Written in 2015 and revisited in 2026
Once upon a time—two thousand years ago, more or less—there was a pretty unusual man. A carpenter and a teacher, he offered ideas that still feel radical: that if we share our food there is enough for all, and that we should love everyone without exception. He also insisted that the great existential mysteries are not, and never have been, only about us.
His stories were powerful. People gathered around him. And, inevitably, he disrupted the ruling elites of his time.
One night, he and his friends shared a meal—wine, food, and plenty of laughter. His friends ate and drank too much and eventually fell asleep. He slipped away to a garden, perhaps simply to escape the snoring.
But one of his friends, short of money, had told the authorities where to find him. He was arrested, imprisoned, beaten, tortured, and killed. His friends—and his mother—watched, powerless. Even then, he asked his God to forgive those who hurt him, suggesting they did not understand what they were doing—did not understand that it was never just about us.
His body was laid in a cave, a heavy stone rolled across the entrance.
A day later, his mother went to retrieve his belongings. The stone had been moved. The cave was empty.
And then things grew stranger still. The son she had watched die appeared and spoke to her. And—strangest of all—she did not recognize him. She thought he was a gardener.
In the days that followed, he appeared again to his friends, something like a spirit. Most came to recognize him, though not all. And he told them: You are the dream now. Look to the stories written in nature. There is beauty everywhere. It is not just about me, and it is not just about you. Leave your assumptions at the garden gate. Inside, there is endless life and laughter. Share food. Stay together. Build resilient communities—strong enough to carry you through.
So they tried.
This is the Christian resurrection story. Millions have believed it, in one form or another, for centuries. But what sense can we make of it today if we are not inclined to take it as literal truth? What might it ask of us now?
I have been living through a period of deep sorrow, revisiting what the science of climate change is telling us. And this Easter, I found myself returning to this story—not as doctrine, but as guidance for how to live what comes next.
I am not exactly happy; the news is too dire for that. But I find myself filled with a surprising sense of joy. Where does that come from?
Jesus attracted followers not simply because he told people to love one another. That is an old message, much older than him. He attracted support because his stories resonated. The resurrection story is true for me not because I believe that a body literally rose from the dead. It is “true” because it is hardwired into my DNA through the more than 600 years of ancestors I can trace who told it. But good stories are sticky and this one stuck to them and sticks to me because it mirrors the immutable laws of the natural world. It reminds me to remember that at a fundamental level I and all humans know we are not alone. We live in nature.
The resurrection story is, among other things, a way of describing the natural world. There is death and betrayal in abundance and there is always beauty, always transformation. We often see it most clearly in a garden. The tree dies and out of it come salal and wild blueberries. The sea wolf kills and the prey is recast into new form. The mother of the dead salmon may not recognize her offspring in the wolf cub born of a well-fed she-wolf, but it is surely there.
Climate chaos is causing death, suffering, and destruction. The best science tells us we are now powerless to stop ocean rise, untold human suffering, mass extinction, famine, water shortages. This comes about through a profound betrayal by the captains of industry who have known the science for decades, done nothing and lied to us. We ordinary people are in no way responsible for this but we have fallen asleep and partied while it worsened.
For me, this is the Last Supper and Good Friday part of the story.
But humans learn through stories. And what this story—carried in me and echoed in the natural world—teaches is that beauty does not end.
There will still be sunsets over the Salish Sea. Dung beetles will continue navigating by polarized moonlight, adjusting for the moon’s movement. Evolution will keep producing forms of life more extraordinary than we can imagine.
That is resurrection. It was never just about us. It is about recognizing the awe and wonder of the cosmos we belong to—and choosing to love within it.
After the resurrection, Jesus’s message was to build communities capable of carrying people through. Individual choices still matter: we fly less, install solar panels, talk about climate change with those around us. But we are out of time to pretend that individual action alone is enough.
The story of one life has moved millions for centuries. And it is through our own lived stories now that we may find the courage to scale up—to build institutions and communities that help us remember how to share, how to love, how to endure together.
Every tradition holds some version of a resurrection story—a promise that renewal and beauty can emerge even from suffering and loss. Nature tells this story constantly.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to see it, it will still become a nurse log for new life. Will it still be beautiful?
Nature tells us yes.
