From Nothing to Everything, from Despair to Hope: What Makes You Want To Sing Alleluia

Happy Easter

Easter begins in emptiness and despair. In the example from Mark, the three women go to the tomb and find it empty. They are told Jesus has been raised and to go tell the disciples. They flee in amazement and terror, they tremble in awe. They are in utter despair. The despair soon turns to hope, a new hope, a fresh hope, respair. This is the message at the heart of Easter. This is what folk sing praises to. That new hope can be born again, even in the bleakest of despair. That said it is up to us to bring that hope to life.

I woke up exhausted on Tuesday morning. I spent some time with friends I sit in meditation with regularly. We shared together and I began to feel a little revived. I was tired after the annual meetings and looked ahead at the things I have to do in the next 10 days. I wondered how am going to find the strength to come through all this. I had a few personal troubles too. The loss of one of my oldest friends and another friend who was really struggling. I began to work on the tasks of the week. Another friend called who is also grieving, part of me didn’t want to take the call, but I did. He began to off-load and share his struggles and then asked me about my stuff. For once I told him. It was interesting what came out, including my struggles to uncover what to explore this Easter. As we spoke clarity came, as did human connection. There was something beautiful in the connection. I shared about a hilarious conversation I had with some young new and student ministers I had been engaged with at the annual meetings. We moved onto conversations about the difficulties one can face in expressing ourselves. A little later I went out again on a pastoral call. Interestingly in this conversation I spoke much more about myself than I would normally. The person I visited wanted to know things about me, and asked directly. Again, it was a lovely conversation. We both shared about our lives. Those dark moments, those times of renewal and re-birth, of discovering new things, of coming out of the empty cave of unknowing, to be born into new light and life once again.

I returned home and got down to trying to write this sermon, I had made a start when there was a knock at the door. It was the man who had come to read the chapel gas meters. Molly and me let him in the cellar. As he stepped out of the darkness of the cellar he began to ask me questions about the chapel and Easter. He then began to tell me about himself and his own beliefs. He called himself a cafeteria Catholic. He told me about his heritage and what he thought about resurrection and Easter. He preached me a wonderful Universalist Easter sermon. I invited him to take the service this Sunday, but he didn’t turn up. I left and smiled and then returned to writing the sermon. I thought about all three conversations and I sang songs of Hallelujah. I sang a song of praise for that spirit that moves through us as I stood in the chapel gardens surrounded by the pink cherry blossom, that had already fallen.

I then began to think about Easter. How do I speak about Easter? What do I think of Easter? What does Easter mean to me? Well as with everything you should start at the beginning. Easter begins in grief, in emptiness. Something I was actually experiencing as I sat down to write. Something that had been on backburner these last few days, as I had been caught up in my work, and been away with many folk at our annual meetings.

There is something deeply universal about Easter. There is something in its spirit that can speak to all people in every culture at every time and in every place. It points to those moments in all our lives when something deeper within us comes to life, or perhaps it comes back to life. If we truly enter into what is at the core of Easter, its spirit, it can bring us to a deeper understanding of life right here, right now, in our world. I thought of this as I looked at the life so alive in the chapel gardens, as well as those many conversations I had had with folk, folk in grief and suffering, who are coming back to life. All examples of Love born again from that empty tomb.

I thought about what Tony (The gas man) had spoken of, about resurrection and what he believes lives on. It is possible to celebrate Easter without having to believe in the actual resurrection of the body of Jesus, which is of course the traditional Christian view. The early followers of Jesus believed a variety of things. You can believe in Easter without having to accept the uniqueness of Jesus’ resurrection. You see there is something deeply universal in the spirit of Easter that has the capacity to awaken everyone’s spirit regardless of whether or not they believe every aspect of the Gospel accounts.

Easter can also be understood as the festival of the renewal of life that comes at springtime; Easter can be seen as the resurrection of the earth after the seeming death of winter. These last few weeks you surely have felt powerfully this deep sense of the renewal of life. The other evening I could both feel and smell this powerfully in the air. There is a real electricity in the air at springtime. Now of course the renewal of the seasons is recognised in the pre-Christian roots of our Easter celebrations. According to the Venerable Beed the word Easter is after all derived from “Eostre” the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of spring; the goddess of fertility and renewal.

The Easter “mythos” can also be seen as the triumph of the human spirit, over all that would crush it, even death itself. This triumph also has pre-Christian roots, such as the Jewish “Passover” which of course Jesus and his disciples were commemorating on what has become known as Maundy Thursday. In Latin speaking countries Easter is known as “Pascha” or similar words that are derived directly from “Pesach”. Easter isn’t even called Easter in many parts of the world. The root of Easter lies in the Jewish festival of Passover. Remember that Jesus was a Jewish Rabbi who wanted to bring the religion back to the people. In the eyes of those who followed him, he was the Messiah. This is why they cried Hossanah as he entered the city at the beginning of the week. Last Sunday was Passover.

Jesus’ resurrection is a powerful example of love overcoming death; a perfect example of the spirit of love living on even after physical death. I think it is impossible to argue that the spirit that was in Jesus did not live on after his bodily death. The spirit of love that incarnated in his life has survived all that we have done to it these last 2,000 years as we have remembered him, rather badly.

All love lives on, again something Tony (the gas ma) spoke passionately about. All we have to do to bring it once again to life is remember those who have touched our hearts and souls. What has been bound into one another’s hearts cannot be unbound. Love is stronger than death. This for me, above everything else, is the universal “mythos” that is at the root of Easter. A festival for everyone.

I awoke on Wednesday morning in a new spirit. I had to go into Manchester first thing, as I had to sign something legal, for a dear friend who is herself grieving the loss of her beloved dog. I saw things differently as I headed out. I enjoyed the pink snow covering the gardens. My eyes felt raised up once again, I saw new vision, new hope, not expectation or optimism, but new hope, fresh hope, “Respair”. I realised that my eyes had been a bit down recently. I knew it was grief, a grief I had not been fully aware of up to then. As I travelled home on the tram, a lovely poem “Vision” by May Thielgaard Watts, came to me.

"Vision" by May Thielgaard Watts

To-day there have been lovely things
I never saw before;
Sunlight through a jar of marmalade;
A blue gate;
A rainbow
In soapsuds on dishwater;
Candlelight on butter;
The crinkled smile of a little girl
Who had new shoes with tassels;
A chickadee on a thorn-apple;
Empurpled mud under a willow,
Where white geese slept;
White ruffled curtains sifting moonlight
On the scrubbed kitchen floor;
The under side of a white-oak leaf;
Ruts in the road at sunset;
An egg yolk in a blue bowl.

