Friends, it has been a sacred season of Lent and Triduum with you all. Thank you for simply showing up, eating together, praying together, singing and dancing together, washing one another’s feet, bearing witness to one another’s joy and suffering, caring for one another, “digging deeper” and sharing this long journey together. We have finally arrived at Easter, and as my faith community says: “Love is Risen!”
When Jesus appears to his friends again – after he was crucified and buried – he asks them to go back into the world and be agents of love to all whom they meet. He shows us that Love is stronger and more persistent than any other force in this world.
Easter doesn’t come and go on a sunny Sunday in April. Easter is an invitation to live as a resurrection people every. single. day. Wendell Berry – farmer, poet, novelist, activist, and environmentalist – has a poem I love called “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.” In it he paints a picture of two kinds of lives: the first life worships the market economy where everything is done for profit and meaning is found only in what one gains over another. The mantra for this life is more, more, more. Berry then offers an image of another kind of life: this life leads with love and values community; it takes pride in resistance to Empire and seeks to live simply, with only what one needs; this life reaps and sows laughter and joy, friendship and right relationship with the Earth. Its closing lines are:
Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
Practice resurrection. Whether we can feel it or not, we have been transformed by our Lenten journeys, and Love wants to rise in us, too. So, how will you live today, remembering that the resurrection is alive within you? How will you be the hands and feet and voice of love in your small but significant part of the world?
With gratitude for all the ways I witness you show Love every day,
Katie GA
Bonus: Easter always makes me feel like dancing. Here’s the resurrection song I’m loving most this year – Graveclothes, by Birdtalker.
