Category: Easter

Never Met a Stranger

4/23/2014

Never Met a Stranger

Dear old and new friends,

    Dostoevsky makes an astounding claim when he said, “Love creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf and every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants. If you love everything you will perceive the divine mystery in all things.” Dostoevsky’s “perceive” is such a rich word which also means to recognize or discover.

    Spring is an invitation to perceive what is hidden in a creation that is now exploding in a rainbow of colors. Don’t simply look at the majestic leafing trees; fall in love with Dogwoods or Redbuds and discover their secret presence. Spring has rolled over the earth’s dull browns and grays of winter with a lush carpet of vivid green sprinkled with countless yellow dandelions. Don’t simply look at it but fall in love with the emerald earth with her trespassing multi-colored ground cover and wild flowers…and so recognize what is hidden beneath. But while that’s all very poetic, how do you fall in love with inanimate “things.”

    First of all, they aren’t inanimate but living tabernacles of the Easter Secret. To approach their secret, begin by choosing a single flower or green leaf. With Easter eyes gaze upon it, appreciating its beauty and wondrous design. Next use your childhood magic and pretend you are falling in love with the flower, speak or sing to it of your affection. Love opens eyes and hearts. Be patient as you pretend romancing a flower or even a common yellow-headed dandelion, and your heart will soon begin to experience affection. But isn’t loving people more important than loving dandelions? Of course, so let’s return to the Easter Event.

    It is unbelievably difficult for us to grasp that our dead Galilean teacher wasn’t resuscitated! His friends didn’t recognize their beloved Risen Rabbi who was no longer Jewish, Palestinian or even a man, but now an incredible mystery that fills all creation and the cosmos. Use your Easter eyes whenever you look upon anyone, especially those unlovable and the stranger.

    His holiness the Dalai Lama has a valuable Tibetan lesson about love for us. He has often said that “he tries to meet everyone as if they are old friends.” Try that the next time you encounter a stranger and see the difference it makes.

A New Easter

4/18/2014

A New Easter

Galaxy photo taken and shared by my friend Dr. Joe Daglen

    In the gospels reporting the death and resurrection of Galilee’s Teacher, Jesus, time is telescoped into three acts. Act One: Friday he dies, and just before sunset his limp body is buried. Act Two: Saturday is the day he is entombed. Act Three: Sunrise on Sunday his disciples find his tomb empty and exclaim, “He has been raised!”

    The first written account of Jesus’ life is Mark’s Gospel which in its original text ends with a mystery: the tomb of the dead Jesus is found empty! In another gospel, that of Luke, a clue is given to this mystery of the empty tomb in a unique promise of Jesus. Dying on his cross he turns to the kindhearted rebel prisoner being executed next to him and says, “This day you will be with me in paradise.”

    Since childhood we have seen countless images of the Easter Risen Jesus coming forth out of his cave tomb. Later additions to Mark’s Gospel, along with other Gospels, report sightings of the Risen Jesus that solves the mystery. Yet, let’s return to his extraordinary promise to the rebel dying near to him as we prayerfully ponder the possibility of yet another account— the Easter Gospel.

     The Easter Gospel begins shortly after the dying Jesus’ promise to the rebel, when total darkness covers Jerusalem and the earth, as Jesus breathes his last breath on the cross. Instantaneously, his dead limp body explodes into a blinding blaze of light. From him a luminous tsunami streaks outward filling all the earth, then races upward into the billions of shimmering stars and on into the hundreds of billions of galaxies, then outward beyond them into an ever-expanding universe.

Witnesses report that those with Easter eyes now see every yellow flower as a saint abloom with the Risen One. They see all rivers shimmering with a sacred brilliance, and ordinary shrubs and bushes ablaze, and every animal, small or large is haloed as blessed. Stunningly, each of us discovers that we have been Easter-Canonized as saints, more alive now than ever before. Easter’s challenge is to see all things as new and to daily respond accordingly to the wonder of being incorporated into that Easter Cosmic Event.

The Easter Stranger

4/3/2013

The Easter Stranger

Dear old and new friends,

    In this painting of the Emmaus meal by Philippine artist Emmanuel Garibay notice that the hands of the woman dressed in red are pierced! As you will recall it was at the village of Emmaus that the disciples of Jesus invited a stranger they met on the road to stop and share a meal with them. As the stranger broke the bread they recognized their Risen Jesus, even though they were unaware that Jesus had risen since they had departed Jerusalem before this was revealed.

    The Emmaus event echoes all the other post-resurrection appearances where the disciples and friends of Jesus failed to recognize their beloved friend and teacher-rabbi in the Risen Christ. Their teacher was not resuscitated to his former Galilean male body but raised up to a totally new existence. Garibay’s depicting the Risen Lord as a woman challenges all our mental images of the glorious, golden-haloed, white-robed Christ of religious art.

    This novel depiction of the Emmaus meal, however, is more authentic than previous images. It also has the power to awaken us not to be like those first disciples and fail to recognize the Risen One who promised to remain with us until the end of time. As Easter People who share in the resurrection, we need Easter eyes to realize—become conscious of—the Risen Christ in those we may encounter.

