if i believe
in death be sure
of this
it is
because you have loved me,
moon and sunset
stars and flowers
gold creshendo and silver muting
of seatides
i trusted not,
one night
when in my fingers
drooped your shining body
when my heart
sang between your perfect
breasts
darkness and beauty of stars
was on my mouth petals danced
against my eyes
and down
the singing reaches of
my soul
spoke
the green--
greeting pale
departing irrevocable
sea
i knew thee death.
and when
i have offered up each fragrant
night, when all my days
shall have before a certain
face become
white
perfume
only,
from the ashes
then
thou wilt rise and thou
wilt come to her and brush
the mischief from her eyes and fold
her
mouth the new
flower with
thy unimaginable
wings, where dwells the breath
of all persisting stars
— ee cummings
When I visited Mary Ragan's hospital room, back from my four day trip, I knew, immediately that I had entered a room filled with saving power. Fresh daffodils, lovingly harvested filled a shelf in the corner. Three friends were gently attending to Mary's physical comfort and each other's sorrow-filled vigil, strong in their love and mutual admiration, brave in offering what they could in a situation where nothing ultimately would change the eventual outcome. Mary is critically ill; cancer has claimed much of her body and pneumonia has set in. Mary, too, was attending to the situation, ennobling the care with her graceful acceptance of it and honoring her life's journey with all the strength she could muster, not denying the situation but being fully where she is. She said to me that she was filled with gratitude for the interchange of love and, in asking me to tell all who have her in their hearts, that she celebrates the relationship of care and rendered her thanks in a prayer.
I think we often miss those moments. The ones that tell us we have every bit of wisdom and intention needed to manifest a holy power, that we each, indeed, have the kingdom of God within us—the understanding of unity and beauty and joy and life and love. We miss that wisdom of being when we are overwhelmed by circumstances—which is most of the time—or called to immediate task by circumstances. But within each of us and in every moment, there is a unitive seeing, a sense of shared life beyond boundaries and a potential to live beyond fear of death.
This is much of what the Easter message is about, to me: the celebration of life beyond our limitations, the willingness toward transformation and the claiming of freedom from fear and domination. Jesus died to communicate these truths and I think most of us miss that teaching as well.
In reading an article about the joy of Easter, I was intrigued by a priest's comments on how this day affects him. "I think in God's ordering of things," reads the quote, "it's not an accident things happen in spring when the world explodes into life. Flowers are blooming," he adds, "there are bunnies, its a way of nature celebrating Easter."1
Yes, there is no accident that our religious holidays are celebrated in response to seasonal signals. That has been true since the beginning of recorded time in all parts of the world. What I disagree with, and am saddened by, even, is the presumption that nature is following our cues and not the other way around. Nature isn't celebrating Easter, nature is the truth of Easter. Resurrection abounds. It is we who need to understand it, not the other way round. It is we who need to affirm it for fullness of life. Nature will do fine without our metaphors.
In fact, we have bogged ourselves down in the stories we tell to prove a wisdom that needs no approval, to try to take control of expansive life that will always escape our grasp, to presume to give answers to our vulnerable longings with formulas that fall short of true being.
It is the way of humans to create heroes and legitimize beliefs with stories of natural and supernatural evidence.
You know the story: before he was born, an angelic visitor told his mother her son would be divine. Miraculous signs accompanied his birth and he was religiously precocious. As an adult he was an itinerant preacher and spiritual teacher. He gathered disciples and performed miracles, which enraged the Roman authorities until they brought him up on charges. Even after he died his followers claimed that he ascended to heaven reporting sightings of him. The followers wrote books about him, some that are still here today.
You may not have read these books, for they were written in reverence for Apollonius of Tyana, a famous first century philosopher and worshipper of pagan gods.2
It is a commonly used story. One that can be attributed to several hero figures during ancient times.
So often we feel our understandings need to be proved, codified and made into the only acceptable truth. Everyone has to agree with us. So we spread stories to create a history that makes our assumptions real.
I believe that the minute Jesus died, people began to seek ways to recreate the feeling of liberation known in his company. In their grief and longing, and in fear of a sense of emptiness, which accompanies all of our lives, seekers doubted they could come to the same sense of eternal life on their own. So Jesus was lifted out of master of wisdom to savior of souls, with increased untouchable divinity. Since they didn't quite get what he was talking about, they assumed only he could manifest the kingdom he spoke of.
Soon systems of belief were created that needed confirmation by way of followers. In three centuries the government got involved and demanded an orthodoxy, one accepted way, and to demonize heresies, the choices to believe other than the accepted way. Augustine of Hippo, in the 4th and 5th century, linked original sin to lust in sexual contact and procreation, dividing followers from their own nature and the material world from its own beauty.
In this journey further and further away from Jesus' message, the resurrection became freedom from a physical self and an implied separation of heaven and earth. By this time, the message of Jesus life and ministry was so lost in the systems of organized thought that we had nearly forgotten the true work that we need to do for peace, for love, for justice, for hope, for heaven on earth. "The Kingdom of God is at hand."
"The first thing we have to realize," writes Emmet Fox, 20th century Christian philosopher, "is a fact of fundamental importance… Jesus taught no theology whatever… Historical Christianity, unfortunately, has largely concerned itself with theological and doctrinal questions, which, strange to say," he writes, "have no part whatever in the Gospel teaching. It will startle many good people," he continues, "to learn that all the doctrines and theologies of the churches are human inventions built up by their authors out of their own mentalities, and foisted upon the Bible from the outside."y;3
Jesus, himself, was opposed to hierarchy of religious authority. He taught that the kingdom of God is within. He taught that we each have the potential to manifest our sacred fullness of being in the lives we live. He taught, that that life, that integrity of being, is more important than the barriers of fear, death, and domination offered by those in external power, who live by the myth that truth can be controlled.
