Post-Easter Musings

I've now been back from the Holy Land for exactly two weeks - today is day fourteen, and I continue to wrestle with what is right and what is righteous.

I have also just finished reading Asne Seierstad's A Hundred & One Days about the days before, during and immediately after the "liberation" of Iraq, and I feel torn in a hundred and one different directions about the situation in the Middle and Near East. There are cultural differences, it is true, but do not all people deserve to live in dignity?

I also wrestle with the nature vs. nurture issue here. It seems to me that when one grows up in a society in which children play "Israelis vs. Palestinians", what can they do but grow up to hate and hurt one another?

Also clearly we as Americans are seen in very specific but varying ways: as saviors, as devils, as an undeniable part of the peace process, as an undeniable hindrance to the same. We are imbedded in the situation, yet seemingly unable to effect positive change.

Now is a time in the Christian tradition when we celebrate resurrection - Jesus' and the resurrections we experience in our own lives, large and small. Yet it is difficult to believe in resurrection in the midst of anger, hatred, hopelessness and despair, much less be a part of the positive process towards peace and reconciliation.

This is my post-Easter prayer. That God shows me the ways in which I am to experience and express resurrection power - in my congregation, my community, my country, my world. That sounds huge. I guess it is. I long, however, to make a meaningful difference; perhaps that is all anyone wishes to do.