Love Lives + Rebel with a Cause + Ear to Ear

Good Morning and Happy Easter from Warren Grove, Prince Edward Island

“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.” – Barbara Kingsolver.

This weekend the majority of the 2 billion Christians worldwide celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

I feel he came to end religion, not to reform it.  He was a rebel with a cause. Love is the way. Caring for each other as a species is the way. Being good stewards of the environment is the way. Forgiving each other is the way. Being non-judgmental is the way. 

The date for Easter is different between eastern and western Christian Churches and is based on how the date is calculated.  The west uses the Gregorian calendar, but the Eastern Orthodox Church still uses the earlier Julian calendar to calculate the dates of festivals, including Easter.

This morning, I pulled on the curiosity thread to learn more about “Easter.” 

Christians will be celebrating Easter, the day on which the resurrection of Jesus is to have taken place. The date of celebration changes from year to year.

This variation is that Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox. 

Easter is derived from 'Ostara' or 'Eostre,' a pagan fertility goddess whose feast was celebrated on the Vernal Equinox. The word East is derived from her name, as is, Oestrogen, the female hormone.

However, In most languages other than English and German, the holiday's name is derived from Pesach, the Hebrew name of Passover, a Jewish holiday to which the Christian Easter is intimately linked.

~ from TERRA CHRISTA by Ken Carey

Compassion changes everything. Compassion heals. Compassion mends the broken and restores what has been lost. Compassion draws together those who have been estranged or never even dreamed they were connected. Compassion pulls us out of ourselves and into the heart of another, placing us on holy ground where we instinctively take off our shoes and walk in reverence. Compassion springs out of vulnerability and triumphs in unity. ~ Judy Cannato

Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph. D. is a scientist who came to faith. 

Dr. Collins is a physician-geneticist noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes and his visionary leadership of the Human Genome Project (HGP); he is the former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. 

He was awarded the Inamori Ethics Prize and the National Medal of Science. Collins and Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Prize recipient for physics, shared the Trotter Prize and discussed the interplay between science and religion.

During his time as a doctor of medicine, he came to faith. 

I love this story in the New Yorker. Dr. Collins is a fine example of love and compassion, a human spending his life looking for the answers outside himself; who came to discover the solutions are inside ourselves.

Strident atheist Christopher Hitchens was very vocal in sharing his distaste for all things spiritual. 

He once said the earth sometimes seems to him “a prison colony and lunatic asylum that is employed as a dumping ground by far-off and superior civilizations.” 

 Before his death from cancer, Dr. Collins and he became friends. 

"If we could look into each other's hearts and understand the unique challenges that each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance and care." ~ Marvin Ashton 

From the New Yorker…

After Hitchens was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Collins offered to help, visited Hitchens in his home, and got to know his family. They spoke about genomics, faith, and history. Sometimes, Collins played the piano. Before he died, Hitchens called Collins “one of the greatest living Americans.”

Read the complete New Yorker article here. 

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, and kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvellous victory.” ― Howard Zinn.

Kelly Mooney, an Prince Edward singer/songwriter, heard for the first time the song Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen sung by K D Lang at the 2010 Winter Olympics.

She was very disappointed at the incomplete and distorted view the lyrics gave of Jesus Christ and the title of the song, which means “Praise the Lord” to Christians.

Kelley wrote new lyrics keyed to Easter and, after taking two years of approaching Mr. Cohen, received permission to publish her lyrics to his music. The only two renditions to have legal rights. Or so as I understand it. 

There was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope.” – Bernard Williams. 

Happy Easter with Love from Prince Edward Island

Bruce + Millie

ps. Your Morning Smile

Do you know what really makes me smile from ear to ear?

Facial muscles.

pss. Bruce MacNaughton is the founder of Prince Edward Island Preserve Company in New Glasgow, Prince Edward Island. He and his wife Shirley sold their beloved business in March 2022 to Adam and Marsha Doiron. Bruce now writes this blog, Bruce’s Muses, for this website and soon to be A Bunch of Good Things blog from their home in Warren Grove, Prince Edward Island.