    Easter set Jesus free from the tomb…and also from tabernacles and church sanctuaries. The beer bottles and ashtray on the table in the painting depict the Emmaus inn as if it had been a tavern or bar and grill! Before his death Jesus indiscriminately loved to eat and drink with people, including sinners, prostitutes and religious outcasts—and continues to do so today.

    With Easter eyes see beyond the divine masquerade of the dark-skinned stranger, the elderly woman using a walker, the teenage youth, the café waitress, the Mexican undocumented gardener and the tattooed motorcyclist, to perceive the presence of your beloved Risen Christ.

March 27th, 2013

3/27/2013

Easter People or the Walking Dead?

Dear old and new friends,

    In 19th-century America there was actually an organization called “The Society for the Prevention of People Being Buried Alive.” Good Friday and Easter Sunday are excellent days to use your imagination to feel the suffocating awareness of being confined inside a narrow box buried under six feet of dirt! In past centuries that had been the tragic fate of some before the medical knowledge developed that could determine the difference between a coma and death.

    Before the era of embalming, our first president George Washington, fearful this might be his fate, ordered he was not to be buried until three days after his death. At that time you could purchase an Escape Casket constructed with a hollow eight-foot long pipe with a warning bell at the top to which was attached a rope going down into the casket. Such Escape Caskets should be sold today!

    A glance at our society shows the need of a revival of The Society for the Prevention of People Being Buried Alive since many are entombed alive by their life work. They are buried not under 6 feet of dirt but beneath the tons of pressure to meet deadlines and expectations. Those interned alive include members of all professions, the arts and even non-profit organizations. Religion also sepulchers its clergy and believers in shroud wrappings of “shoulds.” The darkness of this mausoleum prevents believers from seeing the validity of other religions.

    Easter is not about an event thousands of years ago—it is about today! Easter cries out to those who have buried themselves alive, “Wake up and live a full life.” It shouts loudly to the Walking Dead, those who cynically maintain that after death there is only nothingness, and also to all of us whose destination is the grave, “Remember the dead crucified carpenter of Galilee who heard Easter’s voice to arise—and did!” He wasn’t resuscitated to his former life but was raised up into a totally new and endless existence.

    Created by Divine Love, we were given a destiny to become fully human by following Jesus through death to the last stage of our evolution—endless Life. At this very moment this beautiful evolution is unfolding in us, and those awake to living in this miracle in their daily lives are the Easter People. They confidently can say, “I am, I shall be, and I shall continue to be forever.”

    The saintly Russian Baroness Catherine Doherty, founder of Madonna House, said, “One day I shall wake up and I shall realize that I have lived in the splendor of God’s life within me, the likes of which I never understood.”

Ashen Grim-faced Christians

2/13/2013

Ashen Grim-faced Christians

Dear old and new friends,

Today, Ash Wednesday, in past centuries repentant sinners guilty of serious public sins and scandal were marked with the sign of an ashen cross as they began their forty harsh days of public penance. If you don’t fall into that category, Lent can be a season of spiritual renewal of prayer and works of charity. Another choice is forty days of preparation for Easter. Regardless which you choose, across it likely will fall the dark shadow of the cross of ascetic, self-inflicted denials of bygone gloomy Lenten days. This old negative spirit still influences how Christians spend Lent, even those who no longer attend church.

If you choose a Lent of spiritual rejuvenation of your prayer and acts of charity, then engage in them daily with renewed vigor and enthusiasm. If your choice is forty days of Easter training, then daily deepen your belief in the resurrection by practicing joyfulness and cheerful playfulness—especially dealing with evil.

The following is a true story, a Lenten parable for confronting evil. Leo Alard became the first Hispanic Episcopal bishop in the United States. In the 1960’s he was a young priest and pastor of a racially integrated parish in Chattahoochee, Florida. The local Ku Klux Klan detested this racially mixed church and one night the white-hooded Klan’s men erected a fiery cross on the church lawn. Inside the church, its youth group was meeting with Father Alard whose reaction to the racist burning cross was not with prayer—but play. In prophetic playfulness he led his youth group outside to roast marshmallows at the flaming cross!

Lent leads to Easter Sunday, the joyous festival of Jesus being raised from the dead, and also that same triumph for us, his disciples. Yet life after death for many, if not most, is only a wish, a hesitating hope, instead of a core religious belief. Easter fuses with joyfulness for those convinced death cannot rob them of life and so say, “I am, I shall be and I shall continue to be!” Those who profess this as their core Easter belief live joyous lives of impulsive cheerfulness and undefeatable delight.

If heaven sent a drone flying over the world to send back pictures of true believing Christians, it would relay back few images! Become a Credo Christian, a Believer Christian, and by smiling cheerfulness and optimism in a personal Easter have your daily life transformed into an enduring “Merry Easter.”

Never Met a Stranger

Never Met a Stranger

A New Easter

A New Easter

The Easter Stranger

The Easter Stranger

March 27th, 2013

Easter People or the Walking Dead?

Ashen Grim-faced Christians

Ashen Grim-faced Christians

Edward Hays

The Haystack

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