Monday 21 April 2014

Hoppy Easter - Renewal

Whether you celebrate Easter in the Christian sense or the magical Peter Rabbit sense, Easter is a time of renewal.  It is a time to shed the past, look to the future, and live in the present.  Spring has come to most of us (even in Canada), and this is, itself, the rebirth of the seasons.

If you are Christian, you see it as the celebration of Jesus Christ exiting his tomb, validating his claims all the more, giving weight to his promise of paradise, and belief to his Father.  He started a new chapter in religions, he created Christianity that day, bringing the well know verses:
15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:15-17)

For those that are in it for the chocolate, that bunny is surrounded by symbols of beginning: eggs, chicks, flowers, nests, and more.  Granted most are carved from candy and devoured like you were starved for a week straight.

Even if you do not celebrate either of these, rebirth and renewal is surrounding you.  The skies deepen their blue, the grass begins to grow and green, trees bud, roots stretch, and babies are prepared for in every corner of the earth.  

Some of us will not be looking at the outdoors and thinking, "It's time to start, again."  Some will be wondering why things must end.  Why must things be taken from us, much the way that winter steals the growth.  But, it is through this way that renewal may come.  Through loss, no matter how tragic and senseless, we find new paths, new friendships, new perspectives that would never be seen if we did not first lose.  I do not want to take away from the fact that the tragedy occurred, but ask for those grieving and questioning fairness or justice to find their time to lament, and let themselves find their renewal, their rebirth.  Be the phoenix rising from the flames.  Be the joy from despair.