Shelter Island Reporter Editorial: Hope, patience, confidence 

Even with hideous wars in Ukraine and Gaza — so far away geographically, but as close as your hand holding a cellphone — and a political climate that is a hurricane of bad faith, misinformation, gutless posturing, with essential services Americans have relied on for generations on the chopping block, we have come into spring with a sense of relief.

As the wars rage on, retirement savings are wiped away by the whims of one person, and politics that can’t peek out of the gutter and worries consume us, a question has to be asked: Does nature’s rebirth bring any comfort? Spring is the season of hope tempered with patience, and Helen Keller added another virtue to the mix: “Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”

The moveable feasts of two great religions, Easter and Passover, are here.

One commemorates resurrection and renewal; the other celebrates the principle of forging ahead into freedom through the powers of community, faith and justice.

Those concepts are so deep within most of us that we can’t give words to them, but they are present in our appreciation of the changing seasonal light and the beautiful signal flares of bright forsythia in bloom.

This spring, however, we don’t have to strain to be conscious of those principles of community, resurrection, and renewal.

Hebrew scholars have identified three things, among others, that keep civilization progressing — truth, justice, and peace — with the latter seeming to take the top spot in affording us the possibility of becoming better.

Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, asked us to remember that, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

This spring weekend, no matter our religion, or if we have none, we should take comfort in what we have, whom we love, and hope for peace in our community, in our country, for the people of Ukraine and Israel and Gaza, and peace within ourselves.