Spring in Our Souls

". . .There is . . . something in the human spirit akin to miraculous. Human beings are capable of being incredibly resilient." -The Rev. Ralph Galen

The calendar tells us that spring has arrived, and during this past week, anyway, it has actually felt like it for a change. Those of you who have known me for awhile know that I am not a big fan of winter and cold, and that spring is my favorite season. Indeed, April is my favorite month.

The poet T. S. Eliot called it "the cruelest month," but he was speaking as an Anglican Catholic from the perspective of Good Friday and the crucifixion of Jesus. New Englanders--those of us who don’t ski or skate, anyway--generally have a much more positive view of April.

What I love about April is that everything is still ahead of us: the spring flowers, the birds, the greening grass, the new leaves on the trees. Summer beckons, not too far off, but not too close, either, with all that it promises of warm weather and vacations and time for renewal, both physical and spiritual.

But it isn’t here yet, and therefore it isn’t racing by before we have the time to savor and appreciate it. We can look forward to it, and that is, perhaps, the very best part.

This is a hope-full time of year. Not that there isn’t just as much to discourage and disappoint us now as there was in January, February, or even March for that matter. But spring is a reminder that things can change, that they do change, indeed, that change is built into the very nature of things. Hope is built into the very nature of things.

Last year around this time, I received an e-mail from a Transylvanian Unitarian colleague in which he wrote, "Dear Friends: In the name of the Unitarians of the Maros District we wish you Happy Easter. Usually we have a warm springtime for this holiday but this year it came a little bit late. Mostly we have spring in our souls."

I copied his e-mail out and stuck it up on my bulletin board because it struck a sympathetic note with me. My Transylvanian friends are notoriously poetic and passionate people, even when they are speaking and writing in English. I realized that what I was desperately in need of for myself was a little "spring in my soul." Not just in April, but all the year round.

You see, I get discouraged, too. I get discouraged about all the terrible and seemingly insoluble problems in our world. There are so many of them that I even get discouraged wondering which of them I should try to talk about with you. Should I talk about the war in Iraq, which has now dragged on for more than three years, with no end in sight? Should I talk about the violence in our own streets, about the difficulties faced by youth in our inner cities, about the continuing curse of racism, about the difficult economic realities faced by so many people in our midst? Should I talk about a social system which puts mentally ill people on the streets, causing many of them to become homeless, relying on handouts from churches and other institutions that are woefully ill-equipped to deal with the root causes of such problems? Should I talk about the terrible environmental problems which we, and especially our children, are going to have to face, should be facing right now? Should I talk about child abuse?

What about internet pornography, gambling, and substance abuse?

I get very discouraged when people can’t work together, and when empathy fails. I get discouraged when wars and rumors of wars and politics come between friends. I get discouraged about the failure of relationships. I get discouraged about the failure of basic civility. I get really discouraged about our do-nothing political system, where powerful interests stand in the way of meaningful progress on just about every front. I get discouraged about the politicization of our courts and our legal system.

I get discouraged about what passes for religion in this country and in our world, and about how religion is used to separate people rather than bring them together. I get discouraged especially about fundamentalisms of every kind. I get discouraged about the persistence of prejudice against those who are different. I get discouraged by those who don’t realize that we are all undocumented aliens. I get discouraged about the failure of love, and about the seeming triumph of hatred. I get discouraged about the erosion of my civil rights. And I get discouraged about all the lies that are told.

You see, I get discouraged about all of these things, and I know that you do, too. We may not all agree on the solutions, but I know that we are all concerned, or we probably wouldn’t be here. Some of us are already trying to do something. Some of us could be doing a lot more. But some of us, I also realize, are just trying to keep our heads above water.

The fact is, we can’t do everything. But we can all do something. As St. Paul once wrote, "hope abides." Spring is here! The calendar says so, but so does the weather in our souls. Pick something that you are passionate about, and do your little part. You will be surprised how much better it makes you feel to act. And there are always signs of hope.

