mom died three and a half years ago, my life went in a direction I would have never expected and while the journey has been anything, but smooth, I am now in a field in which I will spend my life's work helping others. Although I would give it all back to have my mom here with me again, I also think she would be proud that from her death, I have created a new life for myself - one that will hopefully help those who may feel lost have a little more hope.
When I think of her and how I've changed over this time, I think of these flowers that my grandfather has running along the side of his house. There are tulips that grow there every year, but they don't grow from the dirt or grass...they grow up and through the cement of his driveway, determined to make their way into the world each spring. I think we are all a little like those flowers, pushing through the tough stuff that may try to hold us back just to get where we are meant to be.
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