Two Meditations
Posted on: May 1, 2022
Most people, including good church-going folks, aren’t aware that we celebrate the Easter season for many weeks after Easter Sunday itself. To help us do that, this month’s “Thoughts for the Soul” offers two brief meditations by Rev. Bret Myers, pastor of First Congregational United Church of Christ in Waterloo, Iowa.
Easter Encouragement for the Journey
Remember that resurrection is more than mere resuscitation! It is life transformed!
It is faith in possibilities, when others are convinced of inevitability.
It is the courage to love others, when they don’t love you in return . . .
–to show compassion, when others are heaping judgment . . .
–to live by peace, when others are being violent . . .
–to work for justice, when others are working for wealth . . .
–to respond with gentleness, when others are reacting with rage . . .
–and to trust that life, well-lived, even if short-lived, is preferable to longevity without virtue.
Don’t remain caterpillars when you can become butterflies!
Live beautifully!
Birth goodness in all your think, say, and do!
For you are called to be life abundant!
God’s blessings be with you.
Easter Virtue
There are times when the injustice, suffering, disillusionment, and pain of Dark Friday seem to have won the day and we lose hope and faith in the blessing of life. But let us remember even in those bleakest of times that there is always an Easter morning on the horizon that will resurrect our awe, joy and thankfulness and give us a new lease on life.
Yes, we all will one day die; but not even death can bury the love and peace we have shared. Our acts of kindness, strivings for justice, and practices of compassion are the eternal verities that give our life meaning and purpose, and will put our death in the context of a life that cannot be denied.
We are a resurrection people. Nothing can keep down those who refuse to give up the call to keep on giving.
For our belief and faith is not in what we see or even what we may often experience, but is in goodness itself—that which we can bring to reality in our own lives by refusing to believe, act, and practice anything less . . . that which most assuredly is sacred and divine, and represents all we know of God and the Christ in Jesus . . . that which we are commissioned to go and do likewise — forgiving, loving, and making peace.
