Whether or not I consider Jesus to be my personal savior, and whether or not I believe in the reality of the biblical story as it is told, Easter seems an appropriate time to contemplate the idea of resurrection; of revival and restoration and rising from the dead. It happens frequently in life, seems to me. I get to a place where I am without hope, where I am drab with doubt, and numb to life's joy. I feel blocked and drained of energy. I want to curl up in a ball and pull the covers over my head and stay in the dark forever. I am dead to happiness, dead to love, and dead to possibility. And sometimes I stay that way... for an afternoon, a week, a few days... and then, for no particular reason that I can point to, the darkness lifts, and I am clear again, filled with light and overflowing with love.
There are cycles at work in the patterns of my days. There are life cycles, and death cycles. I give birth to new interests and new habits and new ways of relating to myself and the world around me, and other things are forever passing away: outgrown relationships, old behaviors, taste in clothes... It comforts me to recognize that death and resurrection are as natural in my life as they are in the life of trees. Spring is the right time for Easter and thoughts of rebirth, while everything is blooming and bursting forth with a great flash of color. All seems dead in the winter, just as I feel dead inside when I am without hope. But spring comes. Every year it comes, and hope is always restored.
I will allow for the cycles of my life, and trust in the spring that always comes.
