What is really important? What touches us today – and will not go away tomorrow? It’s the things that have moved us since human existence: happiness, love, family, partnership, time, stress, loneliness, farewell, grief.
BILD columnist Louis Hagen*, who comes from a German-Jewish family, sought answers to the eternal questions of mankind from poets, thinkers and researchers. And found a few answers that are amazingly simple – and yet can enrich our lives.
★★★
You don’t have to be a Christian to believe in the Easter miracle that says Jesus died and rose again three days later. You don’t even need Easter to believe in miracles. Miracles are there every day. They are among us, with us, in us. Miracles happen because not even scientists can explain everything that surrounds us.
I think that we can breathe, think, laugh is a miracle. We talk to each other, we love each other. We fight, we hate each other. We are happy with each other and we are happy for others. It’s called empathy. Aren’t the days of Easter a great time to reflect on how wonderful it is to have family and friends who are thinking of us? And that this – I’m not afraid to say it – is somehow a miracle?
BILD columnist Louis Hagen
In the famous “Easter Walk” Goethe wrote: “Streams and brooks are freed from the ice/Through the spring’s lovely, invigorating look… Contentedly, big and small cheer: Here I am man, here I may be.” This last sentence, a quote that has become famous, is a core of our existence, I think. Be satisfied, be grateful, be human, be allowed to be human.
I heard a story these days that goes wonderfully with Easter. I have to tell them in a bit of a cryptic way, because none of the people want to be named. A poultry farmer from Schleswig-Holstein regularly gives away a whole week’s production of his eggs, hundreds of them. Sisters give these eggs to the needy in Hamburg. They process them into delicious egg dishes, for nice breakfasts, the empty egg shells are lovingly decorated. These are festivals for people who couldn’t afford anything else.
Isn’t that also an Easter miracle?
* Louis Hagen (76) was a member of the BILD editor-in-chief for 13 years and is now a consultant at the communications agency WMP. His texts have also been published as a book and are available at koehler-mittel-shop.de.