I think one of the reasons that Unitarian Universalists generally avoid issues of Jesus' life around Easter and concentrate on the blooming of natural life is that we reject the messages of resurrection and transformation as they are packaged, rather than the point of their being powerfully present in the potential of our lives.
I have heard and even expressed myself in the past that people follow religious doctrine because it is "easy." There is some truth to the willingness to be told what to believe and to let it go without questioning. That is an easy, unexamined faith. However, I have come to know in my interfaith work that Christianity is not necessarily easy; that, in fact, sometimes Unitarian Universalism is easy because we can allow ourselves never to settle down into one belief, never challenging ourselves to hone our lives toward a deepening faith.
I don't think that the Christian renderings of Jesus were created because they were easy, but rather because they were compelling. We all look for heroes in our lives, we all feel persecuted for who are now and again; we all want to know that our lives have a purpose; we all want to know that we are not alone.
When people say that Jesus died for our sins, they can see a way out of their inner struggles and self-hatred that so easily come upon us. In order to keep the system going, some organized religion provides ample guilt and self doubt. Jesus, on the other hand, spoke of the beauty of our being and the ability we have for transcendence of distortions that keep us from soul's wisdom.
When people say Jesus was resurrected and available to all who believe in him, they can calm their sense of isolation and fear of abandonment. In order to keep the system going, some organized religion keeps its focus on what is evil in the world, what is other and not to be trusted, so that we bond with one way of being—the one and only truth. Jesus, on the other hand, spoke of a peaceable kingdom, where gentile and Jew found common ground in loving ones neighbor as oneself and practicing forgiveness—where many truths come together in a transcendent love of one another.
When people say that their lives are changed by worshipping Jesus, implying that what they naturally are is deficient, in the responsibility to transform and heal ourselves. In order to keep the system going, some organized religion glorifies indebtedness to Jesus and religious authorities, convincing people they owe their freedom and lives to another and that sacrifice to the system that owns Jesus is the way toward salvation. Jesus, on the other hand, spoke of claiming our own healing abilities in the depth of our faith and love.
I am convinced that Jesus did not intend to be worshipped. I know in my heart that Jesus did not want me to feel inferior in my being because of him. I know in my soul, that Jesus did not want us to depend on his life and death to prove the truth of the saving power within us all.
Jesus did not sacrifice for us. He died because he would not sacrifice his integrity. He died because he would not give in to the collective ego consciousness that is afraid of death and needs to control.
Jesus did not die so that we may live. Jesus died because he would not compromise the wisdom of how we all may live. And the wisdom of that fullness did not die with him, nor became his and only his to manifest. If that were true then he would have died in vain, for his life's work would have been lost, the work to empower the peaceable kingdom.
There are many different Christian embraces of Jesus, even today. I know that there are Christians who would wholly agree with my vision of his influence in our lives. I do not mean to disparage an entire religious system, but merely to point out that there is not one way to embrace the life, works and death of this amazing master of wisdom.
"The main purpose of the church is not to remember Jesus," rites Tom Driver, Christian theologian. "Its main purpose, surely, is to participate now, in present-future time, in the redemption of the world. To this end have the life, death and resurrection of Jesus in past time been given."4
When Jesus died, the spirit of his teachings and the love in his works expanded out to all who had ears to hear and eyes to see. The power that he helped articulate in our lives, is what can be called Christ consciousness. The same consciousness, the same transcendent unitive seeing has many other names in many other traditions.
A week ago, on a different visit to Mary Ragan's hospital bedside, I found myself in sudden witness of the power of Christ consciousness. A friend was by her bedside, holding her hand. She then stood up to get lotion to moisten Marys lips.
As I watched the exquisite tenderness of giver and receiver, I thought to myself, this is Jesus.
The friend took spoonfuls of water to moisten Mary's throat, who nodded to indicate when she was ready to receive. In the silence of that deeply caring interchange between friends who had known each other for decades, through thick and thin, I thought to myself, this is Jesus.
I marveled at the shared willingness to face difficulty to respond to the dread of our frailty and the knowledge of our death with kindness and steadfast love… this is Jesus.
The two travelers on the road to Emmaus recognized Jesus in their compassion and willingness to see the potential of their lives. They welcomed a stranger and gave what they could to honor the encounter. At the moment of authenticity they became aware of the Christ consciousness.
Jesus died on the cross because we were collectively unable to embrace the power of our lives, the truth of our wisdom for justice, the depth of our love. It is not our job to thank him for dying, it is our job to redeem our world with our living, to love as he loved, heal as he healed, praise as he praised. It is not our job to ignore our embodied lives in hopes of escape through resurrection. It is our job to choose life, praise beauty and manifest joy: to resurrect the spirit that he manifested in our ways and walking, a spirit that many noble people throughout the ages have come to know. Let us welcome the natural healing of transformation—in this way one can affirm that Jesus lives. And yes, the Spring season can indeed inspire that knowledge, but not because we say so.
May the power of love, the embrace of beauty, and the willingness to fully live without apology ennoble your lives.
Happy Easter. Happy Spring. Brave blooming. Gracious Living.
So may it be. Amen.
Copyright © 2009 Lisa Ward. All Rights Reserved.