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| Home > Oasis > Journaling > Easter |
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Easter is a time of change. We are ready to awaken from the dark cold of winter’s womb and greet with wonder budding trees and spring flowers pushing up through the thawing black soil. It is a time to re-order our priorities, to make changes that will help us become more fully human, more fully alive, to remember that resurrection is a reality every moment, if we have eyes to see. Taking time to reflect in your journal about your feelings during the Easter season will help you keep alert to the signs of resurrection and wholeness outside and within. You may even find yourself slipping into the world of holiness and living anew. We have all experienced disappointment, hurt and betrayal in our lives. Sometimes those whom we most love, those from whom we expect the most, those for whom we ‘spend’ ourselves, are the very ones who bring us the most pain. We have the choice of becoming resentful, hateful and bitter. Or, we can choose to stay in a place of unconditional love.
While some people have a dramatic and momentous conversion, most of us experience conversion more as a process than an event. Conversion simply means turning – turning from one way of being to another way of being. Turning from self toward God. This turning is facilitated through our life experiences, the encounters we share, the moments of quiet that overtake us, the joys and sorrows that come our way, the heights and failures we endure, the people who walk the earth with us.
The world is charged with delights and joys, and we are easily lured into focusing our heart on those delights and joys rather than on God. Jesus said, “Where your heart is, there will your treasure be also.” If our heart is centered on the delights of the world, we will not find our treasure in our life with God. We are not asked to turn away from the delights of the world. We are asked to observe and examine who and what has our heart.
Here we have no continuing city. Even though we live in earthly cities, we remain pilgrims, adventurers, and travelers on this planet. Our culture tempts us to ‘settle down,’ to become ‘rooted in place.’ Advertisers tell us to buy, buy, buy what will end up cluttering our lives and keeping us from simplicity. Credit card companies tell us to charge, charge, charge until we are sold for years into debt. Even religious institutions can hold us captive in a stolid and staid structure. But, the Holy One calls us to be ready – to be prepared to forsake everything that is less than the best - to be so detached that we are able to detect grace in every place, in every person, in every situation.
Spring is a time of year when the heaviness of deep winter lifts, and lightness unfolds around us like petals. Our spirits feel lithe and hopeful. New possibilities lie before us like the pages of a book. Lost energy is regained, frayed hopes are mended, the darkness of sadness is turned to joy, and the future stands before us with new potential. The resurrection of Jesus is a symbol to us of the reality of that ‘newness.’ As we revel in a newfound vibrancy of spirit, we will find we need ways to concretize and bring to life the seeds of potentiality that quietly wait to be released in our life.
Because the world is in constant motion, and we are in a state of continual spiritual evolution, we need times to give ourselves over to the electric dynamism around us. It is probably true that if we are not learning and growing, we are on the slippery slope toward inner deterioration and death. We dwell within a never-ending stream of learning opportunities simply because creation is on-going, and we are a part of the creation of the world and ourselves. Perhaps now is the time to be serious about recognizing your part in that imaginative and inventive process.
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