The word Easter, in Hebrew, means " passage ".

It refers to that night when the People of God decided to escape from slavery in Egypt and were wedged by the Red Sea. People were trapped between the Egyptian army, that was following them, and the Red Sea. That night, under God command, the sea splet in two and let the path clear to be walked by the People of God. What was an obstacle became a passage. What stopped the road, became the road itself. A way to cross the Red sea from one shore to the other. A passage to cross from night to day, an access to freedom.

If Easter is a passage, it means that there is always, at least, a passage, a way.

We often have the impression of living in dead ends. Being wedged, imprisioned, locked up in problems with no way out. Easter is there, always ahead of us, leading our way, opening roads where our eyes see nothing but walls standing in our way.

In other respects, if there is always a passage, it is because we will be always people who passes. Easter has always been a matter of migrants,
of pilgrims, of nomads. If Easter opens passages, it is because we are all called to be passers-by, to become and remain like passers-by.

In Easter, nobody is never " arrived ", everybody is everyday on the way. We will always be " the pilgrims of Easter". It is not possible to settle on Easter. We are always on the way. That is why Guiding is lived while walking, camping, on the road. Guiding leads to Easter because it is lived on temporary. To be a Guide is a call to open passages, to discover new ways, to trace, to clear, to lead new paths. The world " Guide " stands for he or she who leads to open roads, to find paths and to find " Easter" .

Easter, the passage, means therefore a way, a path, a road, but it is always a way out, an exit. It is Jesus himself in the Gospel who tells us He is the way , the passage. The passage is not a thing, not a made answer nor a truth written in a book. It is always somebody, a Person, the passage is always God himself. God is never a monument, a church, a statue or a cathedral. God is always an opening, a path, a passage. He never locks, never imprisons. God never seeks to posses us, to have us among his clients, he never cease to call us into action. He is not a compulsory way, but the passage to freedom, because this is the Easter of love.

We find passover in the Guiding in the passage of an age to the following, from a branch to the other. In guiding " Easter " is a pedagogic way, a call to grow, to get on the road, to leave childhood towards adolesence, and to leave adolescence to approach youth, and then to leave it and start the road of adult responsabilities. . . The pedagogy of leaders is much more than a technic, a "savoir-faire", an occupation. . .   it is the glance of God himself, his word that calls every girl, teenager and young woman to grow, to develop and to acquire  more humanity, because only the one who is human is the image and the resemblance of God.

The Easter of God is "the  Man"
The leader is the gardener of God
 

Jean Debruynne
Easter 2004

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