My love kissed my eyes last night.

Isn't it lovely. Now the ears of my ears are awake. Now the eyes of my eyes are open.

When we live in heart, in courage, in love, we can see these signs of hope everywhere. It comes in the little things.

All we have to do is keep our senses open, in order to see these things. It begins with our hearts and souls.

Today is Easter, let us rejoice and be glad; let us celebrate the joy that is this day whatever it may mean to us. For no matter the conditions of our lives, the state of our hearts. The lives of those dear to us and the struggles in this our shared world, the spirit of Easter can be born again and anew, in our hearts and lives. Life continues. Spring is here, the new life cannot be denied. Easter is here, let us rejoice and sing Hallelujah!!!

And what is Easter? Well it is different, perhaps unique for each and every one of us. What makes you want to rise up and sing Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah?

What is your song, the one that makes you want to feel like you belong. I was lovingly listening to the new bird song on Wednesday, it made me want to sing hallelujah.

I believe that each of us have a song in our hearts, that will bring us hope when hope is hard to find. We need to find a way to learn it, sing it and share it and thus help one another through those dark times, to times of love and joy, so we can enjoy the milk and honey. So that we can bring the spirit of Easter alive in us and through us.

For we all experience alleluia moments, isn’t this the heart of Easter; We all have alleluias in our lives, those moments of triumph and wonder, of insight and rebirth; we all have alleluia’s, those moments of transformation, when our way of being in the world is fundamentally changed; alleluia moments when we are strengthened and life is deepened; alleluia moments when we feel more connected, more whole; we all have moments when we want to sing alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

That said there cannot be Easter without Good Friday. Hope is born from Despair. Easter begins with an empty tomb and fear. It is often the same with all life, this is the universal message of Easter. Sometimes our most profound transformations emerge out of the loss we face in life. This may be the empty hole left by grief, at the loss of a beloved, something so many are facing. Or it may be one of those thousands of lesser losses we experience in life. All forms of grief are barren, empty places. They can feel utterly God-forsaken, where all hope is gone, that leave us in sorrow and suffering not singing songs of alleluia, but instead singing song of lamentation.

This though is not the end. Feeling forsaken is not the same as being forsaken. The message of Easter is that love triumphs over death. That new life is born again, like those spring buds of hope, or the poppy born out of the battlefields of the First World War. Hope is born once again from the despair, just as life continues on into this awakening Spring. The Cherry blossom has been and almost gone, but it will return once again.

The Universal message of Easter is the power of love coming back to life, transforming in new and wonderful ways. It can happen at any time in our lives. Easter implores us to live, to allow the renewal and resurrection of our souls, to risk living life alive, fully alive, to love abundantly. To risk our hearts in love. To take the seeds that are planted in us, water and nurture them until they blossom and can be handed to another. To take the gift of blossoms and warm them with the sunshine of our souls and the rain of our energy, until they bring forth fruit.

Easter begins with an empty tomb, but that ending is just another beginning. Life continues on, in fact new life is born again in the emptiness and the loneliness and the despair.

So let us roll our own stones away and let love once again incarnate in our lives...In all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do...

Happy Easter, Alleluia, Alleluia.

Please find below a video devotion based on the material in this "Blogspot"

May We Rise from Our Sleep and Not Die an Unlived Life: An Easter Reflection

“A poem on Easter” by Wendell Berry

The little stream sings
in the crease of the hill.
It is the water of life. It knows
nothing of death, nothing.
And this is the morning
of Christ’s resurrection.
The tomb is empty. There is
no death. Death is our illusion,
our wish to belong only
to ourselves, which is our freedom
to kill one another.
From this sleep may we too
rise, as out of the dark grave.

from Wendell Berry’s Given: Poems

Today is Easter, let us rejoice and be glad; let us celebrate the joy that is this day whatever it may mean to us. For no matter the conditions of our lives, the state of our hearts. The lives of those dear to us and the struggles in this our shared world, the spirit of Easter can be born again and anew, in our hearts and lives. Life continues. Spring is here, the new life cannot be denied. Easter is here, let us rejoice and sing Hallelujah!!!


And what is Easter? Well it is different, perhaps unique for each and every one of us. What makes you want to rise up and sing Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah?

Easter is seen through many lenses, some are very clear and precise, they are certain of what Easter means, what Easter is about. Others though see Easter through a kaleidoscope of ever changing colours and shapes. What comes to your heart and mind when you think of Easter?

In my eyes it is a deeply universal festival, I see layers to this mythos, that if we allow it to can touch all of us. In order to be touched by the heart of Easter you do not have to believe in the actual bodily resurrection of Jesus, you can believe in Easter without having to accept that this actually happened. In fact perhaps it loses some of its power if we focus purely on this. Maybe actually if we view Easter through this very clear lens we will miss much of what it can teach us. Maybe it is better to view Easter through a kaleidoscope or at least partially clouded glass, maybe we see more through the mystery than the seeming clarity.

What is clear to me is that Easter is about the Power of Love that grew from that empty tomb. Whatever we may think about bodily resurrection, something definitely lived on beyond the physical death of Jesus. While his body may no longer have remained in the empty tomb, some beautiful aspect of his life certainly remained.

Easter for me is about being born to this life. Not being saved for the next life, or another life, but this life. Its about rejoicing in this gift we are given and living it to best of my ability. It is about that love in each of us being truly born. It’s about being saved to this life and not the next, whatever that may be.

To repeat Nathan C. Walker “Today’s question is not “What happens when we die?” it is “What happens when we stop living?” Let us live one day, this day”

Easter for me is not about some distant utopia but for we who live right here right now. It’s not so much hope for some heaven, or nirvana or even Oz in some place beyond our time and space, but about creating the commonwealth of love right here right now. Easter for me is about proclaiming that we each and every one of us have our part play in how the story unfolds, if we are just willing to wake up to all we can be, to find the courage to be all that we can be. All we have to do is listen, to pay attention to our world, to hear that still small voice, that sound that can be heard through silence and when we hear it call out our name to answer it and to bring that spirit of Easter into all that we are and we can be, to bring renewal and rebirth to life. This is our responsibility, our purpose, God will not do it for us, it is we who must build the New Jerusalem, right here, right now. God is with us, but will not do it for us.

To repeat Wendell Berry “The tomb is empty. There is no death. Death is our illusion,
our wish to belong only to ourselves, which is our freedom to kill one another. From this sleep may we too rise, as out of the dark grave.

Is this what resurrection truly is, to rise out of this dark grave, to finally live this life in love, to stop the harm, the hurt, the brutality, the killing.

Resurrection is love born from death, a love that transforms, that brings us to life, to new life perhaps. Hope born from despair, new hope, fresh hope, respair. Sometimes this is actual grief, born from literal loss. That deep aching hole, when we lose someone we love deeply. Such loss can break us. I am sure we have all felt such loss, some very recently. There are other deaths too, smaller deaths perhaps. The loss of a friendship, a job, a way of life, a marriage, a love, a physical or mental ability. The death of a long held dream. All these griefs are barren places in our lives, we feel we are losing our lives, places of sorrow, suffering and lamentation.

Yet from the empty tomb love is born again, from despair is born hope. Like waking on this first day of summer time. Eyes blinking as if for the first time. When downcast eyes are suddenly looking skyward in new Hope, fresh Hope “Respair”. Like those immortal words of e. e. cummings 'i thank You God for most this amazing day,', resurrection means “that they who have died are alive again in 'the gay, great happening illimitably earth.' Like a new spring day the earth is alive it is again illimitable. Isn’t this what resurrection meant 2,000 years ago and isn’t it what it means for we who live today. Let us all be alive again.

This is Easter

“Today’s question is not “What happens when we die?” it is “What happens when we stop living?” Let us live one day, this day” to once again paraphrase Nathan C. Walker

Let us live before we die, let us not live an lived life.

I remember hearing the following tale about Dawna Markova wrote a wonderful, moving and beautiful poem following the death of her father. I believe it illustrates precisely what is meant by resurrection by being born once again to this life, following a deep loss, the death of her father.

Dawna’s father had been a powerful CEO, a driven and successful man, who slowly slipped away, due to Alzheimer’s. As she visited him at the end of his life he was a shadow of the powerful figure he had been throughout his life. When Dawna was a child, her father never told her he loved her, believing in some weird way that it might weaken her. But that last day as she was leaving he finally told her, for the first and last time in her life, “I love you too, sweetheart.”

Dawna had struggled with her relationship with her father all her life. When she received the news that her father had died, something changed inside her, a new love was born in the tomb of her heart. That night the love she felt for him poured through her, turning into a torrent of tears. She wept herself to sleep that night, an outpouring of love. At three in the morning she awoke and felt moved to get up and write. Words flowed through her, almost as if they were a final message from her father. She wrote the following:

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.

As I look at the blossom around me, as I watched the guys in the gardens planting seeds on Tuesday morning I thought of this poem and thought to myself how I hope to live my life so that whatever comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me as blossom goes on as fruit. For isn’t this transformation the message of love that was born again from those who fled the empty tomb that first Easter morning.

The message of Easter is the power of love coming back to life, transforming in new and wonderful ways. It can happen at any time in our lives. Easter implores us to live, to allow the renewal and resurrection of our souls, to risk living life alive, fully alive, to love abundantly. To risk our hearts in love. To take the seeds that are planted in us, water and nurture them until they blossom and can be handed to another. To take the gift of blossoms and warm them with the sunshine of our souls and the rain of our energy, until they bring forth fruit.

May we all rise from our sleep and not die an unlived life.

Happy Easter, Alleluis, Alleluia.

Amen.

Below is a video devotion based on the material in this "blogspot"

Easter: To look or not to look? To become the keeper of the secret or the discoverer of truth?

To look or not to look? To become the keeper of secrets or the discoverer of truths? To preserve our sight or to look and therefore choose life? Dilemma’s we face every day in our lives. How often do we look? How often do we refuse to look at life?

Often this is a decision we face many times each and every day. To look or not to look, to turn away not only from the darkness, but also the light? Just think about the last week of your life. How often have you looked when perhaps you shouldn’t have looked? How often have you stared for just a little too long? Also how often have you refused to look, when you really should have looked? How often have you turned away from life, because it seemed too much?

“To look or not to look? To become the keeper of the secret or the discover of truth?” to quote Mark Nepo when reflecting on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurdyce. He wrote:

“There is an ancient Greek myth that carries within it, like a message in a bottle, one of the most crucial struggles we face as living beings. It is the story of a gifted musician, Orpheus, whose Lover, Eurydice is taken by Hades, the god of the underworld. Orpheus is so grief-stricken that he travels to the land of the dead to plead with Hades to give Eurydice back. After a cold and deliberate consideration, Hades says, "You can have her. It will take you three days to bring her back to the land of the living. There is one condition. You must carry her and you must not look upon her face until you reach the light. If you do, she will return to me forever."

Unfortunately, unknown to Orpheus, Hades tells Eurydice the opposite, "He will carry you to the land of the living, and you must look upon him before you reach the light. If you do not, you will return to me forever." Their colossal struggle fails, and Eurydice is lost forever.

The struggle for us, though, is ongoing. For there is an Orpheus in each of us that believes, if I look, I will die. There is also a Eurydice in each of us that believes, if I don't look, I will die. And so, the great spiritual question, after "To be or not to be?" is to look or not to look. The personal balance we arrive at determines whether we make it out of hell or not.”

Isn’t this what was going through the hearts and minds of the followers of Jesus that Easter morning, according to the Gospel accounts, as they returned to the tomb that first Easter morning? Many wouldn’t go, for they could not bear what they might see. Isn’t this the story of those who found something in the tomb and those who saw nothing? Isn’t this the story of those who reacted faithfully and those who fled in fear? Isn’t this the story of those who looked and responded to the light and those who turned away? All very human responses to what they saw with the eyes, what they found in that empty tomb, well those who looked at least.

The account from John’s Gospel, revolves primarily around the experience of Mary Magdalene who rises before dawn on the third day to visit the tomb. She is a broken woman as her beloved teacher Jesus has died a horrible death. Due to the generosity of a wealthy man, he had been placed in a tomb, rather than a paupers grave. Mary is going to prepare Jesus body, following the teaching of her Jewish faith. When she arrives at the tomb, she sees that the stone blocking the entrance has already been rolled away and there is no body inside.

She enters broken, in despair, grieving for the loss of her beloved Jesus. Then suddenly out of the corner of her eye she catches something. She dares to look. The man asks “Why are you crying? Who are you looking for? She asks the man, thinking he may be a gardener "sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you've put him and I'll take care of it. I won't tell anyone. I'll just take his body and clean him up so he can rest in peace," At this moment the man calls out her name saying “Mary”. As she hears her name she sees that the man is Jesus. As he names her, she recognises him and calls him “Rabbi”, meaning “Teacher”.

What on earth does all this mean? How do we make sense of this? What about resurrection? What does this mean?

I for one find it impossible to believe in the literal bodily resurrection. That though does not mean I do not believe in a kind of spiritual resurrection, an awakening that can occur in our all too human finite lives. This I believe is what happens to Mary. When she heard her name called, suddenly her eyes were opened to a new reality, she began to see perhaps for the first time. In this moment, through finally seeing with her own eyes, she is called out from her blindness, caused by grief and despair. Her eyes are opened and she is able to see for the first time; in this moment she truly began to understand her purpose in life; on Easter morning her life began again. She experienced a spiritual resurrection.

Some that is open to all of us.

Easter is after all the day of new beginning. Easter calls us to open our eyes in a new way. To see not only what we expect to see, but something more, something new and unexpected. We need to look, to see, despite the pains and troubles of life and the temptation not to look. Look we must, we must always choose life, despite its very real troubles. We must awaken to life, to answer the call and to pour out the love we carry within us onto life.

Mary Magdalene is in utter despair, having lost her teacher, until she once again heard the voice of hope, born from that same place of total hopelessness. As she did she was able to see life through new eyes, new vision came and she was able to turn away from despair to hope. There in the tomb of despair, hope was born again. A new hope, a fresh hope, it was a moment of respair.

This is Easter for me, a story of hope for all of us, that whatever happens in our lives, if we keep on turning in faith, new vision will come, new hope will be born. We can give birth to respair, a new fresh hope. Easter time, in the midst of spring, truly is the turning season, it is the day of new beginnings. Easter teaches that we can begin again in love each and every day. This begins as we dare to look and see, in so doing we see new hope and by turning from whatever despair may keep us trapped in our empty tomb we are once again turned toward the light. We give birth to respair.

How we look at life and how we look at others is so important. How we respond to how we see matters too, everything matters every thought, every feeling, every action and every single look. It matters how we respond to what we see too. Do we turn away in fear or respond in love? Do we look or do we not look. There is much in this world that we may wish to avert our eyes from, but if we do we will also fail to see all that is wonderful and beautiful. For each act of violence there are 100 acts of love. Do we look with loving eyes or do we turn away into our own tombs of despair.

We need to look. We need to choose life, we need to become seekers of the truth and not keepers of the secret and we need to give our love away in our small, humble, human ways. The choice is our ours. “To look or not to look? To become the keeper of the secret or the discover of truth?”

Happy Easter. Let’s begin again in love.

Please find below a video devotion based on the material in this "blogspot"

Questions about life, before, during and after: An Easter reflection

I had a rare opportunity a couple of Sunday’s back of being present at Dunham Road as people began to arrive. This was because we could not conduct worship at Urmston as the town was cut off due to the Manchester Marathon. As I stood at the entrance of the chapel I found myself chatting with Martin and Carolyn. Carolyn was sharing her thoughts on an interesting talk she had heard that week given by a Hindu woman discussing her traditions perspective and understanding of reincarnation. Martin and myself listened with interest and I remember saying something like "I’m not sure what I believe about such things." We made the usual, probably inappropriate, jokes of hoping we don’t come back as a slug or something similar. I then went and led worship, interestingly we were exploring the subject of “What you give your heart to.” A little later I was thinking about the conversation and remembered a similar one I had only a few weeks earlier with a woman called Elaine. Elaine is very important in Sue’s life. She is someone who guides her spiritually and has led a women’s circle that Sue has participated in these last 12 months. Sue had asked me if I minded having my astrological chart "done" by Elaine. I agreed to, although part of me felt a little unsure about it. I gave my birth details, the time, date and place and then went to meet Elaine for the results. I enjoyed both a wonderful and fascinating conversation with Elaine, during which she asked me if I believed in past lives. I said “I just don’t know. I am truly agnostic about past lives and even what happens to us after we die. I said I suspect that some aspect of us lives on but in what form I have no clue, I have to declare myself as truly agnostic about these things, as I have no knowledge. That said I am open minded, open hearted and my spirit is certainly open to the possibility, but that I prefer to think about one life at a time. That’s more than enough for me. Whatever happens to us when we die it cannot be any stranger than this life, which day by day seems to be way beyond my imaginings. It’s funny I do not feel agnostic about a relationship with a Power Greater than myself in this life, I call myself a “Universal Theist”, but what happened before and after this life I can offer very little I am afraid. Although day by day, as I live more spiritually alive I find myself believing ever more in the possibility.

We humans often ask the question, what happens to us when we die, but how many of us ask what happens before we are even born? That may well be a far more interesting question.

Having professed my agnosticism about the afterlife I am now going to contradict myself as I believe strongly that loves lives on in the lives of those we have touched, even after our physical lives end. I know this from personal experience. So perhaps there is some formed idea here. They are part of us in spirit in some way, sometimes I can feel that powerfully. As the song goes, “The ghosts are part of us.” Forrest Church put it so beautifully when he said: “The greatest of all truths is that love never dies, that every act of love that we perform in this life is carried on into another life and passed on into another life, so that centuries from now the love carries, and that is the work of religion. The opposite of love is not death. It is fear. Fear is what armors our hearts. If our hearts are armored, they’ll never be broken, and I have seen so many people get hurt in love and then try to protect themselves against it, and when they protect themselves against love, they protect themselves against the only thing that is worth living for.”

I would add to that that the purpose of religion is to bring that love to life and to share it with our world. This is the work of transformation. This to me is the true message of Easter.

There are many layers to the “Easter Mythos”, that if we allow it to can touch all of us. In order to be touched by the magic of Easter you do not have to believe in the actual bodily resurrection of Jesus, you can believe in Easter without having to accept that this actually happened. In fact perhaps it loses some of its power if we focus purely on this. What is clear to me is that Easter is about the Power of Love that grew from that empty tomb. Whatever we may think about bodily resurrection, something definitely lived on beyond the physical death of Jesus. While his body may no longer have remained in the empty tomb, some beautiful aspect of his life certainly remained. Love was born again, even after the body was killed.

I believe it is the same with every life and the love that life leave behinds, something beautiful always remain.

This brings to mind those beautiful words often shared at funerals by that famous author “Unknown”

“Something Beautiful Remains” – Unknown

The tide recedes but leaves behind
bright seashells on the sand.
The sun goes down, but gentle
warmth still lingers on the land.
The music stops, and yet it echoes
on in sweet refrains.....
For every joy that passes,
something beautiful remains.

Every life leaves its mark. Every life impacts in some way. We should never think that we are insignificant, that we do not matter. We impact on everyone and everything around us. Everything that we do and everything that do not do matters. There are those who I have known and who have loved me, who have been gone many years, who are still impacting on my life. Of their lives, something beautiful remains.

Easter is a reminder to me that even after death something beautiful remains. It is an acknowledgement of life’s sacredness. It is a reaffirmation of life that not even death can end. Easter for me is about birth and re-birth, again and again and again…

But what about “Resurrection”? What can that mean? Well “Resurrection” for me is about bringing to life the love that was born again on Easter morning. I have come to believe that this is truly our religious task. I believe that this is what it means to bring to life the “Kingdom of Heaven” that is constantly spoken of in the Biblical accounts. What I have come to call the “Kin-dom” of Love”, for all are equal in such a Commonwealth. To live in such a way of being is to recognise the oneness of all life.

This actually brings me back to astrological thinking and Elaine’s charts. She suggested to me that I had lived many lives. and that that I was at a stage of real potential right now, if I was willing to take it. This got me thinking of Joseph Campbell and his views of mythos. He wrote of Easter: “It is very much the longing to be born anew the way nature is. All these elements fit together. Easter is calculated as the Sunday that follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox. It is evidence of a concern centuries before Christ to coordinate the lunar and solar calendars. What we have to recognize is that these celestial bodies represented to the ancients two different modes of eternal life, one engaged in the field of time, like throwing off death, as the moon it’s shadow, to be born again; the other, disengaged and eternal. The dating of Easter according to both lunar and solar calendars suggests that life, like the life that is reborn in the moon and eternal in the sun, finally is one.”

This got me thinking of Easter as a metaphor for bringing about this oneness of all life. That what Jesus was trying to teach humanity about  was oneness, about harmony. Isn’t this what the “Kin-dom of Love” is?

This brings to mind the following passage from the Gospel of Thomas, one of the many that was not included in the Bible:

Jesus said to them:

When you make the two one,
and when you make the inner as the outer
and the outer as the inner
and the above as the below,
and when you make the male and the female
into a single one
. . . then shall you enter [the Kingdom]

Now of course many believe that the Kingdom is the place that we go to when we die, if chosen. I do not believe that this is what Jesus was speaking of in the Gospels. Remember he said (in the Canonical Gospels) that the “kingdom is within you” or that it is “at hand” (here now). I believe that he was teaching that the key is to bring “The King-dom” alive within ourselves and to share that with our world, therefore building the beloved community of love. I have come to believe that this is the love that is born again as the stone was rolled away and seemingly found to be empty, because from that emptiness love was once again, born again.

From nothing comes everything; from Despair is born Hope.

We all have this day, we all have this time, what shall we do with it? The key I believe is to fully live it. To bring forth what is within us. To incarnate love in our lives is to become fully alive. The second century philosopher Irenaeus said “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.” This to me is the word becoming flesh and dwelling amongst us, this is the divine love fully alive. This is truly bringing forth the kingdom that is within us. If you want to know the divine presence in life, then all you have to do is to find the courage to live fully alive and then to bless the world with your very presence and thus inspire others to do the same. And thus enjoy the kingdom of God, the kin-dom of love right now.

It’s time to bring the kin-dom of love to life. It is time to begin living this one wonderful life we have been given…

This is the Love that is born again on Easter morning. This is what grows from the emptiness of the tomb when the stone is rolled away…From nothing to everything…From Despair, Hope is born again…

Now I would like to end with these words of blessing by David Whyte.

“Easter Blessing”

The blessing of the morning light to you,
may it find you even in your invisible
appearances, may you be seen to have risen
from some other place you know and have known
in the darkness and that that carries all you need.
May you see what is hidden in you
as a place of hospitality and shadowed shelter,
may that hidden darkness be your gift to give,
may you hold that shadow to the light
and the silence of that shelter to the word of the light,
may you join all of your previous disappearances
with this new appearance, this new morning,
this being seen again, new now, and newly alive.

David Whyte: Easter Morning 2015
In Memoriam John O’Donohue

Awakening to the Possbilities of a New Life: An Easter Reflection

“Rolling Away the Stone” by Sarah Gilbert

"In the tomb of the soul, we carry secret yearnings, pains, frustrations, loneliness, fears, regrets, worries.
In the tomb of the soul, we wrap ourselves in the security of darkness.
Sometimes this is a comfort, Sometimes it is an escape. Sometimes it prepares us for experience. Sometimes it insulates us from life.
Sometimes this tomb-life gives us time to feel the pain of the world and reach out to heal others.
Sometimes it numbs us and locks us up with our own concerns.
In this season where light and dark balance the day, we seek balance for ourselves.
Grateful for the darkness that has nourished us, we push away the stone and invite the light to awaken us to the possibilities within us and among us-possibilities for new life in ourselves and in our world."

Easter begins with the empty tomb; Easter begins with despair and fear; Easter begins with a sense of emptiness of nothingness. In the account in Mark’s Gospel when the women go to the tomb and find it empty they flee in terror and say nothing. The real miracle is in what follows, the power of love that comes to life from nothingness, from the emptiness.

This is something we can all surely relate to at one time or another this sense of losing everything, of everything being lost. This though is the essence of the whole Easter Mythos that Love can once again grow from the nothingness, from the emptiness. That abundant love can once again grow in our own hearts and our own spirits and that we can incarnate this in our own lives. That this love can be poured out onto our world that so desperately needs it, as much today as when they found the tomb empty some two thousand years ago.

This is our task I believe, our religious task, to once again bring the love that was so evidently present in the life of Jesus alive once again in our oh so human flesh. We can do it, we do not have to be afraid, we do not need to flee in fear, we just need courage gentle courage and this will sustain us. We just need to fill the empty tomb with that abundant love that is present in all life, fill it to overflowing and then let it pour out in all of life…

We need to awaken to the new possibilities, we can start living at any time once again...

These thoughts bring to mind the following wisdom from “What Happens When We Stop Living?” by Nathan C Walker

The question is not,
“What happens when we die?”
Nobody really knows.
The real question is,
“What happens when we stop living?”

The stoicism we face on a daily basis
is a symptom of a larger illness
called a dually-dulled life.

Our lives can be hypnotized
by the monotonous commutes,
multiplied by the flickering florescent light
that falls upon the micromanaging boss
who thinks everything you do in your cubicle
is an extension of his or her power.

Who here is dying a slow and numbing death?

There’s no time to be lulled by monotony.
There is no time to be blaming
other people for our own feelings.
If you don’t like it, change it.

There’s no time for crying, or complaining,
or gossiping, or clinging to that fashionable grudge bag.

No. It is time to wake up, to rise up,
and to carry ourselves into a day worth living.

Let us live one day—this day—
with passion and a sense of collective synergy.

Let us live one day—this day—
by asking questions that truly challenge us
and make us feel alive.

For today’s question is not
“What happens when we die?” it is
“What happens when we stop living?”

 “What Happens When We Stop Living?” excerpted from Nathan C. Walker (2014) Exorcising Preaching: Crafting Intellectually Honest Worship. St. Louis: Chalice Press

Easter is seen through many lenses, some are very clear precise, they are certain as to what Easter is about. Others  though see Easter through a kaleidoscope of ever changing colours and shapes. What comes to your heart and mind when you think of Easter?

Easter is a deeply universal festival in my eyes, I think there are so many layers to this mythos, that if we allow it to can touch all of us. In order to be touched by the magic of Easter you do not have to believe in the actual bodily resurrection of Jesus, you can believe in Easter without having to accept that this actually happened. In fact perhaps it loses some of its power if we focus purely on this. Maybe actually if we view Easter through this very clear lense we will miss much of what it can teach us. Maybe it is better to view Easter through a kaleidoscope or at least partially clouded glass, maybe we see more through the mystery than the seeming clarity.

What is clear to me is that Easter is about the Power of Love that grew from that empty tomb. Whatever we may think about bodily resurrection, something definitely lived on beyond the physical death of Jesus. While his body may no longer have remained in the empty tomb, some beautiful aspect of his life certainly remained. Love was born again, even after the body as killed.

Resurrection probably means something different to each and every person. As the meaning of Easter probably means something different to each and every person. Whatever it means to you I hope you live out that belief in your lives. I do my best to.

I have experienced many deaths to what I thought I knew throughout my life and have experienced what it means to live once again. I know what is means to experience resurrection, to finally wake up from an earth bound slumber, and I do not believe I am alone in this.

 Resurrection for me is about bringing to life the love that was born again on Easter morning. I have come to believe that this is truly our religious task. I believe that this is what it means to bring to life the “Kingdom of Heaven” that was constantly spoken of in the Gospel accounts.

Now of course many believe that the Kingdom is the place that we go to when we die, if chosen. I do not believe that this is what Jesus was speaking of in the Gospels. Remember he said that the “kingdom is within you” or that it is “at hand” (here now). I believe that he was teaching that the key is to bring the kingdom alive within ourselves and to share that with our world, therefore building the beloved community of love. I have come to believe that this is the love that is born again as the stone was rolled away and seemingly found to be empty, because from that emptiness love was once again, born again.

From nothing comes everything.

 I have heard it said that the greatest sin is the unlived life; to find yourself at the end of your life full of regret for the things you have done, or failed to do; to not make the most of the incredible gift that is this life; to not bring alive what is within you. So often in life we postpone what our heart desires, usually because of fear. I know I have. I have allowed fear to stop me living this life I have been given. I have allowed my heart and soul to become inhibited by fear, not always my fear but the fear of others. What I feared the most was what was within me.
And yet by bringing forth hat is within me I have begun to create the Kingdom of Love right here right now and in so doing I have begun to live fully alive…

We all have this day, we all have this time, what shall we do with it? The key I believe is to fully live it. To bring forth what is within us. To incarnate love in our lives is to become fully alive. The second century philosopher Irenaeus said “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.” This to me is the word becoming flesh and dwelling amongst us, this is the divine love fully alive. This is truly bringing forth the kingdom that is within us. If you want to experience the divine in life, then all you have to do is to find the courage to live fully alive and then to bless the world with your very presence and thus inspire others to do the same. And thus enjoy the kingdom of God, the kin-dom of love right now.

It’s time to bring the kin-dom of love to life. It is time to begin living this one wonderful life we have been given…

This is the Love that is born again on the eternal Easter morning. This is what grows from the emptiness of the tomb when the stone is rolled away…From nothing to everything…

I’m going to end this little chip of a "blogspot" with the following poem by Mary Oliver “Summer’s Day

 “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

...So what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Happy Easter

Something Beautiful Remains: An Easter Reflection

“Rebirth” by Elizabeth Tarbox

"When the day is too bright or the night too dark, and your feelings are like an avalanche barrelling down the mountain of events outside your control, when you look down and you are falling and you cannot see the bottom, or when your pain has eaten you and you are nothing but an empty hungry hole, then there is an opportunity for giving.

Don't stay home and cover your head with a pillow. Go outside and plant a tulip bulb in the ground; that is an act of rebirth. Sprinkle breadcrumbs for the squirrels or sunflower seeds for the birds; that is a claiming of life. And when you have done that, or if you cannot do that, go stare at a tree whose leaves are letting go for its very survival. Pick up a leaf, stare at it; it is life; it has something to teach you.

You are as precious as the birds or the tulips or the tree whose crenellated bark protects the insects who seek its shelter. You are an amazing, complex being with poetry in your arteries and charity layered beneath your skin. You have before you a day full of opportunities for living and giving. Do not think you know all there is to know about yourself, for you have not given enough away yet to be able to claim self knowledge. Do you have work to do today? Then do it as if your life were hanging in the balance, do it as fiercely as if it mattered, for it does. Do you think the world doesn't need you? Think again! You cleanse the world with your breathing, you beautify the world with your thinking and acting and caring.

Don't stay home and suffocate on your sorrow; go outside and give yourself to the world's asking."

Elizabeth Tarbox

We all know suffering...We all know moments when all hope has seemingly gone...And yet from this place of emptiness, nothingness, knew hope can rise again...There need not be despair if we turn again in faith and return to love and life...This is the meaning of Easter for me...

Easter begins with the empty tomb; Easter begins with despair and fear; Easter begins with a sense of emptiness of nothingness. In the account in Mark’s Gospel when the women go to the tomb and find it empty they flee in terror and say nothing. The real miracle is in what follows, the power of love that comes to life from nothingness, from the emptiness.

This is something we can all surely relate to at one time or another this sense of losing everything, of everything being lost. This to me is the essence of the whole Easter Mythos that love can once again grow from the nothingness, from the emptiness. That abundant love can once again grow in our own hearts and our own spirits and that we can incarnate this in our own lives. That this love can be poured out onto our world that so desperately needs it, as much today as when they found the tomb empty some two thousand years ago.

This is our task I believe, our religious task, to once again bring the love that was so evidently present in the life of Jesus alive once again in our oh so human flesh. We can do it, we do not have to be afraid, we do not need to flee in fear, we just need courage gentle courage and this will sustain us. We just need to fill the empty tomb with that abundant love that is present in all life, fill it to overflowing and then let it pour out in all of life…

In all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do...

“Easter Day” by George Landor Perin

"There is perhaps no day in all the year so full of meaning to the sensitive soul as the Easter Day. To say nothing of the beautiful music and flowers with which it is honoured, it is to multitudes the anniversary of new life by which they were borne to higher and nobler hopes. The peal of Easter bells and the melody of the Easter songs are the signals for a throng of memories and a host of suggestions to every heart. The origin of the day is simple enough. It is the anniversary of the Master’s resurrection. But what are its deeper meanings, its profound suggestions? I know not how it may be with you, but for myself they are embodied in such phrases as theses: “Victory from the ashes of defeat;” “Hope born from the soil of despair;” “Immortality crowning the grave.” The resurrection of Jesus means all this and more."

by George Landor Perin

Easter is seen through many lenses, some are very clear and precise, they are certain as to what Easter is about. Others amongst us though seem to see Easter through a kaleidoscope of ever changing colours and shapes. What comes to your heart and mind when you think of Easter?

Easter is a deeply universal festival in my eyes, I think there are so many layers to this mythos, that if we allow it to can touch all of us. In order to be touched by the magic of Easter you do not have to believe in the actual bodily resurrection of Jesus, you can believe in Easter without having to accept that this actually happened. In fact perhaps it loses some of its power if we focus purely on this. Maybe actually if we view Easter through this very clear lense we will miss much of what it can teach us. Maybe it is better to view Easter through a kaleidoscope or at least partially clouded glass, maybe we see more through the mystery than the seeming clarity.

What is clear to me is that Easter is about the Power of Love that grew from that empty tomb. Whatever we may think about bodily resurrection, something definitely lived on beyond the physical death of Jesus. While his body may no longer have remained in the empty tomb, some beautiful aspect of his life certainly remained.

I believe it is the same with every life and the love that life leaves behind, something beautiful always remains.

This brings to mind those beautiful words often shared at funerals by that famous author “Unknown”

“Something Beautiful Remains” – Unknown

The tide recedes but leaves behind
bright seashells on the sand.
The sun goes down, but gentle
warmth still lingers on the land.
The music stops, and yet it echoes
on in sweet refrains.....
For every joy that passes,
something beautiful remains.

Every life leaves its mark. Every life impacts in some way. We should never think that we are insignificant, that we do not matter. We impact on everyone and everything around us. Everything that we do and everything that do not do matters. There are those who I have known and who have loved me, who have been gone many years, who are still impacting on my life. Of their lives, something beautiful remains.

Easter is a reminder to me that even after death something beautiful remains. It is an acknowledgement of life’s sacredness. It is a reaffirmation of life that not even death cannot end. Easter for me is about birth and re-birth, again and again and again…

All around us life is being reborn. I see this clearly as I walk down and around Dunham Massey each morning. The spring flowers are everywhere, the birds are singing more sweetly and the deer, the beautiful deer, are increasingly going about their deer like business. I have noticed the young bucks squaring up to one and trying out their growing antlers either against tree branches or fencing with one another. It is a beautiful sight of life coming alive and it fills my heart to overflowing with a love for life itself and helps me connect to my true inner being, to all life and to that Greater reality that gives birth to and connects all life. There is something about the essence of Easter in all of this.

In each of us is written the essence and the spirit of Easter. In each of us is written to capacity to resurrect the Love that was at the core of the life of Jesus. We can bring that love alive once again. We can incarnate that love again. That love can seemingly die in the winters of our lives and come to life once again in our spring times, regardless of the time of year. It is we who can bring this love alive once again. We can become at one with that ancient tale. We can become the resurrection and the life. In so doing we will ensure that something beautiful will remain from our simple, humble, oh so human lives.

Easter begins with the death and loss of the life of Jesus, with the seeming end of his life’s promise. Every single death seemingly means just the same. It begins with the despair of the empty tomb and the despair and terror of this very emptiness. This though is not where it ends, something else happened, something grew from this emptiness, this hopelessness, this despair. Something beautiful remained. Something new was born again. This despair was transformed into a new Hope. The death of Jesus, for those who followed him, was not the end it was actually the beginning, a new beginning.

This very same possibility of transformation and renewal exists for all of us. We see examples of this all around us. Not just in nature and the earth’s renewal but in the lives of ordinary folk too. People who have experienced utter despair, have lost everything precious to them and yet have transformed this into a loving new Hope. Yes they have known utter despair, but this despair has been born again in a new Hope. Resurrection is not some mysterious event from 2,000 years ago, but a promise to each and every one of us; Resurrection is a promise and a challenge for us all that represents the possibility of transformation for everyone and a real sense of a new Hope.

Even after death, something beautiful remains. If we live lives of love and beauty. If we become all that we were born to be if we bring to life from the empty tombs of our own lives the love that is at the heart of the Easter Mythos. A love that is eternal, a love that never dies, a love that I believe is our task to bring alive.

...May we become the blessings our world needs...Not just this morning, but in every morning to come...

These are thoughts of mine about Easter, a universal festival for all people at all times. This is what it means to me, but what does it mean to you. I ask you once again what comes to your heart and mind when you think of Easter?

"Something Beautiful Remains" 

From Nothing to Everything: An Easter Reflection

I was recently sent the following on Easter . It struck a chord with me. It got me thinking of the empty tomb, the first symbol of Easter; it got me thinking of love once again coming to life from the emptiness; it got me thinking of the journey from nothing to everything.

