Sunday, April 15, 2001
IF WE WERE TO JOT down all we do in a typical week, most of us would be surprised with the length of our list. Work, home, family and community keep us buzzing 24-7. We have more technology and gadgets than ever before -- all designed to make us more efficient, and perhaps, we expect, happier. Travel has made the world a very small place. We can find information in abundance.
Easter's message of compassion,
renewal and hope contains universal
truths that translate well for
people of all faithsBy The Rev. Marc R. Alexander
Pastor of the Manoa-Punahou Catholic CommunityYet despite this frenzy, how much human progress have we made? It's no secret that a vast majority of parents don't have enough quality time with their children or their spouses. It's not uncommon to hear people say they don't know their neighbors, how they feel disconnected from their community.
We often experience the pervasive cynicism, apathy and indifference that seem endemic to contemporary life. We don't trust the government, schools, the press, not even our churches.
Open any newspaper or turn on any news broadcast and one will be bombarded with violence and incivility. And not just in some faraway city, but in our own homes. Domestic violence spirals upward, making our homes more boxing rings than sanctuaries. Our sense of the common good -- for the community, not just for me, the individual -- continues to atrophy as we struggle to survive financially, emotionally and socially.
Many may feel like Jim Wallis, editor of the magazine Sojourners, who writes: "The world isn't working. Things are unraveling, and most of us know it." And so we pull away from each other, turning into ourselves and becoming cynical, pessimistic, bitter and isolated.
In the midst of this turmoil, millions proclaim this weekend: "Jesus Christ is risen!" It's Easter Sunday, the day on which Christians believe that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. Jesus, who had come to bring freedom to the enslaved, reconciliation to the alienated and healing to the sick, was tortured, crucified and killed because he dared to preach and act in a way unacceptable to those in power. He gave himself up to death to pay the debt of human sinfulness and to show us that God's love could not be overcome by hatred and fear.
The "Christian answer" to the problems of fractured community, cynicism and indifference, violence and alienation is to accept Christ as Savior and to follow him. In writing this I understand that I risk offending anyone who is not
Christian. That is not my purpose. Rather, I share my fundamental beliefs out of a sense of integrity and to provide context. For while I believe that Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God's love, I respect and defend ardently those who believe and search differently.
As a fellow human being, I think the life of Jesus has much to guide all people of good will, regardless of religious or non-religious affiliation.
Easter's message goes far beyond the Christian world. Well before my parents became Catholic (my father was Jewish and my mother Shinto), they found attractive the values that informed the life of Jesus. I respectfully suggest that if we reflect on Easter there is much that all could embrace as a cure to our troubled times. I certainly do not claim to reduce the Christian faith to these lessons, nor do I suggest that we cannot learn these lessons elsewhere.
EASTER CELEBRATES the victory of compassion, forgiveness, self-sacrifice, freedom and hope. Compassion is the capacity to feel with another person. It requires that one put aside one's own feelings and needs long enough to walk with someone else. Compassion can be expressed in the simple act of attentively listening to another person without looking at a watch. It takes time and emotional presence. We know what compassion feels like. When we are its recipient, every burden seems lighter because we're no longer carrying it alone. Perhaps at times we're afraid to feel compassion because it makes us vulnerable, forces us to suspend judgment, questions our own actions.
Without compassion we risk the loss of personal and social heart. And without heart, what would we be?
Is there anything more difficult than forgiveness? When we've been hurt or betrayed, especially by a confidant, the impact can be life-altering. Our society does not teach forgiveness well.
INSTEAD, WE LEARN to punish, imprison, ostracize and hate those who have crossed us. The inability to forgive leads to cynicism in so many relationships. We build walls so that we can never be hurt again. There we remain "safe and secure." When we refuse to forgive we not only imprison the other person, we imprison ourselves. The forgiving person lets go and sets free. There is perhaps no greater gift that we can give than to forgive someone who has hurt us.
The common wisdom seems to say that self-sacrifice is in short supply. Many public officials and popular stars provide evidence for that belief.
Strength of character is required to give up one's own ambitions and desires for the needs of another or a community. I've known several talented people who have "sacrificed" careers for family. Too often, it's the other way around. Our pride gets in the way. Our sense of self-importance runs amok.
Maybe we're just narcissistic. We start to think that we're owed something.
So we don't sacrifice, don't do without, can't let go. It's not difficult to see how greed sets in. The person who is able to sacrifice finds fulfillment in the happiness of the other.
Freedom and choice are two sides of the same coin. Without authentic freedom, there is no choice. Freedom isn't the ability to do whatever one wants. Freedom is ultimately the state of being sufficiently detached so as to be able to choose what is true and just. Someone addicted to drugs, power or popularity is hardly in a position to make free choices. Yet how many make decisions based on arbitrary criteria or on what is politically correct or culturally acceptable. It is with good reason there are so many pearls of wisdom about freedom: "No one is free who is not master of himself," or "True liberty is liberty to do what we ought to do. It is not liberty to do as we like."
FINALLY, EASTER points to hope. Hope means there is always a future, that we are never chained to our past, no matter what that past might be. To live by hope is to know that experiences are not always what they appear to be. It is to embrace the paradox that letting selfishness die and letting go of attachments is often the path to true happiness and joy. When we live each moment knowing that it may be our last but are committed to making it our best, we live a life of passion. Great and unexpected things happen.
When I think of the person I want as a friend, I think of someone who strives to live by compassion, forgiveness, self-sacrifice, freedom and hope. Such people are truly alive. They represent the essence of the Easter spirit.
Easter is for everyone who wants an antidote to the cynicism and indifference of our age. We need to be reminded that the only way the world will change is if each of us changes first. Easter graphically depicts that new life is possible.
