Tip-Off #120 - Happy Easter?
"It is required that you awake your faith." - William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale.
Easter's celebration of new life and resurrection transcends its religious roots. It testifies to the enduring power of Creation, the power of life itself, that no sin or evil, suffering or injustice, belief or disbelief, or death or hell can ultimately survive. In Christ, God reveals what is already true: grace imbues nature, and the resurrection signifies the restoration of humanity to receive it. God's judgment is mercy, which hell denies. Resurrection is a promise for life right now, not only later.
We hesitate before the resurrection because we do not understand it. This is the only way life ever really changes. We won’t understand marriage until we’ve been married for a while, maybe not even then. Parents will not know what it’s like to have a baby until they have one. We don’t even know our profession until we’ve been in it for a while. Nothing in life is obvious immediately. It all grows on us. “This is how to approach resurrection, as well. No, you don’t understand it. Let it grow on you.” [1] A generous uncertainty helps.
The early Christian hope for bodily resurrection mystifies us today. Still, it should keep us from spiritualizing resurrection, which, however understood, concerns all of us—body, mind, and spirit. Despite its unique place as the cornerstone of the Christian faith, the concept of "resurrection" holds significant meaning in secular contexts.
The Descent of Inanna, an ancient Sumerian epic tale; the story of Persephone in Greek mythology; Ovid's Metamorphoses; William Shakespeare's play, The Winter's Tale; Beethoven's Fifth Symphony; Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities; Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment; Leo Tolstoy's Resurrection; and Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed — resurrection, literally or figuratively, is a transforming force in classics across time and culture, read or listened to as if for the first time.
However it proves true: the promise of a new life takes action, not just belief. In Shakespeare's Winter's Tale, irrevocable despair demands resurrection: "It is required that you awake your faith." (Act 5's finale) [2] Resurrection is defiant.
The proverbial sign says, "The end is near." We need another sign declaring, "The beginning is here." If you don't believe it — climb a mountain!
Recently, thirteen widows and twenty children traveled to Austria from Mykolaiv, Ukraine, which the Russians had attacked for 260 days. Following closely a 60 Minutes account: The devastated families journeyed 13 hundred kilometers to a summer camp that Nathan Schmidt, an American Marine and veteran of grief, hosted. Climbing mountains was Schmidt's own path to recovery. Now, as if calmly plotting the resurrection, [3] he offered Ukraine what seemed like an impossible hope. In only six days in the Alps, he could teach grieving families to face another fear: the danger of climbing a mountain peak of more than 10,000 feet with children. With the help of group therapists and other professional climbers, Schmidt and the families accomplished precisely that. "Courage lifted them 10,508 feet — a summit reached by everyone."
Schmidt clarifies, "This program aims to provide them with the necessary footholds and handholds to bridge the gaps they encounter. We're not a religious organization, but it comes from the Bible. 'With faith the size of a mustard seed, one can move mountains.' If you can reinforce that faith in something bigger and belief in yourself, we and you can move mountains.” The climbers agreed — that took more than positive thinking and reliance on one's bootstraps. The anguish of grief persisted, but now, by overcoming another great struggle and leaning on others, they could confront their grief more confidently — hugging again and even smiling. (See Notes below for links to the story in text and video.)
Another mountain climber, Scottish poet Nan Shepherd, writes in her lyrical memoir, The Living Mountain, “There is a way of loving without knowing” — uncertainty becomes generous in reverence for the mountains' otherness and wild autonomy. This tough love is sometimes strongest when it seems weakest. Deep ecologist Arne Naess continues, “The smaller we feel ourselves compared to the mountain, the nearer we come to participating in its greatness. I do not know why this is so.”
Reality is not always probable. Doubt allows God to live. Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ, a narrative of rebirth and triumph over death. Jesus often refers to himself as the "Son of Man” or "the Human One,” a Messianic title emphasizing his connection to all humankind. Regardless of what we believe, he represents all of us. There is love and life stronger than death.
In a Good Friday world, Easter is the last word. With faith awakened, we can face our own greatest fears — hug again and smile. Happy Easter!
Notes and reading
[1] Barbara Cawthorne Crafton - Episcopal priest and author, from a 2012 post on The Christian Century website.
[2] "It is required that you awake your faith." - Shakespeare. Ironically, this line is spoken by someone responsible for years of suffering who finally orchestrates reconciliation.
[3] “calmly plotting the resurrection” - E.B. White (author of Charlotte’s Web), from the eulogy for his wife. A Biography - Scott Elledge (1984), 353.
Ukrainian widows and children work to overcome grief — 60 Minutes (March 10, 2024).
YouTube Video: Grieving Ukrainians attend Austrian Alps climbing camp to recover from war, Scott Pelley (26:37). (Note: Training on the vertical wall of a 32-story dam. "We put them on this dam because we want them to confront discomfort," Schmidt said. "We want them to confront their fears.")
Text Link: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukrainian-widows-kids-healing-climbing-austrian-alips-60-minutes-transcript/
Mountain Seed Foundation - https://mountainseedfoundation.org/
The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland - Nan Shepherd (2019). An excellent review from The Guardian (September 20, 2011): https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/20/living-mountain-nan-shepherd-review
“The smaller we come to feel ourselves compared to the mountain…” - Arne Naess in Always the Mountains, David Rothenberg (2007), 14.
"Reality is not always probable or likely." Attributed to Jorge Luis Borges, as in Unraveling the Real: The Fantastic in Spanish-American Ficciones - Cynthia Duncan (2010), 1.
Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul: Celtic Wisdom for Reawakening to What Our Souls Know and Healing the World - J. Philip Newell (2021).
John Updike's "Seven Stanzas of Easter" - A poetic exploration of the Christian themes of Easter and the resurrection -- "rich, sensory language to convey the wonder and awe associated with the Easter story."