Today is Easter Sunday. That can mean a lot to some people, and to others, it is just another day. It’s the season of spring and also the appearance of new life.
This morning I opened up my dictionary app on my phone to look up a word and what first appeared was the Word of the Day: resurrection. An appropriate word for this day, I thought. When the word is capitalized it means the rising of Christ from the dead. When it has a lower case “r” it refers to resurgence – a rising again into life, or revival – to restore or to bring back.
I started thinking about all the things we might like to see come back or be restored. For some, it might be a lost loved one, maybe it’s a relationship that is crumbling, or it is good health.
What I would like to see resurrected, revived and a strong resurgence of is kindness, compassion, civility and love.
So often, people feel the need to tell anyone who will listen what their opinion is on everything and everyone. Rudeness is so widespread and now recorded and posted on social media that it’s almost like a challenge, so many often trying to outdo each other by showing a more outrageous example of uncivil and hateful behavior. Research shows this is having a harmful effect on us.
I’d like to see more of us, myself included, putting down the gavel of judgement. When we disagree with someone, I hope we can have more constructive interactions, and conversations where there can be a healthy exchange without name-calling and hateful behavior and language. And more people showing that they can have opposing views without hostility. Can we not treat the other like a criminal or demonize them because they believe differently?
I do think the majority of us value the same things and would like to witness a revival, to see a restoration of freedom, truth, love, the ability to choose, and to know that we matter. Are our behaviors accurately reflecting what we value? I don’t wear rose-colored glasses, but I will never stop hoping that change can and will happen.
I can’t change the world, but I am working on how I show up in it.
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