These songs of freedom. Redemption song.
Bob Marley

It’s the season. Spring. Close to the equinox – that moment when day and night balance their time. When winter lets go its weary grip happy, as most of us are, to let dormancy give way to the impulses of sprouts.

I’m spending these transitional days in Montana – a place of bold crownings of grape hiacynth, fuzzy promises of catkins. And tomorrow is the day recognized by Christians around the world as Easter – the day of resurrection – of redemption.

Like every year, I’m glad for the transition in seasons. Especially this year, though, since I can’t seem to shake the growing sense that so much needs redeeming. From the fact of children still being separated from their parents at out country’s southern border, to the 20th anniversary of Columbine shootings, to the hostilities across lines of identity – politics, religion, gender, race.

The seduction of all this noise is great – sourced as it is in fear, false conclusions, greed, more fear. We all give way to the pull. We forget what is working. We forget who we are and that each of our lives depends intricately one the world we live in – on the wellbeing of all. We fail to see, hear, touch redemption – much less seek it.

My mother is on silent retreat in rural Georgia for this time. A place she goes often in any given year. A place redemption is served for meals, tucked into bed sheets, wafted on breezes, radiant in quiet smiles and easy glances. Redemption need not be manufactured at the Green Bough Retreat. It simply is.

In that, my mother understands this Christian holiday. She doesn’t claim flawlessness. Instead she claims the right to love and be loved, even as she makes mistakes. “Always keep learning,” she says. And she does. Loving kindness – that ancient essence of the Christian faith – she lives it. Imperfect and learning. Being surprised by the variety and grace of life expressing itself through people, circumstances, weather, change. Redemption.

This Easter I’m listening. To my mother’s wisdom – in its words, in its action. I’m listening to the determination of spring here where snow may come again any day. I’m listening to the deep instruction that, as far as I can tell, is only everywhere. The instruction that redemption is more a matter of quiet than of control – more a matter of nature – my nature – than management or strategy.

I’m listening, and, like often at Easter, hearing Bob Marley’s voice weaving through the hedgerows, alleyways, board rooms, garbage dumps, snow-cloaked peaks and greening valleys of my mind.

All I ever have
Redemption song.