Paschal Reflections

It is almost Easter; this time tomorrow, we will have proclaimed that "Christ has risen! Christ has risen indeed!" and let the alleluias roll for the first time in 40 days. Tonight in Montevideo, we are gathering to wait together, for a while, in the night, taking up Christ´s call in Gethsemene to keep watch and pray, awaiting the resurrection of the same Lord. However, other things are different. Christ in Montevideo doesn´t burst out of the tomb into a springtime world of budding trees and (for the northerners reading this) melting snow. It´s fall here, and as the new life of the Risen Lord dawns on Easter morning, its light falls on turning leaves and the last of the pink palo borracho blossoms, just waiting for the next strong breeze from the river to carry them away. As Christ comes back to life, the world here is dying.

Saying that life here is seasonally confusing is an understatement. First off, I´m from a part of the world that doesn´t have seasons, per se - life on the Gulf Coast is 8-9 months of heat, humidity, and a fairly high amount of sunshine, mixed in with a little rain and the occasional fresh, cool day. The other 3-4 months flip back and forth between springlike raininess, autumnal freshness, and winter sunlessness, sometimes involving all three in the same week. Here, though, we have seasons - four of them, all very distinct, and in reverse month-wise. Christmas is in the summer, Easter in the fall. All of the carefully crafted Northern hemisphere imagery for the holidays breaks down when its transplated here. Santa should be going to the beach (probably in a speedo if he´s like most old, overweight Uruguayan men I´ve seen at the beach here), and the day of new life comes not as the lilies are blooming, but as the world slowly hemorrages out its color and life as the nights get cold and rainclouds begin rolling in off the Rio de la Plata.

I think we´ve lost our appreciation for seasons in the United States. The migration these days is southbound - life-long New Yorkers and Wisconsinites have started making their way down to Phoenix and San Antonio and San Luis Obispo, because that´s where the sun is, and there´s no winter or snow or ice. It´s summertime, and the living is easy, in the Sun Belt, after all. We don´t like winter - it´s cold, sunless, and unpleasant. Besides, and let´s be honest, half of the spring and fall are just extensions of winter.

As someone from Texas, I am probably not the best equipped to criticize this, and I would be lying if I said that I enjoyed my first month and a half of winter weather in Montevideo - I missed the sun, I hated the rain, and I resented needing two layers of clothing and two blankets just to be comfortable enough to sleep. It was, and I will be honest, a miserable time on the whole....and it´s on its way again. The days are shorter, I need a sweater to go out at night, and the days of wearing sandals to work are numbered.

But...isn´t that life? I´ve never once lived a life filled with nothing but sunshine and fun times in the park. Sometimes, it really IS winter, and the sun´s nowhere in sight. It´s part of the human experience...not a pleasant one, but a part of life nonetheless. We´ve become so obsessed with wanting to be happy (not joyful, or content, but happy) all of the time that we´ve stopped assigning value to the times that aren´t and simply devoted ourselves to getting rid of them - they´re just another inconvenience that should be done away with, like waiting in line or needing exact change.

I think I´m glad to have Easter in the fall this year. It´s hope, not that we´ll be able to live in the sun all the time, but that Christ´s victory is so great that even when winter is on its way, when the days are short and the nights cold and windy, we still have the hope of life, the joy of the Spirit, and the peace of the Risen Lord to carry us.