There are people in the world like Tom Fox, the Quaker activist whose body was recently discovered in Iraq. I didn’t know much about him, but what I have learned gives me hope. His daughter Katherine, in pleading for the release of her father, had written,

My father made a choice to travel to Iraq and listen to those who are not heard. He meets with families who are missing loved ones. He has spent most of his time in Iraq trying to free detainees. I did not want my father to go to a country where his American citizenship could potentially overshadow his peaceful reasons for being there. But this is who my father is. He is deeply committed to a peaceful resolution to these issues. He is there because the Iraqi people are not being heard and are, so often, not supported. I feel as if this has to be a mistake that he has been taken. He is there only to shed light on the experiences of each Iraqi he meets. He is there to help. Peacefully, respectfully, and completely.

He tells me of how well he has been welcomed by the families he has met. The graciousness, mercy and compassion he has experienced in the country is something he often mentions when we speak. Neighbors come to visit and bring food and kindness. He is moved by the warmth of the people he has met.

I want to be able to communicate just how loved my father is, but more than that, I just want to hug him. I want to find a way to give him back the strength he has given me.

I want to show him how much the peace in his heart has inspired me and helped me find my way in life.

But above all else, my father is a listener. Even when no one is speaking. He values the honesty of silence. And when he speaks, there is respect and kindness in his voice, a strength that stands in quiet testimony to the life he has chosen to lead.

I love my father. I am so thankful to have been raised by such a loving, honest, gentle man who continues to teach me the importance of living by my principles.

He is my support and my guide. I need him safe and with me again.

I will continue to hold him and everyone he is with in the Light and pray for a peaceful resolution. Please let him go. I need him home.

We are all beginning to see where certainty leads. Perhaps if our leaders had been more willing to listen to those who disagreed with them we would not be in the fix that we are in today. But all of us need to learn to listen. Self-righteousness is killing us, the self-righteousness not only of others, but of ourselves.

It’s no longer about taking sides and accusing others. It’s about listening, and working together, and trying to understand, and trying to make a difference. As always, it’s about honesty and fairness and justice. We are all in this together. None of us, as someone has famously said, is going to get out of here alive.

Those of you who know me know or possibly suspect that I am not terribly optimistic. I’m sure I’d be happier if I was more optimistic. But in light of all the realities optimism can sometimes feel to me shallow and naive. As I have said on occasion, I like to think that I am "realistic." Maybe. But I am definitely hopeful, or I wouldn’t keep doing what I am doing. Hope seems to me to be so much deeper than optimism, and more profound. What would be the point of trying to build community, in spite of the odds, or of trying to heal relationships, of trying to help folks deal with their grief, if it were not that I am ultimately hopeful?

Hope is long term. I may not get to see the results. But I still believe in the ultimate triumph of good. Or that even if good doesn’t triumph, it still beats its opposite, despair. As Theodore Parker once said, "The arm of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I still believe that, and will continue to live as if it is true.

For all my sometimes pessimism, I still have spring in my soul. I still remain expectantly hopeful. I still think it is worth it to try to live according to ideals. Yes, I do get discouraged by the failure of so much that I care so deeply about. I get discouraged by my own inaction, by my own stubbornness, yes, even by my own pessimism. I get discouraged about the church, too. But what else is there? Where else can we find the same sense of community? Imperfect though it is, I still think the church is important, especially as it encourages us to listen for the still small voice within, and to listen to our fellow travelers along the dark journey.

These are "the times that try [our] souls." But so have been all times. Why should ours be any different? As theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once wrote, "Nothing that is worth doing is completed in our lifetime--therefore, we must be saved by hope." Contemporary culture thrives on instant gratification, but Niebuhr reminds us that we are in this for the long haul. That is where hope is: in the long haul, not in the short run. "Hope," as Emily Dickinson wrote,

. . . is that thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gales is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock