Board Reflections: Spring & Rebirth

The religious holidays of this spring season – whether Jewish, Christian, Islamic,
Pagan, or any other – all bring to mind and to heart the theme of hope. Even my
most Christian-oriented spiritual mentor, the Episcopal priest and elder of the
Choctaw Nation Steven Charleston, talks of the “resurrection of hope” which for
me seems a good way to think about the Easter story of Jesus’ resurrection. And,
yes, we need hope resurrected in these troubling and uncertain times – with
legislatures disenfranchising voters and expelling those whose voices are too loud
and too progressive and whose skin is too dark; with judges and legislators further
restricting the rights of women and trans folk to control their bodily autonomy;
and with children (and others) in too many places living with the threat or reality
of gun violence while politicians bury their heads in the sand about the
connections between guns and death (and about climate change, about election
integrity, about fair school funding; the list could go on). But somehow, despite
the bad news and troubled times, I cling to hope. And that seems far easier with
the advent of spring and its holidays. A “resurrection of hope” and the promise of
rebirth is so needed today – to have faith, to have hope, and to draw upon both
to have the courage to act for a better future. May it be so.

Submitted by Fred Foster-Clark