Dear old and new friends,

     Good Friday honors the death day of Jesus, and on that day we are forced to ponder what we typically try to deny, our own death. We live but a short span of days, and it is our common belief that the day of our death ends all of them, so no wonder we try to deny its ugly reality. Christians revere the image of the cross, a paradoxical sign of the power of repulsive evil and also the triumph of life over death. Among the countless meanings of the symbol of the cross is the End; so it is used to mark grave sites. Traditionally tomb stones have two dates, the deceased’s birth date and the death date…but something is missing! Following the death date there needs to be those legendary words of the Saturday afternoon matinee movies that ended with the hero or heroine in a hopeless situation: “To be continued!”

     This Good Friday consider that Teilhard de Chardin taught the need of new religious symbols, rituals and prayers that embrace our new understanding of the influence of evolution, quantum physics and our place in an ever-expanding cosmos. I propose one new radical change…abandon the cross of Calvary and replace it with Jesus nailed to an old large door! Pause and take a few moments to create in your mind this new image of Cavalry; envision on top of that barren hilltop is a 15-foot-tall, 8-foot-wide, old weathered door to which is nailed the dying Jesus of Nazareth.

     A door symbolizes passing from one state to another. Doors open to the mysterious and are an invitation to dare to voyage into the beyond. Death is integral to ongoing evolution and its doorway to new life. Easter celebrates that death releases us from our human limitations to experience the freedom of the unlimited, unrestrained boundless new existence with an entirely innovative relationship to Life and the entire star staggering cosmos. This new Easter existence is beyond the feeble comprehension of our small human minds. Only our imaginations can create a teeny glimmer of the utter magnificence of this new life of living in communion with everyone and everything. Each of us this moment is an unfinished creation awaiting the process of being fully created into our personal Good Friday and Easter.

     On our fateful day, like the dying Jesus we will plunge into oneness in the Mystery of Life, God, with all the earth and the cosmos of billions of galaxies. Mark and Matthew in their passions stories relate the last human words of Jesus as he died, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” John has Jesus declare the end of his mission, “It is finished.” Luke has the last words of the dying Jesus, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

     I propose new final words of the dying Jesus! His last words were the very same as those of Elizabeth Kubler Ross. She was a Swiss-American psychiatrist and famous pioneer in her work on death and dying. When asked where she was going when she died she said, “I’m going out dancing among the galaxies.”

Dear old and new friends,

     The roar we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in our ear…that’s a fact. Another fact is when we stop getting thirsty that’s when we need to drink more water because when the human body is dehydrated its thirst mechanism shuts off!

Your soul acts similar to the body. When you don’t feel any need to pray is the reason because your soul is dehydrated and its spiritual thirst mechanism has shut down? You’re confusing me, you say. I don’t understand why I should even feel a need for more prayer when daily I say my morning and night prayers, pray before meals and go to church every Sunday. How can my soul be dehydrated? And besides, who ever heard of a thirsty soul?

     The mysteries of our soul are better pondered by poets than priests, so I quote the 17th century English poet and playwright, Ben Jonson, “The thirst that from the soul doth rise doth ask a drink divine.” We will never quench the thirst of our souls by simply going to divine wells like churches, shrines or cathedrals. While these are holy places, they are more reminders of the 10,000 holy fountains surrounding us.

     Our soul thirsts for the Divine in the beautiful, in harmonic melody, creativity, and awesome astonishment. When you see an apple tree or a springtime magnolia in full bloom, don’t rush on to some appointment; stop and drink in deeply that stunning natural beauty. Do the same with an insignificant, budding yellow-headed dandelion growing out of a crack in your concrete driveway. You say, “But I live in the middle of the asphalt and concrete of the city.” To quench your soul’s thirst, go on a pilgrimage to the closest park full of living springs or to an art museum to make the stations of creative wonder prayerfully moving from painting to painting. Step inside an empty darkened church and quietly sit, absorbing its ambience. Let your soul soak in the echoes of silent meditations and prayers, the great pipe organ previously performing Bach’s soul-stirring Fugue in C minor, inhale the smells of candle wax and incense. Then with your soul staggering drunk from these inebriating moments descend the steps and return to your daily life.

     Next week is Holy Week, and on Good Friday John’s Gospel gives our soul craving a voice as on the cross the dying Jesus says, “I thirst.” Saying prayers, regardless how many or how often, can too easily be simply saying words. Going to church can be a physical action that fulfills an obligation but leaves your soul dry as the Sahara. However, praying and attending religious rituals where you invest each one with as much love and devotion as possible can satisfy your thirsty soul.

     If you find these spiritual exercises difficult, remember the old Danish proverb, “Pray to God in the storm, but keep on rowing.”

