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March 29, 2013
Facts, Hope, Spirit--and Easter in all its forms.
It's the Spring of 2013. We're still in the middle of a global economic downturn. Europe is a fiscal powder keg. Law practice is now part of the new commoditized "bad" normal. The definition of Intellectual Property changes almost daily. China keeps eating the American lunch, particularly in Africa. Living popes hang it up, cut deals. And overall planet earth is, at best, what it has been for thousands of years--a mean, violent wankfest of warring tribes and faiths.
There's not much you can bet on these days. But whether or not you claim an organized religion to guide you, most of us have some spiritual center or other-worldly orientation, even if we won't admit it. It braces us in bad or uncertain times. It makes us boogie, rock-out, dance or waddle through a much better, livelier, jig when things go great.
"Easter" for every human culture or religion presupposes that there is something eternal about each of us.
Many think the Easter tradition is pagan--or at least pre-Christian. I think it's seasonal and plain instinct. No matter who you are, or how you think of yourself, Easter is simply a prayer to, and a celebration of, Life itself: of Spring, new thoughts, Imagination, new hope, new beginnings, Renewal. We step back from our canvass. We reconsider. And we create again. We plant, Jack. It's that simple.
Facts, especially for lawyers, are always important. We plan and predict by them. We make decisions according to facts. We hire and fire by them. We conform our advocacy for others to facts.
But Easter--or whatever you and yours call it--is the one time of year when Human Spirit may be strong enough to trump Facts. Like even bad facts. Are you making a ledger with facts these days--"good" and "bad" ones, a pro and con list about what to do next on a certain personal issue? Then do give plain old Moxie and Positive Thinking the same weight as at least one good fact. No more. No less.
Spirit, attitude and optimism can, and often do, help trump the Facts.
Bet on it.
The goddess Ēostre/Ostara, by Johannes Gehrts (1884), flies amidst Roman-inspired putti, light beams and way-cute critters.
Posted by JD Hull at March 29, 2013 08:01 PM