“The world that we must seek is a world in which the creative spirit is alive, in which life is an adventure full of joy and hope, based rather upon the impulse to construct than upon the desire to retain what we possess or to seize what is possessed by others.”
Bertrand Russell, a determined atheist — or at least anti-religionist — said these words. They seem to echo Jesus’ call to liberation: a call to abandon the false security of worn out tradition, of worn out servitude to the economic brokers. Jesus invites us to think for ourselves using our own experience, our own knowledge, our own compassion. And that is part of the struggle to learn new and legitimate information, to apply it to our own experience, and finally, to refuse to be rendered hopeless and helpless.
Jesus models how to dare to try something new, how to let the twigs of our old selves get burned so that new branches can grow vibrant and strong. He allowed himself to be vulnerable to show us that not even death can stop the movement of the Spirit within a community of hopeful people. Brene Brown says, “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.” One of the things I love about weeds is their determination. A very pretty little yellow flower I noticed in the driveways of our neighbourhood is called coltsfoot. It is an immigrant to these parts. Nobody knows how it got here since it is more commonly found in Asia and Europe. It is now abundant here. What a traveller, spreading its happy yellow self everywhere! As Kurt Vonnegut said, “We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”