Dear old and new friends,
 
     The earth’s population is now estimated at over 7 billion and projected to be 9.2 billion by 2050. Scientists using telescope data calculate there are more than 100 billion earth-like planets outside our solar system in our Milky Way galaxy alone. The next few coming years most likely will see scientific confirmation of the existence of another earth like ours. Today consider how catastrophic would be news of such a discovery, how our concept of the world’s significance would shrink, and of the cataclysmic effects on religion…and the Bible’s infallible beliefs about creation and even God! Since the consequences are so shattering, we don’t like to speculate on other possible earths in the Milky Way or that there are over 7 billion other people on our planet. Such thoughts only would shrink us to some teensy weensy microscopic insignificance.
 
     We are able to normally go about our daily lives feeling good about ourselves because the world we live in isn’t the size of planet Earth. Each of us lives in a world composed of an intimate circle of family and friends whom we know and think we are important, and more significantly, lovable. Sadly, in our crowded faceless society there are loners who live as outsiders suffering psychological problems and feeling isolated, powerless, and of no value. High powered guns empower the emotionally frail who attempt to become famous by their mass murders at some Mall, saying to themselves, “Now the world will know I exist!”
  
     If only each of us knew—and believed—we are not some historic accidents! We each enter this world with a purpose; each one of us is important since we individually bring a unique work-purpose into this world. While at an early age we can desire to be famous or renowned for our great wealth, it most likely will not be our purpose in life. Whatever work or purpose is ours, even if we do not become famous, that task is never something common or mediocre but an uninspiring life work or vocation.
 
     What is or was your purpose? For some you are midway in living out your purpose, for others like seniors your purpose of parenting might be continuing on but on another higher level. Some purposes are for brief periods of your life, for others they are lifelong. If after some reflection you find that you are still searching for yours, know it can appear at any time or anyplace as this story by British author Donald Nicholl shows.
 
     Nicholl tells the story of a man lying desperately ill in a hospital, almost out of his mind with terror and confusion caused by the drugs he was taking. In the midst of his painful darkness he hears a voice in the corridor outside his room that kept repeating over and over, “I’m so bloody lonely, I could cry!” It was the voice of an old miner who was in a hospital for the first time in his life and had been left alone in his wheelchair in the corridor. Then the man, while deep in his own pit of suffering, hearing over and over the old miner’s grief-stricken cries, said, “I’ll go out and sit by him if it is the last thing I do!” He struggled to get out of his bed and went to sit beside the old miner, and two things happened. The old miner was no longer fearfully alone, and man felt liberated from the terror of his sickness.

Dear old and new friends,

     Americans of means are diligent to eat healthy foods, and grocery store shelves are loaded with all variety of food options displaying large labels that read Natural. Yet to date there are no regulations regarding what can be labeled as natural. So a fine reading of the labels on products is necessary to avoid unhealthy foods with lots of fat, added sweeteners and artificial coloring or additives.

     Would it not be wise to also be seriously concerned about what is in the creed or creeds in which we believe? A remarkable reality is that your daily life reflects what you believe; yes, be you an atheist, agnostic or a believer! Among the variety of today’s creeds are: I believe the goal in life is to get rich…or to be successful…or that being prosperous is a sign of God’s blessings. The creed of the majority of Christian believers is the Apostles Creed which is typically recited robotically without asking if one honestly believes all that is being proclaimed. Catechism doctrines are useful teaching ways to explain countless centuries of accumulated beliefs, but they shouldn’t eclipse an original, natural creed.

     A “natural creed” contains no dogmatic assertions, morality laws or stale old beliefs of former ages. What kind of creed doesn’t contain dogmatic beliefs? Albert Einstein, himself an agnostic, gives us a clue when he said, “The most beautiful emotion is the mysterious. To sense that behind everything we experience there is something that the mind cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly; this is religiousness. Those who cannot wonder and stand in awe are as good as dead.” A natural creed is a primitive response to mystery, to that which is better than us and bigger than anything outside of us, that’s so good we don’t even have a name for it. Experiences of such awesome mysteries would include a star-studded night sky, feeling the mesmerizing power of ocean tides, being in love, and the uniqueness of a human face, even one’s own.

     The religion of a “natural creed” is simply an indestructible living trust in a personal God. Its morality is a personal response to being loved by a gift-giving God applied to all situations. A natural creed’s prayer is not futile SOS attempts to contact God but living aware/awake and responding to the abiding Holy Presence in everything. Its credo is that the Kingdom of God is here, not in heaven. Eternal Life isn’t something to come in the future, it has already begun for us. Surely, such a wonderful natural belief is free of doubts and uncertainties. No, since doubt and faith are two sides of the same human experience.

     This being the mid-point in this Springtime of the Spirit, consider setting aside a sufficient period of time to look honestly at how you live your daily life. Since it mirrors your creed of beliefs you can see what you really, truly believe.