In the spirit of the season, a disclaimer to start: I am, as far as I can tell by modern standards, a Christian heretic (in part because I actually consider myself more of Christian-Buddhist-Taoist), so what follows is, well, likely to be somewhat heretical, too. I offer it with the confidence that the Divine One is big enough to withstand my spiritual exploration and musings, so I hope that you will be so as well (and, perhaps, find some value/meaning herein).
It's the Easter season, ostensibly the holiest time of the Christian year, so it's natural for us to reflect on our faith (i.e., what we believe about God, the Divine, etc.). Each year, I find this to be a particularly rewarding exercise because, frankly, I am often surprised to realize what I have come to believe and how this has changed over time. This year, a challenging one for me from many perspectives, I find myself surprisingly less surprised. Though I have been through a lot, my sense of the Spiritual has evolved less than I would have expected, yet I do perceive that this sense is clearer: I haven't come to believe that many new things (even though I've been exposed to numerous new spiritual ideas and concepts), but I am clearer about what I do believe and how these beliefs can inform my ever-present desire to live as fulfilled and meaningful a life as possible.
For example, I continue to believe that Bishop John Shelby Spong has developed an incredible philosophy for life: to live fully, love wastefully and be all that we can be. I am ever more persuaded that this should be my objective every day, to be open to and experience all that life has to offer (and to be thankful for the inevitable variety that this will entail), to be loving in every and all situations (especially those in which I am not naturally inclined to be so) and to operate as closely to my own limits as possible while, hopefully, expanding them over time.
What I'm also clearer about is that I have continued to fail miserably at this daily goal, both over time and in the past year. Among the many ways that I have underperformed my chosen goal recently is that I have too often given in to fear - especially the fear of being uncomfortable - and thus not pushed myself out of my comfort zone enough. For example, while I consider myself to be a loving, giving and supportive partner and friend, I suck at asking for help. Sometimes this is due to my appreciable but overly healthy ego and sometimes it's just the fear of being a burden. Truth be told, I have gotten so used to and good at figuring things out in life that I have a hard time admitting to myself that I can't work my way out of some challenge and thus have a hard time asking for the help that I need to do so. I also realize that one of the legacies of having been raised to be an independent person is that I feel uncomfortable asking for help because I don't want to impose upon others. This is all the more surprising to me because I have a wealth of life experience in which I have felt the appreciation of those whom I've helped, so I know how much it means to them and to me to be able to help. And yet I have trouble returning the favor, so to speak, and allowing others to help me (even though I know that there are many who would be willing to do so).
What's this got to do with Easter, Resurrection and spiritual reflection? Well, my experience at being able to live as fully, love as wastefully and be as much of the person that I can be suggests to me that I, too, am in need of the renewal and rebirth that the Resurrection represents. Are you also in need of this?
Let me deal a little of what I mean about the Resurrection, because, truth be told, I have a somewhat unusual view of its symbolism and significance. Like many non-literal or liberal or _______ (insert label here) Christians, I no longer believe in the Resurrection that I was taught as a child: that Jesus died on the cross, was buried in a tomb for two days and nights (even though we most often attribute the number three to this period) and then rose again/came back to a fully animate human/earthly life before ascending into heaven. (As the late Carl Sagan pointed out, if the Ascension were literally true, based on what we now know about the size of the universe, even if He were moving at the speed of light He'd still be going today.) What I do believe is that Jesus was put to death because He threatened the established order of the day - especially that of the Jewish community and thus by extension that of the Roman authorities to whom they answered - and that sometime after His physical death His spirit became a powerful, enlivening presence in the life of those who had known and followed Him. (These early disciples - broadly conceived - then spread the message about their continuing, present experience of Jesus' Spirit and this movement - first known as "The Way" - grew into what eventually became the Christian religion that we know today.)
[N.B: I have come to believe these things not because I've conceived of them or because they were 'revealed' to me but as a result of my extensive study of modern Biblical and Christian historical scholarship, including the works of Bishop John Shelby Spong, Rev. Dr. Obery Hendricks, Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, Bishop John A.T. Robinson, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the members of the Jesus Seminar, John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, Karen Armstrong, Stephen Prothero, Reza Aslan, Russell Shorto, Rev. Robin Meyers, Henri Nouwen, Dale Allison, Rabbi Harold Kushner and others. I can't claim that any of the beliefs or insights that I share is original, though I can suggest that they are unique in that they are idiosyncratically formulated and assembled. As far as I know, no one believes just as I do (which I consider to be a good thing). In fact, I suspect that, though many of us may believe many things in common, our individual faiths are as unique as each of is. So, it's in the spirit of sharing what I've come to believe that all of this is offered. I have no belief whatsoever that mine is the only or even a better way to believe. I do believe that the process by which I have come to believe what I do may be informative and thus helpful to others, which is why I share it.]
So, for me, (Jesus') Resurrection is spiritual in nature, not physical. I do not believe in His post-Resurrection appearances in a literal sense, especially given that the Gospels that chronicle them are so symbolic in nature (and, of course, not eyewitness accounts of the events that they purport to describe). And it's in this spiritual, symbolic sense of Resurrection that the Christian celebration of Easter has come to have great meaning for me. I don't need to believe that Jesus rose from the dead physically to know that a loving spirit can be eternal and manifestly enhance and elevate another's life. And it's this example of loving so completely and powerfully (or wastefully, to borrow Bishop Spong's term) - of being so loving that His legacy of love continues to affect and inspire us today, two millennia later - that I seek to re-commit to each Easter and to emulate (better) going forward.
Jesus loved so profoundly that the world as we know it was indeed changed. To me, this raises the question of whether we, too, can learn to love in this way. And by loving in this way, I mean having an appropriate amount of self-love to complement a primary focus on being wastefully loving with others. This is what Easter means to me now: it is the time to reflect and challenge myself to renew my commitment to being more loving and thus to become a renewed and better person whose presence is profoundly enriching and elevating to others.
And just like I believe that Jesus is physically dead but his Spirit is eternal and present even now, I also am ever more persuaded that this is what eternal life means for us, too. I can't get to that fairy tale Heaven that I was taught as a child, but I do believe that our spirit can be eternal in that its influence and presence can continue to enhance and elevate long after we are gone physically. For example, I feel the loving presence of my parents daily even though they have both been physically dead for almost two decades now. Their love as I experienced it during their earthly life lives on and I continue to be enriched and elevated by it today and every day. Their love is eternal and will continue to impact the world even long after I'm gone, as some part of the love that I share with my own children, family and friends (and, by extension, with the world more broadly) is directly passed on/paid forward from them. It's only in this sense that I can conceive of eternal life now: that our love lives on in the lives that we touch during our earthly life and that this legacy grows over time, as Jesus' example demonstrates.
So I wish you all a Happy Easter and hope that you are renewed in love and in your commitment to being as loving as Jesus was. And may your legacy of love also be eternal, inspiring, enhancing and elevating others' lives today and two thousand years hence....
No comments:
Post a Comment