It’s the middle of February. A couple of weeks ago, on February 2, a welcome messenger delivered good news: Punxsutawney Phil, a weather predicting groundhog, emerged from his burrow and didn’t see his shadow. This legendary sign is a prediction that there will be an early spring
This past week, around my Atlanta home, signs of spring could be seen. The forsythia bush in my backyard began to bud and the neighbor’s daffodils bloomed. Some trees around the city bravely sent out blossoms. The early signs of spring bring a sense of renewal and hope.
While the beginning of spring provides a sense of newness, I am aware that several friends are experiencing a kind of desolate winter from the pain of loss. While one friend was hopeful about a relationship and planned for marriage, news of a break-up was unexpectedly received through a text message. Another friend struggles with parents and siblings who cannot accept his sexual orientation and, as an adult, he’s coming to realize that the family he loves may never be able to accept him because of their religious beliefs. Several others have recently lost loved ones who passed from this life following painful illnesses. In the midst of such losses, it may seem as though life is filled with bleakness and struggle, much like a frigid winter day when one must battle snow and ice.
In the midst of our own pain, it’s often difficult to maintain perspective on the rhythms of our lives. It may feel like our pain will never end and that we will never be happy again. To be honest, I’ve been there before when it seemed like the bottom fell out of my own life. Yes, there were broken relationships, the death of loved ones, as well as other personal and professional failures.
The wider perspective offers a view that shows our lives evolve from one season to the next: through winter, spring, summer, and autumn. As a Christian, I understand this evolution through what is called the Pascal Mystery: the movement through life, death, and resurrection.
Many Christians have a very narrow understanding of the Pascal Mystery. They believe that the movement through life, death, and resurrection has only to do with Jesus and the gospel stories. Others look at this pattern of life, death, and resurrection as focused on our present life, death, and an afterlife. It is my contention that the real significance of the evolving pattern of life, death, and resurrection has to do with our day to day lives.
Each of us moves through our own cycles and seasons of living, experiencing hardships, disappointments, and deaths. But faith takes on significance for us when we are able to affirm that the hardships, disappointments, and deaths are not the final word. Instead, there is hope that in our ordinary lives that life is renewed. That renewed life may be like a field of blooming spring flowers. But more often than not, renewed life is found in something like the tiny bud or blossom associated with the first breath of spring.
I have faith that while I and my friends experience times of hardship and it seems for a time that life’s disappointments and losses will crush down on us that somehow life will be renewed and we will experience resurrection. Spring will come first with a frail bud or blossom. Then new growth and flowering will emerge. Yes, this is that paradigm which is the foundation of Christian spiritual living — a way of life for here and now.