by Brad Bowyer
On this Easter Sunday, I can’t help but think of its meaning and how that applies to the current situation we now face in Singapore.
Although I have my own personal relationship with God, I am not a religious man in that I do not follow an organised faith, but I have studied and understand many and respect them all.
What I have found over the years is whichever one you follow at their core they are a system for connecting with your conscience and helping to guide your thinking and behaviour. In fact, many of them have similar tenets and even share some of the same prophets even if prominence varies depending on which one is yours.
Now Easter Sunday is considered the most important and sacred Sunday in the year in the Christian calendar and although ostensibly it celebrates Jesus resurrection it is said to symbolise the potential for rebirth, salvation, and renewal for a damaged human condition.
This potential has been highlighted even more this year with the recent disaster at Notre Dame in Paris where the 800-year-old Catholic Cathedral was reduced by fire but enough remains that it has the potential to be rebuilt and saved from the damage of the flames. A very powerful symbol indeed for Easter week, and a timely one.
They say we are born on this earth with nothing and we leave it with nothing, well nothing except for our soul and the record of the life we have led. At times we can muddy our record driven by many factors including selfishness, greed, fear or even neglect but there is always a potential for us to reconnect with our conscience and be reborn from our errors before we pass on.
How is this relevant to Singapore today?
Well over the years and especially in these last months I have observed that many, if not most of us know there is something fundamentally wrong with how our country is run and where it is heading yet in the face of the mounting evidence most stay silent or worse try and defend or even participate in the indefensible rather than stand up for what is right.
Whether you are a religious person or not I hope it doesn’t take a Notre Dame level event that leaves us rebuilding from the ruins but an inner conscience awakening that allows us to act before a national level disaster happens.
Sometimes we need a trigger or a symbol to get us to overcome the block that is stopping us making the change in our thinking and behaviour that in our hearts we know is needed.
Maybe that Paris fire so close to this weekend is such a symbol?
Because it Is not just about saving a country but about redeeming our own souls, which at the end of the day are all we leave with regardless of how we lived on earth.
Some food for thought.
Happy Easter.
This was first published on Brad Bowyer’s Facebook page and reproduced with permission.
