Unitarian Universalists are often embarrassed by Easter. Our rational minds tell us the stories of the Resurrection of Jesus from the tomb belong to the realm of myth. And many of us tend to be myth-challenged. We want our religion in history, not legend. Only gradually do we come to realize that what happened to the molecules of Jesus is the least important issue of Easter. Far more important than bodily resurrection in physical space is religious rebirth in spiritual space.
In many ways this has been a grim church year, with the tragedy of 9/11, war and recession. Many of us have hunkered down in the comfortable bosom of family or of church. It has been a sad six months. And then there are the ordinary vicissitudes of living - loneliness, depression, boredom, pain and suffering with its many faces. It is time, not to forget what has happened and is happening, but to re-open ourselves to the joy of human existence. Spring is here - at least by the calendar. Why not in our hearts?
One Unitarian Universalist poet wrote this simple quatrain to express her feelings:
"Birdsong again
a blossoming tree -
Spring is enough
Resurrection for me."[1]
And probably many of us would agree. Yet, the symbolism and the drama of the Easter story are undeniably powerful. I tried to capture that feeling in a short poem I wrote several years ago, "A Tomb Is No Place to Stay."
A tomb is no place to stay,
Be it a cave in the Judean hills
Or the dark cavern of the spirit.
A tomb is no place to stay
When fresh grass rolls away the stone of winter cold
And valiant flowers burst their way to warmth and light.
A tomb is no place to stay,
When each morning announces our reprieve,
And we know we are granted yet another day of living.
A tomb is no place to stay
When life laughs a welcome
To hearts which have been too long away.
Last fall a very strange thing happened as a result of these twelve lines: I received a telephone call from a woman in New York City. She was, by her own admission, not a professional writer, but had been asked to write a chapter in a book about 9/11 - how ordinary people experienced the tragedy. She had been at an interfaith worship service at which a rabbi had read the words I had written.
She had found my name and tracked me down on the Internet. Would I give permission to use that poem in her chapter of the book? Somewhat taken aback, I, of course, said yes. She has not been back in contact, and I foolishly didn't get her name and address, so I don't know what has transpired with my words or her writing.
But why would a rabbi use words that have been so obviously written about Easter - albeit used in a metaphorical rather than literal way? Of course, Jesus was a Jew from birth to death. He was a prophet in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets - intending to reform Judaism rather than create Christianity. Yet I find it intriguing that a rabbi would choose these particular words as a text for a talk on the World Trade Center tragedy.
As I reflect on this dilemma I conclude that that imagery of being in a cave, "a dark cavern of the spirit," is a universal image for discouragement, depression, despair, even death. The image of flowers in spring symbolizes rebirth in every age and tradition. And life does laugh a welcome to us each and every day. Each day is a reprieve from the cave of death into which each of us must ultimately enter. And there is no one there to roll away the stone for us. But there is an ancient rhythm of spiritual death and rebirth.
While Unitarian Universalists have been criticized for minimizing Easter by our focus on "the flowers that bloom in the spring tra la" rather than resurrection, there is a curious spiritual connection between the earth's rebirth and our own. It is no coincidence that Passover and Easter are in the spring - holy day celebrations of Judaism and Christianity to match the vernal pagan rites.
As I walked out on the porch of our house to enjoy a little morning sunshine last week I noticed what remarkable progress our flowers are making despite the often sorry state of the world. The crocuses by our front sidewalk haven't heard about the war on terrorism; the geese honking overhead are oblivious to the violence in the Middle East; the tulips poking their brave heads above the soil know nothing of economic injustice.
The magnolia trees on Oxford Street haven't been told about our sometimes heavy hearts. Even if I am depressed, spring won't take no for an answer.
That connection between the resurrection of the earth and the renewal of our spirits has been deftly made by Unitarian Universalist poet May Sarton:
"Help us to be the always hopeful
Gardeners of the spirit
Who know that without darkness
Nothing comes to birth
As without light
Nothing flowers."[2]
The poets are not naïve in this expression of joy. Even the Psalmist knew that life is a strange and mysterious mixture of blessings and curses: "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."[3]
A more contemporary poet, Wallace Stevens, wrote:
"After the final no there comes a yes
And on that yes the future depends."[4]
The Persian poet Rumi said it well in a poem entitled, "Tripping Over Joy"
"What is the difference
Between your experience of existence
And that of a saint?
