Still Here

“….in spite of which we, we call this Friday, Good.”

T.S.Eliot

A gloriously warm and sunny spring day has given way to impending showers. South facing lawns, garden beds, and trees are in flower, and robins hunt juicy spring worms on our lawn. In a couple of hours we will go to synagogue for the first seder of Passover.

This being Holy Week, themes of suffering and renewal found their way into conversations with clients, alongside the horrors of everyday life in our colonized world. Discussions inevitably touched on the dangers of being Other, an ever-widening category for the despised, and the challenges of meaning making in the face of hated.

Over the course of the week I was reminded that for some Christian clients, the Stations of the Cross remain powerful metaphors for suffering and the quest for meaning. Jesus’ suffering becomes a model for them as they navigate the real, too often human imposed, brutalities of the world. Easter, too, holds meaning, for in the face of unimaginable harm, cruelty, and death, Jesus stands before his friends, proclaiming that he is still here.

Both Easter and Passover call us to action on behalf of all who are harmed by the misuse of power. But challenging power is very often perilous. Perhaps we call this day “Good” because it points so strongly to the message of Holy Week: that even as we, like Jesus, have faced suffering, even genocide, somehow we have survived; we are indeed, still here.