Easter eyes: Seeking new life
AS I SEE IT
By Rev. Jim Innes
When something goes wrong, many of us immediately look for someone or something to blame. For reasons that often run deep, we slip into self‑protection and reactivity, and our responses can be stronger and harsher than the situation warrants.
Yet our first reaction doesn’t have to be defensive or full of anxiety. A different response is possible: curiosity, or even a kind of quiet excitement. Instead of rushing to blame, we can pause, look more closely at what happened, and choose a more hopeful way of seeing the situation—one that looks for possibilities and opportunities for connection.
A recent example was Easter this year. My daughter suggested plans that would shorten some of our usual family traditions so we could spend more time with extended relatives who had never been part of our Easter celebration before. It was a thoughtful desire to include more family, but my first reaction was to feel angry and want to protect what we usually do. I sat for some time in these strong feelings, becoming increasingly anxious. Things eventually worked out, but I was really lost in an increasingly noisy monkey mind.
Moments like that remind us that our first reaction doesn’t have to be the final word. Instead of staying stuck in blame or defensiveness, we can pause, get curious about what’s happening inside us, and look for a new life of deeper connection and empathy, even when our traditions are shaken.
I’m reminded of a story from John’s gospel about a man who was born blind. Many people around him assumed that his blindness meant he, or his parents, had done something wrong. The common belief at the time was that his physical limitation was the result of a moral failure.
Because of that, and because of how people treated him and talked about him, he lived on the margins of community life. He was excluded not only from religious participation but also from many opportunities for work, dignity, and social belonging.
Without getting into heavy theology, the love and compassion of Jesus challenged that old way of thinking. He taught his disciples and all who respected him that this man’s blindness was not proof of guilt, but an opportunity for a new kind of life to emerge from ‘brokenness’, one marked by healing, dignity, and deeper belonging.
To demonstrate this, Jesus healed him, showing all who witnessed it that what may appear ‘wrong’ can be turned into something so very right.
As I see it, stories like my disrupted tradition or the man born blind suggest that our first reactions almost never show us the whole truth. We tend to sort our troubles into simple categories: good or bad, right or wrong, my fault or someone else’s. When we feel threatened, that habit can take over and create more problems than we started with.
In our communities and societies, this same self‑protective pattern can feed misunderstanding, conflict, and even violence.
When something goes wrong, or even when we only think it has, it is difficult to step back and take a second look at the underlying reasons. Still, our struggle is mostly in how we see things. As John Milton reminds us, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”
Rev. Jim Innes is the rector of St. John's, Grand Bend with St. Anne's, Port Franks.
Photo: Unsplash