Practicing Resurrection

April 13

Wendell Berry, the great environmentalist poet-theologian, has written a piece about somebody he calls a “mad farmer” who goes around shouting, “Practice resurrection!” “Practice resurrection.” That’s not bad advice. It’s certainly what Thomas does—and maybe, just maybe, the other disciples are rehearsing the story and replaying the experience, too. Most of us don’t “get it” the very first time. Most of us spend our lives learning what the reality of resurrection looks like, feels like, and tastes like—because it keeps on happening in new ways every day of our lives.

How do we practice resurrection?

Maybe the most important skill is learning to live in the now, looking toward the future, rather than living in the past. That doesn’t mean we forget about what’s come before, though we are meant to honor what’s good about it, and grieve what is gone if we need to. It also means that we live in hope for the new thing God is doing.

Resurrection means that creation isn’t over and done with. And if we’re made in the image of God, then we’ve got creation work to do. What’s coming may not look exactly like what we knew before, but God promises that it will be abundant and life-giving.

From “Practicing Resurrection” in A Wing and a Prayer by Katharine Jefferts Schori. © 2007. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

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