The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God
And that the Beloved
Has just made such a fantastic move
That the saint is now continually
Tripping over joy
And bursting out in laughter
And saying, 'I surrender!'
Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves."[5]
"Tripping over joy." I love that phrase. It rather describes our lives - we trip over joy when we least expect it, when it surprises us, when we most need it. I was surprised by joy last Thursday evening on my way to my Building Your Own Theology class when I saw a ball of fire through the trees. Only when I arrived in the church parking lot did I see that it was a spectacular moonrise that made the moon seem close enough to touch and consume. And then Mother Nature, in her own mysterious way, transformed that large orange ball at 7 to a smaller, white, but no less spectacular, ball at 10 high in the sky.
Then yesterday as I was preparing this sermon, a church member greeted me in the hall, telling me what a spectacular day it was and wondering why I was working on a sermon when I might be outdoors drinking in the beauty. After I saved what I had written I took her suggestion and went for a walk on our church grounds. I decided to walk through our Memorial Garden woods by sitting for a short time in each of the six benches that have been placed there. It was something like the "stations of the cross" I have occasionally walked at Catholic retreat centers, though my focus was on the natural beauty of the reviving earth. At each bench I noticed a new signal of spring. It was a welcome interlude in my day - we might call it the "stations of the bench," or our own labyrinth. Try it sometime.
I am surprised by joy whenever I hear a flock of geese overhead - though I have heard them a million times. I know that the magnolias on Oxford Street and the lilacs in Highland Park are getting ready to stun us with their beauty. Spring calls us from our winter caves of the spirit. That call is virtually irresistible. Get ready.
These are the times when I know this is home - this temperate climate that has real seasons with real differences, this turbulent clime about which we so often complain. That unpredictable pattern is so much more like life than the boredom of constant warmth and sunshine. The earth speaks here - every season in a different voice. We are privileged to be privy to her conversation.
Here we are precariously perched on the precipice of spring, trying to shake from our spirits the coldness of snow. The heart's winter is releasing its iron grip upon us. We are poised in anticipation of a warmer time.
I am not speaking only of the pageant of earth's seasons; I mean the procession of the winters and springs of the heart. Even in the glory of reviving spring, the reminders of winter deaths are about us - the yard reveals the refuse of the months. It is not unlike the soul - sometimes it is buoyant with new life, sometimes strewn with the remnants of broken dreams.
The soul's journey is as unpredictable as the weather - temperatures rise and fall with steady mathematical precision and they also leap and plummet with rude abruptness. There is just no telling.
But while we may escape winter's icy hold on our bodies, there is no escaping the coldness of the heart. Mostly, life is not so much an arctic or a tropic clime, but a temperate one which knows both cold and warmth.
There is no escaping the seasons of life - we simply learn to live with them - bundle ourselves against the cold or find cool refreshment from oppressive heat. We learn to live with them, for like the seasons, they pass on and away. But how joyous to know that now, for a fleeting moment, we are precariously perched on the precipice of spring.
Spring is a time for a thorough housecleaning of the soul, a time to sort out what is important and what is not, a time to shake off our sloth and take on energy from the earth. Spring, Passover, Easter, is a time when we are called to be cheerleaders of the spirit - when we emerge from the tomb of darkness and despair and find spring in our step again. The earth's throwing a party. You are invited. Do come.
A tomb is no place to stay,
Be it a cave in the Judean hills
Or the dark cavern of the spirit.
A tomb is no place to stay
When fresh grass rolls away the stone of winter cold
And valiant flowers burst their way to warmth and light.
A tomb is no place to stay,
When each morning announces our reprieve,
And we know we are granted yet another day of living.
A tomb is no place to stay
When life laughs a welcome
To hearts which have been away too long.
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