Melanie's Miscellany: Resurrection Is Hard Work

Once again, it is springtime in the Crescent City, and we experience the many mixed emotions of this resurrection time of year. While we enjoy the blooming of many flowers, we also suffer through the attendant seasonal allergies. While we love the return of warm weather, we have to endure all those spring showers that come with the breezes from the Gulf. And with the warm weather, we happily return to our yards and gardens, only to find we have a lot of weeding and pruning and feeding and lawn-mowing to do. The return of spring is not an unalloyed pleasure or an unmitigated good -- we are reminded once again that everything has its down side.

In our church and in our city, resurrections are happening. Slowly, too slowly, and with a lot of drudgery, we make progress on bringing our building back to both usefulness and beauty. Slowly, too slowly, and with a lot of drudgery, we make progress in bringing our homes and our city's neighborhoods back to both usefulness and beauty. Much as we would like it to, it does not happen all at once. Resurrections are happening, but it's a slow, even tedious, process -- and very hard work.

As a religious liberal, I do not view Easter as a one-time, one-day thing. Many, many cultures have stories of a goddess or god dying or being killed and then being reborn or revived or returned to life, sometimes with restrictions, but always through a process that was arduous and required commitment and determination. These myths may or may not have been meant originally to explain the arrival of spring after a hard winter, how the earth itself revived and was reborn after seeming death, but they also surely symbolize the times in our lives when hope seems lost, and death seems to triumph -- and then, somehow, through hard slogging spiritual work and arduous spiritual journeys, hope is reborn, love is resurrected, and life seems to begin again.

Here's a sampling of the resurrections going on in the church. Contact these staff members and team leaders to get involved, or call me; I'll be glad to help you find a place for your gifts and creativity.

The building -- Work has begun on the rebirth of the kitchen we will share with NO-AIDS, and plans have been made to repair the leak in the roof over what used to be the library. A lovely floor finish has been chosen for the library and the sanctuary, and these will start as soon as the roof is fixed. We continue to gather resources and catalogs for the rest of the needed resurrection.

Religious Education -- Director of Religious Education Coleen Murphy and I are working together to resurrect the Religious Education Team, with a specific portfolio of duties for each team member. If you are called, please give serious thought to lending your talents to this important aspect of church life.

Fellowship Activities -- As soon as we have space to do it, look for the resurrection of regular church potlucks, game nights, and family fun times. We've got the will, we only need the room!

GNOUU -- Starting this month, the Greater New Orleans UU cluster launches the first-ever shared capital campaign to raise funds for the resurrection of First Church, Community Church, and North Shore -- and the revitalization of UUism in Greater New Orleans. When you're contacted, please join with us in hope and joy!

A poem by a UU poet has it that even flowers have a hard time of it in the resurrection time. Karin Boye writes, "Yes, it hurts when buds burst." Nothing is happening as fast as we might want, and everything hurts more than we think it ought. Let us be gentle with one another, mindful of each other's hurts and wounds and tender bruises. But let us also rejoice in the resurrection time. Welcome Spring, and all the new beginnings it offers!

In faith and hope and joy,

Melanie