Towards Innocence

We were sitting on the front porch swing a couple of days ago, drinking tea after doing some food pickups for the food bank drive when I mentioned to Jane that I believe I’m growing happier. She put her feet down, stopping the momentum, looked at me and said, “You don’t usually talk like that.”I knew what she was getting at. The meaningful parts of my life have often been cause-driven – it’s just my nature. Yet the more I thought about it the more I realized I was rediscovering my innocence. And then it came to me that this was what the ultimate goal of Easter was all about anyway – new life, hope, a sense of new opportunity. Suddenly Easter wasn’t something I was just believing; I was in the process of experiencing it. In some ways it was a profound revelation, one that I’m still mulling over.We live in a jaded age, replete with faded ideals, and a deep struggle to find meaning in our lives. Whatever else might be happening, the need to believe that what we are doing is making our world better is as natural to our sense of purpose as hope is to the Easter season. It’s fair to say that virtually none of us possess lofty ideals that call for us to merely live the comfortable life. We care for our communities and our world, and the desire to assist them to do better is part of the DNA of anyone who dreams of mattering.Idealism, hope, innocence – these are the realms of children we are told. Surely as we’ve grown older we no longer live with our heads above the clouds, people say. We are more realistic and spend so much of life readjusting our hopes downward, rationalizing, updating, recalibrating. We feel this is necessary if we are to adapt, but in the process we have reversed the true meaning of Robert Frost’s poem, reworking it to say, “to follow the road more taken.” We were tired of the burdens of life, and besides, there was company on that wider road.We all do this, either knowingly or subconsciously, until we are not what we were. We see ourselves as more mature but nevertheless fear we can no longer dream in ways that prompt us to take the more meaningful path. I have taken this route often enough in my years to know that it was a compromise with mediocrity. Like many of my friends, I have learned to find that unacceptable.I have come to understand in recent times that what matters is not the attainment of my ideals but my consistent reaching for them. They count for something and should I let up on my struggle, I run the risk of proving that I’m comfortable with the lowest common denominator in relationships and in life; that I’ve chosen to accept a hungry world that lacks justice; that I have come to terms with the reality that what I sincerely hope for my community can’t be reached and that I’ll accept things as is. I quote again from thirteen-year-old Anne Frank, only this time from her third last entry in her diary before her tragic end:“That is the difficulty in these times: Ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to meet the horrible truth and be shattered. It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I will be able to carry them out.” Amazing. At thirteen years old she was more of a champion than I will ever be. Her ideals were never reached in her brief life, but they defined her in a way that inspires us all.We all need to take a journey back to the world as we believed it when we were young, when innocence provided us a clear view of the world’s possibilities. We need to recall that time before all that sophistication entered our lives, robbing us of our happiness. Why take that journey? Because it represents our roots, the real “us” before compromise and pain dulled the senses. It reminds us once more that it’s not so much a revisting of an earlier time as it a re-examination of what is truest in us. In those deep recesses lie our honourable selves. This is not some mere journey of sentiment but of catharsis – a reminder that the weeds that have overgrown our aspirations can yet be removed. It is an unveiling of what is noble in us and can be unleashed again.This is the true story of Easter’s ultimate triumph – the ability to discover once again life’s best as opposed to its second bests. Finally, after 61 years of adventurous living, I’ve been coming back home, re-entering the world I dreamed of when I was young, and I’ve discovered that the desire to help my world, to honour my country, to better my community, is alive and well. This isn’t about the tinge of regret that drives New Year’s resolutions but the empowerment of hope that Easter can bring. This is where my increased happiness is emanating from and I have discovered the truth of T. S. Eliot: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”Innocence recaptured. It’s what allows us to distinguish ourselves. Easter is still with us.