A Word About Renewal and Hope
So the past year, huh?
As vaccines are rolling and rolling and the group of eligibles grows wider and younger, there’s something like hope on the horizon. But what is it we hope for?
For me, number one has been getting to be with and hug and hang onto my people. My people who don’t live in my house but who I love deeply, regardless.
No one described better what I’ve been feeling than Nadia Bolz Weber in a prayer she wrote for Easter Sunday, resurrection Sunday.
Dear God,
I know I was just complaining about waiting my turn for the vaccine, but now that I’ve gotten mine, this part also feels tricky. So, I have some Easter-related questions, God. I’m wondering - that one dawn, so many years ago, when Jesus came out of his own tomb, did he step haltingly toward the light or did he run? Did he know who he was right away, or did that take a minute? Did he harbor resentments about his faltering friends or was he free?
I’m asking because many of us are stepping into the first light of a post-pandemic dawn and one minute I want to run full speed and the next I am unable to move. And If I talk too much about what was lost, I feel like a bummer but if I talk at all about the unexpected gifts, I feel like I’m callous. And I’m not sure I can ever be who I was before, but I’m also not totally sure who everyone else is now, either.
My Easter request is this: Help us remember that resurrection isn’t reversal, that as we return to life, we are carrying our own wounds from loss and isolation. But we are also emerging with new beauty and new wisdom. We are not who we were. But we do get to discover who we are. Help us not foreclose on each other. Maybe just grant us a holy curiosity for a while?
Please give me courage to trust the hope I feel right now. Save me from squandering this moment of new life. Remind me that all the fear and cynicism in the world never protects me from pain and disappointment in the way I think they will. Give us back to each other when the time is right. May we recognize you, our wounded and resurrected God, in our belly laughs and crocodile tears…and maybe … even in each other.
Amen.
“Resurrection isn’t reversal” has stuck with me. We’re not coming out of this pandemic exactly as we were as if the last year never happened. We are most certainly not who we were. But what an opportunity we have to “discover who we are” now.
What is it you hope for?
xo,
Beth
Photo Credit: "hope" by @polsifter is licensed under CC BY 2.0