Resilience

Easter is the feast of resilience. Christmas is the feast of vulnerability. Life is the fruitful marriage of vulnerability and resilience. In this season where nature shows its resilience after a tough winter, our human resilience is challenged in many ways. Unexpected things happen, in the face of which we need to be resourceful and courageous. A ship got stuck in the Suez canal, and threatened our world economy. A pandemic has been plaguing the world for more than a year now, and only few people could have imagined the damage in advance. People are being hit by loss of job, loss of mental health, or loss of a loved one. 

This also happened in Palestine two thousand years ago. A mother lost her child and some disciples lost their master. Their resilience was tested a thousand fold. What do people do when they lose a loved one? They walk in the garden, between the daffodils, lonely as a cloud. They visit his grave. They weep, but they also become insurrectional. They tend to ignore the tough reality and start living in the strange delusion of a most improbable return: the return of the deceased one. It does not only require resilience, it requires a tenacious belief, against all odds, in the repair of the irreparable. Their insurrection against evil becomes a mental resurrection. Christians are still clinging to this impossible truth; they celebrate it at Easter. Happy Easter to all!