The Season of God

Easter, Passover, Spring, Hanuman Jayanti (the Hindu celebration of Lord Rama's incarnation as Hanuman): this is a time of year when divine life is experienced in nature, in community, in poetry and literature, and of course, in religious tradition and ritual. This is the Season of God, reminding us that life springs forth, even from death, even from destruction, even from injustice and tyranny.

This season of God gives us metaphorical language to express our experience and to give voice to our most profound hopes. God, the ultimate metaphor for the mystery of life, will spring forth as new ideas, new movements for peace, new cures, new efforts to end oppression, new friendships, new beginnings. Life will spring forth; it must. And this promise written on psychic tablets deeply buried in the human spirit gives us hope and this holy season encourages us to reactivate this innate and natural hope.

The Holocaust did not last forever. Hitler's reign of terror finally came to an end.
The Cuban people, starved and cut off from much of the world because of boycotts and blockaids, have continued to thrive. They remain a resilient people living in a beautiful country commited to their ideals.
In the 1980s, AIDS seemed an almighty foe against whom no weapon could prosper. Today, people treat the HIV virus with medications that are keeping people alive year after year (and in some cases, decade after decade!).

The dark night, the time of terror must eventually come to an end. Life and hope and beauty and peace must rise again to the surface and replace oppression and injustice. Life, in all its goodness and grand potential, must spring forth. This season of God, filled with metaphors and dramas and literary symbols of resurrection and new life and divine appearances points us in the direction of liberation, healing, and goodwill.

This is the Season of God. Put another way, this is the Season of Hope. Let's make the most of it.