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Lent Whatever happens, we can be at peace
By DIRK DUNFEE
But he said to them, Do not be alarmed; you are looking
for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.
Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter
that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he
told you.
Mark 16:6-7
Its Easter, and things are
going to be fine. What things? Everything. Its all going to be fine.
Im not being a Pollyanna. Im no optimist. Optimists
think that things are going to turn out all right, for no particular reason.
Theres nothing egregiously wrong with such an attitude, and in fact it
beats pessimism by a mile. I once knew someone who was a diehard pessimist,
someone who routinely said, Nothing ever works out. She didnt
know why, mind you; she just knew that things werent ever going to work
out. Being around her was exhausting and punishing, and I would have much
preferred an optimist. But theres nothing Christian about either
pessimism or optimism. The Christian believes that things are going to be all
right because Christ has risen from the dead, not because she has her head in
the sand.
We have, as a species, made a good deal of moral progress over the
centuries. I think the world is, in many respects, a better place than it was
500 years ago. We are somewhat less willing to be rapacious than we used to be,
and somewhat more embarrassed when we are. On the whole, I think humanity has a
more lively sense of right and wrong, justice and injustice, than in centuries
past.
This is not to say that there is not a considerable body of
undeniable evidence to support the position that things are not going to be all
right. Weve just come out of (or will shortly come out of, depending upon
how one counts) a century that was surely the bloodiest on record. The rich
continue to exploit the poor. Ecological catastrophe looms. Et cetera.
I dont know where were headed, precisely, but I do
know that were headed for God. Theres a great big list of important
questions that I dont have the answers to: Will those who have power in
the world ever learn to give it away, as Jesus gave his power away at the very
moment when it could have saved his life? Will Christians finally get the point
of Christianity? Will humanity make the kinds of systemic changes necessary to
keep our planet alive? These are indeed crucial issues, but theres also a
sense in which the answers to questions like these dont matter. Its
not a question of evidence or the lack thereof, and so within the same breath I
can say, Were in trouble and Things are going to be
fine. We dont need probable success as a motive to keep fighting
for what is right. We dont fight injustice because we think well
somehow overcome it if we work hard enough. Thats not the point. To the
contrary, we fight injustice because injustice is wrong and should not be
tolerated. Injustice has already been overcome, and it was Gods doing,
not ours.
Thats the good news of Easter: Salvation doesnt depend
upon us. The universe is whirling back to God, and nothing can stop it, not
even the most monstrous evil. No one has to win his or her own salvation;
humanitys salvation need not be won or achieved or even worked at. Things
are going to be fine, not because were in charge and not even because
were not in charge, but because God is in charge. We have a home with God
because God has made a home for us. As the saying goes, God loves us because
God is good, not because we are good.
Its all going to be fine; its all going to work out in
the end; we can be at peace. Whatever happens, we can be at peace; whatever
storms rage around us, we can be at peace. Thats easy to say, not easy to
fathom, and hard to live from. It may even defy reason, but its true. As
the great Julian of Norwich -- a woman who lived with more than her share of
heartbreak -- put it: All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all
manner of things shall be well. She understood the destructive power of
sin; she was no Pollyanna. She was, rather, a Christian mystic. She had an
unbounded confidence in the redemptive power of Gods love. She understood
things in a way that no pessimist ever could.
So there we are. Its Easter, and Christ has overcome death
for us. Things will be fine.
Jesuit Fr. Dirk Dunfee is minister to the Jesuit community at
Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Mo.
National Catholic Reporter, April 21,
2000
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