Everyone and everything will rise again

The last month or two have been really tough. Losing my friend Arthur, and my little walking buddy, Shadow-dog -- as well as a few friends I didn't moodle about -- has me thinking a lot about death... and resurrection. My friend Ruth, who died on Easter Sunday morning six years ago, is also on my mind.

There's a lot of death happening in the world right now simply because death happens, but also because we human beings seem to think we're in charge -- and cause death without thinking. I guess too many of us have been playing God. The problem with putting ourselves in charge instead of God is that we don't see the whole picture for all of creation, and too often we miss the small but critical details. Like I didn't notice, until this morning, the greening of my periwinkle vine...

The hope that comes with Easter is that the risen Christ, the anointed one, has anointed all of creation with him. Everyone and everything is holy, and it all will rise again with him, no matter how bad we mess up. Of course, the trick is not to wait until the resurrection on the "last day," but to change our hearts and start repairing our messes now!

Once we internalize that everyone and everything is holy, and start living like we believe everyone and everything are holy, prejudice, violence, war -- and the rest of the pestilences that plague us as a human race -- fall apart. Resurrection becomes the norm, and positive, grassroots changes start to happen, and everything rises. Or at least that's what I'm hoping, praying, and working for.

In the meantime, I'm thinking about places where injustice, broken ecosystems, war, and disaster presently have the upper hand, and I'm remembering the friends I've lost. I'm imagining all the world, past, present, and future, coming together, and becoming fully aware of our holiness and the sacredness of all creation. Now is the time to start working to change our hearts and our world, so we can all, together, reclaim our ability to wave our hands, stomp our feet, and sing a lot of alleluias as we work so that everyone and everything can rise again before that "last day". 

This song, We Will Rise Again, written by Ben Keyes and sung by folk acoustic trio, Ordinary Time, is my theme song for this Easter Sunday. Roll that stone away from us, O God, and help us all to change our hearts and do what needs to be done!

Enjoy!

Ordinary time?

Yesterday our church "undecorated," putting away all the Christmas finery and returning to what's called "Ordinary Time" on the liturgical calendar. All signs of jubilant festivity disappeared, and the worship space, while a lovely place, seemed empty and forlorn in comparison with the last few weeks.

Dramatic transitions always make me think about life and its seasons. When we consider our lives, I would guess that, for a lot of us, everything but special events and vacation are considered to be ordinary. We spend most of our lives in ordinariness, looking forward to unusual or exceptional, and when extraordinary happens, we miss it entirely, because it doesn't arrive with the fanfare that we might expect.

But every day that we are able to wake up, get out of bed and put on our slippers is extraordinary to people who are paralyzed. A slice of toast and a cup of coffee for breakfast would be incredible or unbelievable to a lot of people in the developing world. There are thousands, if not millions, of examples of mundane situations in my daily life that someone else would consider miraculous. So many of the ordinary things I take for granted are beyond amazing when I really think about it.

Sarah McLachlan, one of my favourite Canadian musicians, sings an incredibly beautiful song about how, really, everything is a miracle. I don't know who put these pictures to the music, but he or she did a marvelous job:

Today, ordinary or not, is an incredible gift.