all the winter of our sins, long and dark, is flying from his light,
Hymn 199, The Hymnal 1982
One of my favorite lines from one of my favorite television shows, The Big Bang Theory, is delivered by Leonard to a barber after one of Sheldon’s more eccentric moments: “When you describe this to your friends the word we use is quirky.” Well, Oregon is home to extremists at both ends of the political spectrum. The Ku Klux Klan is very much alive and well here, yet our diocese is led by a Japanese-American bishop. Our climate is in such flux that while James Cloutier described Oregonians in 1977 as people who have moss growing on the north side of their noses, we found ourselves dealing with historic drought-induced wildfires last fall. I think one can safely say Oregon is quirky. And yet it is home, and for all its quirkiness and in spite of all the whining, Oregon has come through this last horrific year as the state with the fourth lowest per capita rate of COVID cases and deaths in the country. I’ve been told Lane County is doing better than almost any other area in the state at running mass vaccination events. So, largely as a result of our collective efforts over the past year, unlike Palm Sunday 2020 when I stood in front of my television and sobbed looking at the pictures of prior Palm Sundays, this year at least a small group of us will be able to worship together, albeit without music, in Berktold Hall on Palm Sunday 2021. Then on Easter Day we will be able to come together outdoors, as we haven’t done since Mary Sunday last August, to celebrate the resurrection.
As wonderful as the progress we’ve made so far feels, there is much that’s unknown about the future. We would do well to remember that that first Easter morning was not a time of rejoicing for the disciples, but one of total confusion superimposed on the abject terror they had been feeling since Friday, when they had seen Jesus dragged away and ultimately executed. While we’re not faced with quite that level of distress, we’re still in the dark with regard to just how the next few months are going to unfold. Schools still aren’t open to all age levels - will that happen before the end of this school year? How long is it going to take the economy to rebound? How many people are never going to be able to get their old jobs back, but will instead have to look for a new way to earn a living? It would be easy to bog down in all the uncertainty. On the other hand, Easter IS coming, of this there is no doubt, and while we may not be able to sing out loud, we can let our hearts rejoice:
’Tis the spring of souls today: Christ hath burst his prison,
and from three days sleep in death as a sun hath risen;
all the winter of our sins, long and dark, is flying
from his light, to whom we give laud and praise undying.
Submitted by Sharon Rodgers for her How We Live column in the Easter 2021 Bellringer.
