Wendell Berry coined the phrase ‘practice resurrection’ some years ago in his Mad Farmer Manifesto and yet there are so many things in our world that can make this very difficult especially if we move this beyond the ordinary practices of our lives. We tend to want to see things on a grand scale. We despair when we read the news from Lahore or Brussels because we feel helpless in the face of it. How does one prevent a suicide bomber from walking into a park or an airport with a suitcase full of explosives? This may sound simplistic, but I think we do it by practicing resurrection on a more humanly manageable scale.
Our friend Dena Nicolai has just begun her new work as Chaplain and Refugee Community Coordinator working out of the First Christian Reformed Church of Vancouver. That church now lives in the wonderful shadow cast by Vancouver’s newly erected Refugee Welcome Centre. She and a group of volunteers hosted some 90 Syrian Refugees that are living in temporary housing in local hotels to an Easter Monday Dinner in the church hall. That is practicing resurrection and that gives me hope.