Friday, Lafayette, Indiana

This is the weekend when Christians around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. The meaning of this event is central to the belief that Jesus is a savior sent by God the creator to rescue us from ourselves. It presumes, of course we acknowledge that we need saving.

This is not a universal feeling, or even a widespread feeling. In fact, it confronts directly the tendency of Americans in particular who celebrate our personal independence, individual capacity and inherent entitlement to happiness - not just its pursuit. And with this blessing comes the expectation that success is our birthright; that limitations are the fault of our caretakers, bad fortune or our own poor initiative.

We seem to have cultivated a resistance to the truth that we cannot have it all. And worse, we live with the maddening awareness that we frequently do not do what we should. Instead, in the words of the Pharisee Apostle Paul, “I do the very thing I hate.” This is a truth of human life: struggling endlessly with our worst selves, even as we know the best of ourselves.

Who doesn’t know the wisdom of staying in the moment, resisting ruminations about a past we cannot undo and a future we can only partially control? Is there anyone unaware of the counsel to live with an expectation for the unexpected? How many speeches, sermons and penetrating writings does it take to persuade us that personal serenity is the only human experience that buffers emotional suffering and psychic pain?

Yes, we need rescue. We need something that goes beyond our mind, experience and capacity to envision our life without the corrosive effects of stress from worry, regret and interpersonal conflict that ruins the very peace we know in our heart is our desire. We need something big, dramatic and external to ourselves to reorient our attitude. Some force is necessary to overpower our limited capability, stubbornly resistant because of our hubris.