April 23, 2000
Three Faces of Spring:
Saint Patrick's for the Past Time;
Easter for the Future;
Mayday for the Moment
Easter looks forward.
Whatever really happened, the Resurrection remains a promise, and promises imply a future in which to be kept.
Its association with Spring is pure poetry; rebirth a winning metaphor. But when the promise of Easter is fulfilled, Time is superseded, the seasons rendered irrelevant. That's something to look forward to.
How will we get there?
Yesterday I wrote of the Christian reconfiguration of the Mysteries. Where once people imitated the gods, now deity affects humanity.
We need another such reversal.
Time now for us to take responsibility, initiate anew the cycle, and move to model God again within ourselves. And this time, not in ceremony, but actuality.
No small task, but we have a new millennium to fill up with our efforts. Who knows how much Future it will take to reach the end of Time?
We can't afford to be embarrassed by this ambition, for it's incumbent upon us to make of the Future something more than the name of the place where we shall die.
When we reach whatever end we reach, Time must give way, and something like a moment (but less confined) obtains, never to pass away.
In hope of this, we keep the Future open, or seek to open ourselves to it, even as we cannot staunch the flow of Time. The seasons still must change, though in familiar ways. We must change, into something we cannot yet imagine.
Easter's promise of rebirth opens up our Future; the rebirth of Spring fills our Present. Embrace what is, but don't disdain a promise.
This day dawns dim and damp, not good for bonnets or for bunnies, but good for hope, and holding promise of improvement. I will seek for trees and birds, and try a little harder. And though it rain for forty days and forty nights, I trust the Future holds a sunbeam yet.
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