Easter from Michael Leunig

Michael Leunig's piece Away in a chook shed in THE AGE newspaper over Easter is one of the best pieces of writing I've come across in a long time, and not only because it deals with Easter. I encourage you to read the whole article. For now here is the last paragraph or two of the piece. Ponder it, pray & reflect deeply!

Easter is a cautionary parable for any man or woman of maturity, integrity and originality, who stands alone outside the system and speaks serious truth to their society - any man or woman who faces reality bravely, who feels life deeply, who holds love over gold, who frees what is repressed, who sees humbly, who speaks frankly, who touches and awakens what is divine in humanity, who illuminates the corruption and hypocrisy of institutional power: any man or woman who becomes the fully alive and soulful moral creature and goes it alone in this world. We know of this divine impulse in humanity. Woe betide them because they will be lonely; they will be reviled and outcast through the insecurity and guilt and envy of the miserably powerful who, in all their might, could not do what the free and healthy spirit has done alone. And with all certainty the spirit that stood out courageously will be betrayed and denied and destroyed by the conforming mob - if not to the full degree then to a considerable extent and certainly sufficient to cause anguish and suffering enough to break the heart: the everyday crucifixions we fear and know so well.

And worse still, and most importantly and sadly of all: we betray, deny and persecute the divinity within ourselves: that is what humans do; out of pure fear of life, they dare not live all of it. Easter is not limited to the passion and death of Christ, it also includes the dismal tragedy of life unlived by the many, and all the loss of passion and truth that goes with it.

And though these particular crucified individuals or these suppressed human qualities, whatever and whoever they have been, may never rise again, some memory and sense of them will continue to rise and remain for as long as it takes tragic, weeping humanity to find its way back to the garden.