Looking for Little Easters

by Kathy Thiessen

So, there I was. Sitting in a tiny intensive care unit in Northern Manitoba. I was a 23 year old nurse, who had come to Flin Flon to take a job in the Emergency Room of a 100 bed hospital. .“By the way”, I had been told on my first day of work, “all our registered nurses are expected to take their turn in the Intensive Care Unit. And at night, you will be the only one there. A doctor will be sleeping if you need one.”

So I sat, watching a man sleep on the gurney, his heart problems fixed with medications, ready to go home in the morning.

A few minutes later the alarm buzzers broke through the solitude. The monitor was showing heart fibrillation. I hit the panic buzzer for help. The next hour was chaotic. No one was really prepared for an emergency like this, especially me. I had never attended a 911 call before. After the time had passed all that was left to do was to wash the man and listen to the doctor call his family.

The small room was quiet again as I sat and wrote down the events in his chart. I went through the procedures in my head, knowing that I had not done things correctly. I was sure that it was my fault that he was dead. If a more experienced nurse had been there, maybe he would still be breathing.

The quiet was deafening. My mind began to imagine things, especially as the body began to make the strange noises that early death brings. I kept wanting him to sit up and ask for a drink of water. I wanted the surprise of resurrection that would shock me and his family.

It didn’t happen. In fact, I have never experienced resurrection. It is hard to picture things that you have not experienced, let alone get really emotionally excited about them. I have often felt guilty about that. Surely, an earnest Christian should be able to feel leaps of joy on Easter because 2000 years ago, Christ rose from the dead.

In her book, “Fresh Bread- and other gifts of spiritual nourishment”, Joyce Rupp writes that she has the same problem that I have and surmises that many other people suffer the lack of joy deep down within themselves. The jubilant crescendos of the Easter hymns seem like a farce when really we are feeling kind of dead inside. Illness, tragedy, life changes or the other anxieties of life are right in our face letting nothing else come through.

Joyce asks us to remember that the joy and celebration of Easter is more than an emotional feeling time. It can also be a faith moment, a belief that the joy is still there even when it doesn’t feel like it. Just as in a relationship when the love seems to have disappeared for a time, the faith that it can reappear again can keep the commitment going, through the tough discouraging periods.

Another way of finding joy when the feelings don’t match the expectations of joy is to “develop the gift of recognising and remembering all the ‘little Easters’” all year long. These glimpses of joy, surprise, amazement, hope and newness can get crowded out by the everyday bother. It seems that it is far easier to recognise the things to complain about, then to notice and celebrate the simple positives.

Two scriptures from the Easter story point out some of the everyday things that if you let yourself think about them could be seen as joyful and as a little resurection. Hosea 6 :1-6 speaks of healing- remember the feeling of joy you have after a long bout of the flu is finally over and you feel normal again.

The prophet speaks of the dawn- and the dew- those of you who get up before the rest of life does on a summer morning can experience the wonderfulness and joy of a new day.

The spring rain that washes away the grime of winter and begins the new growth of the growing season .

John 21:1-14 expresses the joy of seeing someone that you never would expect to see. In the disciples’ case they really did see an resurrected one, but the joy could be similar in meeting a very dear friend in an unexpected place.

Or how about thinking that you have nothing and finding out that your “nets” are full.

Finally, the act of eating after a hard day’s (or night’s) work, when you are ravenous, sitting together with friends talking over the events of the day, week, month.

These moments can illustrate the point that God is alive and with us. They are when something that has died in us can be raised to new life again.

Some examples is my life are:

-walking through the London Mennonite Centre garden and seeing the lilies of the valley pushing their spikes up through the soil. I really don’t like these flowers when they take over large patches of ground, but it does thrill me to see them again every Spring, knowing that soon the little fragrant white flowers will bloom and soon after, flowers will cover the garden.

-watching the joy on the face of little 2 year old Ali at the CARIS (a resource centre for recent immigrants in temporary housing) creche when he realizes that Katrina is there. He has attached to no one else in the creche since the day he first came at 9 months.

-sitting and eating a spontaneous simple meal of bread, cheese and fruit with friends, with everyone there free and able to contribute to the conversation.

-hearing the whistling man pass by the front of the LMC. I don’t really know his name, and I have only spoken to him once when I thanked him for his whistling, but his proficiency and joy rub off on me.

-hitting a point in my French studies where I can understand most of what I am reading and realizing that I still have years to continue the learning.

-sitting in a church yard in the Swiss Alps with my family, joking and reminiscing about the 3 previous times that we had sat in that exact spot.

These moments are easy to pass by and just ignore, but if I train myself to see them I can rise out the deadness of everyday life and know that God is there. That She is definitely there in my life. That He can enter my life daily through the people and events around me and show how alive He/She is.

So, there I sat in the dark little ICU. The resurrection did not happen. I obviously still remember the man who died, but my accusations to myself have stilled. The family did come. They did not accuse me of wrong-doings, but thanked me for his care. My career went on and I saw many little miracles of the everyday: broken bones becoming whole, severe asthma attacks calmed, feverish babies healed and very sick people in the ICU becoming well enough to go home again.

Look for the moments of “love, care, concern, growth, beauty, friendship, faith, courage, mystery. These are invitations to celebrate the risen Lord in the everyday of our lives.”

Quotations and the idea taken from “Fresh Bread and Other Gifts of Spiritual Nourishment”, Joyce Rupp (Ave Marie Press; Notre Dame, IND. 1985)