Love [people] even in [their] sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
I don’t read as much as I would like to. What I mean is, I wish I were the kind of person who enjoys it more—the kind of person who begins or ends the day reading something profound—but most days, I don’t. My days usually begin with movement and end with a favorite show with my family.
And yet, at the beginning of Lent, this quote in a Center for Action and Contemplation email spoke to me and stayed with me. It stays because it names, so clearly, what resurrection can look like in life: learning to perceive and participate in an all-embracing love.
I long to feel swept up in that love Dostoyevsky describes. (I believe we already are held within it, but I want to recognize it, to feel it more clearly, and to choose it in the way I move through my days.) I want to become someone who loves the world this way. To me, this is John Wesley’s vision of perfection made complete. This is the power of resurrection.
And slowly, as I let this truth settle into me, I begin to perceive it in the daily rhythms of life:
- In the little peach tree that I didn’t plant but discovered last year in the woods by the lake—how it blossoms and now bears tiny peach buds that, in a few months, will become mouthwateringly tasty.
- In the spouse who lovingly turns a work trip into a spontaneous family vacation so their partner, who struggles with anxiety, can have peace and enjoy being near the one they love.
- In the fervent work of a little grey squirrel who refuses to give up on turning a bluebird birdhouse into a home.
- In the single mother who sleeps on the floor beside her 17-year-old child’s bed as she waits for an opening in a mental health hospital to care for their depression.
- In the freshly baked blackberry cobbler left on the doorstep as a quiet reminder of another’s love.
- In the family who listens to their grown child’s trauma and learns to sit with pain instead of pushing it down, rushing to action, or explaining it away.
- In the bright purples and golds of balloons tied to a mailbox, celebrating the one-year anniversary of saying “yes” to a job once thought impossible.
- In the large blue heron standing by a bubbling creek in the heart of a suburban neighborhood.
- In the way my husband responds to my anxiety about how we will ever get the yard tilled and sod planted amid the growing Spring to-do list.
- In the “who, who, whooorrr” the mysterious barred owl makes at dusk, though I never catch a glimpse of him.
- In the early morning hours when our old tabby cat, on the last of his nine lives, comes to rest on me or touches his nose to mine, just long enough to receive the warmth of my hand.
- In the loving daughter who shares the difficult decision to move her aging parents into assisted living after caring for them through daily needs.
- In the harmonic melodies filling the dimly lit air of a concert hall as four young men feverishly play two side-by-side pianos in recital.
- In the burnt orange sun rising high in a blue sky, reflecting off the lake’s surface as the day begins.
- In the “dividing and conquering” of responsibilities that my team participates in when we have major projects to accomplish together.
- In the gift of silly plastic ducks from friends that sit on the dashboard of my Jeep, reminding me of community and joy.
- In the pink, white, and yellow blooms outside my office window as I write.
I may not read as much as I wish, but the point of reading anything worthwhile, I think, is to pay attention—to let its wisdom sink deep enough that it begins to change the way I see.
To perceive the divine mystery in all things and feel my heart well up with an all-embracing love at the wonder of life…that is resurrection.
York Arnold is the general secretary for the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women.