By the Rev. David Smazik
Restoration, reclamation, renovation, revision are all “movements” that seem to be popular at the moment. Especially as related to housing.
If conversation begins to lag at a social gathering, reference a home improvement show of some type and, most likely, someone will respond.
Living locally, in this historic town and region, reclaiming what was is a cord that binds many local efforts.
So it is with resurrection. There is not a total aversion to the implication of resurrection as it relates to what we see, what we hear, or that with which we are personally involved.
I recently resurrected a piece of wood from the back of the discard pile to create a new top for a table. I was looking for the most worn and weathered piece I could find.
Something innate in our souls is touched when we see new life emerge from what was discarded.
As creation revives and comes back to life this time of year, some faith traditions take time to celebrate and remember the release from captivity to freedom and the defeat of death and disconnectedness into the reclamation of new life and new beginnings.
That innate longing, woven into our created beings, desires renewal. God, who creates and recreates, empowers us to seek it, to experience that for which we long, but cannot do on our own when we feel discarded –- by a loved one, an employer, a healthy body or mind, a country, a faith.
We need to actively seek to reclaim the cord that binds us together in community, locally and in the world.
We need to restore, renovate and revise what it means to be connected to one another and to that which is beyond ourselves.
We need to engage with the creative power of God which allows us to experience new beginnings and celebrate resurrection.
David Smazik is pastor of The Presbyterian Church in Morristown.
