“All I can do is to LOVE bigger.” The young nurse being interviewed at home after her 12 hour shift at a New York hospital, exhaustion in her face, spoke to me with a needed reminder of what I know to be true. All we can do is to love bigger.

I offer her words not because they provide an easy antidote to the grief and fear that so many of us feel. Nor an antidote to the weariness I am already feeling as the health crisis tries to crowd out every other concern and undercut so many joys.

Being a person of faith is not for the faint of heart. The news of the morning includes a death toll that continues to rise sharply and a jaw-dropping number of unemployment claims. This is the new normal, at least for a time.

Like you I am ready to begin imagining recovery. But like you as well, I know that there is a long road down into the valley we must travel first. It will get worse before it gets better. Yes, we know that.

We also know that there will not be a return to “normal”… there never is, and certainly will not be after this dramatic dislocation and suffering.

And we know that “normal” included so much injustice and suffering that we would reject it in any event. Remember that when the schools closed, one of the biggest concerns was the huge number of children who relied on free or reduced price meals they received at school. “Normal” left millions of families without the resources to feed their children…our children. “Normal” was not even close to good enough.

That nurse knew all of these things, too. But she said, “Love bigger.” Even knowing she had to return to the valley of the shadow. Even with improvised  PPE. Even with three children needing her at home. “Love bigger.”

As your Sr. Minister, I am thinking and praying a lot about the Easter season that we begin this Sunday. Easter has always been a complicated holiday for religious liberals. We understand the miracle stories as metaphors at best. But this year it will be hard to get to Halleluiah, regardless of what you believe about those stories. If we allow ourselves to rise, we will find ourselves reborn into a world of suffering and uncertainty.

Suffering and uncertainty are always present, needless to say. Suffering and uncertainty are perhaps more pervasive and intense this year, more apparent to more of us, but suffering is not news.

I am preaching to myself every bit as much as I am preaching to you.

But I have a message now, thanks to that nurse, with the tired eyes and the faithful heart. “Love bigger.”

Now that the message is clear, the only question is “how” to love bigger. And I can deal with the “how.” We can deal with the “how.” Starting with ourselves and those we love most, and expanding out to hold not only our neighbors, but those with the fewest resources.

We can find, in this season of crisis, rebirth and renewal. We can rise.

We can rise in thanks to those who show us the way, like that nurse and so many among us who know how they can “love bigger” and who answer that call in each of these trying days.

Blessings,

Bill