"The Tomb is Empty" by Carl Scovel

If the truth of Easter has eluded you, maybe the simple wisdom of this story will bring the wonder of the holiday into your heart.

"An Episcopal Bishop once told me a story about Easter that has stayed with me for many years. It seems that a fourth grade religious education teacher in the Alabama church that he served was trying to explain the Easter story to her children and told them the story of the empty tomb. Then she gave each of them a plastic shell, the kind that pantyhose used to come in. She asked the children to return next Sunday with something in that shell that reminded them of the empty tomb.

On the next Sunday they opened their eggs. One had a flower, one had a tiny felt bunny, one had a small picture of Jesus. Eventually they came to a boy who was mentally retarded. He was older than most of the children because he had been held back for two years. He knew it and the other children knew it. They were uncomfortable with him and avoided him, occasionally mocking him behind the teacher’s back.

When his turn came, he opened his shell and there was nothing inside. The other children snickered. The boy said something rather incoherent, trying to explain his presentation, and the teacher listened carefully to him. Then she looked up to the others and said, “He means the empty tomb.” The boy, of course, had gotten it.

The empty place is the first site and symbol of Christian faith, an absence rather than a presence, and with that space and absence comes a sense that the world is not as simple as we imagine it. For all its laws and patterns, the world still has surprises.

Who could have guessed that a community of martyrs and witnesses would come out of this tiny ragtag group of confused, abandoned followers? Who would have guessed that a man who was choked to death on a stake would become the center of a worldwide religion? Who would have guessed that the power of his message lives today?

Who could have guessed what would come out of an empty tomb?"

This is what Easter is built upon the empty tomb. In the account in Mark’s Gospel when the women go to the tomb and find it empty they flee in terror and say nothing. The real miracle is in what follows, the power of love that comes to life from nothingness, from the emptiness.

This is something we can all surely relate to at one time or another this sense of losing everything, of everything being lost. This though is the essence of the whole Easter Mythos that love can once again grow from the nothingness, from the emptiness. That abundant love can once again grow in our own hearts and our own spirits and that we can incarnate this in our own lives. That this love can be poured out onto our world that so desperately needs it, as much today as when they found the tomb empty some two thousand years ago.

This is our task I believe, our religious task, to once again bring the love that was so evidently present in the life of Jesus alive once again in our oh so human flesh. We can do it, we do not have to be afraid, we do not need to flee in fear, we just need courage gentle courage and this will sustain us. We just need to fill the empty tomb with that abundant love that is present in all life, fill it to overflowing and then let it pour out in all of life…

Easter is a symbol of hope, but I do not see it as an end point. Easter as I see it is the beginning of hope. It is the symbol of love once again coming into life. Carl J. Nelson speaks nearly perfectly of this in the following reflection.

“The Dividend’s of One’s Hope” by Carl J. Nelson

"If nothing else. Easter is a season celebrating the dividend’s of one’s hope. It is not a celebration of hope itself, but of its first fruits – early blooming flowers, budding trees, returning birds. Endlessly without fail, the natural world renews itself following the barrenness of winter.

And too, in the less tangible world of human emotions, we are periodically renewed. Out of tragedy often comes a chastened spirit; out of hate, an ability to love. Beneath the myth and ceremonies of every land and culture, this seems to be the message of the season. Take heart! For hope inevitably will bring about a springtime in the human spirit."

There is something deeply universal about Easter. There is something in its spirit that can speak to all people in every culture at every time and in every place. It points to those moments in all our lives when something deeper within us comes to life, or perhaps it comes back to life. If we truly enter into what is at the core of Easter, its spirit, it can bring us to a deeper understanding of life right here, right now, in our world.

It is possible to celebrate Easter without having to believe in the actual resurrection of the body of Jesus, which is of course the traditional Christian view. You can believe in Easter without having to accept the uniqueness of Jesus’ resurrection. There is something deeply universal in the spirit of Easter that has the capacity to awaken everyone’s spirit regardless of whether or not they believe every aspect of the Gospel accounts.

Easter can also be understood as the festival of the renewal of life that comes at springtime; Easter can be seen as the resurrection of the earth after the seeming death of winter. These last few weeks you surely have all felt powerfully this deep sense of the renewal of life. The other evening I could both feel and smell this powerfully in the air. There is a real electricity in the air at springtime. Now of course the renewal of the seasons is recognised in the pre-Christian roots of our Easter celebrations. The word Easter is after all derived from “Eostre” the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of spring; the goddess of fertility and renewal. Rather like much of the Christmas rituals and traditions many of our Easter ones are a mixture of Christian and Pagan principles.

The Easter “mythos” can also be seen as the triumph of the human spirit over all that would crush it, even death itself. This triumph also has pre-Christian roots, such as the Jewish “Passover” which of course Jesus and his disciples were commemorating on what has become known as Maundy Thursday. In Latin speaking countries Easter is known as “Pascha” or similar words that are derived directly from “Pesach”.

Jesus’ resurrection is a powerful example of love overcoming death; a perfect example of the spirit of love living on even after physical death. I think it is impossible to argue that the spirit that was in Jesus did not live on after his bodily death. The spirit of love that incarnated in his life has survived all that we have done to it these last 2,000 years as we have remembered him, rather badly.

All love lives on, all we have to do to bring it once again to life is remember those who have touched our hearts and souls. What has been bound into one another’s hearts cannot be unbound. Love is stronger than death. This for me above everything else is the universal “mythos” that is at the root of Easter. A festival for everyone.

Easter is for everyone, all we need do is open our hearts to the universal “mythos” and its spirit will once again be born in us.

I believe that it is our task to once again bring that love to life. Love born again from that empty tomb. This truly a journey from nothing to everything. I believe that it is our human task to bring life to life in our world right here right now, to begin build the commonwealth of love, right here right now...

It begins in our own empty tombs, let us roll our own stones away and let love once again incarnate in our lives...In all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do...

I will end this little blogspot with a prayer by Victoria Weinstein

“Being the Resurrection”

"The stone has got to be rolled back from the tomb again and again every year.
Roll up your sleeves.

He is not coming back, you know.
He is not coming back unless it is we who rise for him
We who lay healing hands on the reviled and rejected like he did
on his behalf --
We who rage for righteousness in his insistent voice
We who love the sinner, even knowing that "the sinner" is no farther off than our own heartbeat

He will not be back to join us at the table
To share God's extravagant banquet
God's love feast, all are invited, come as you are
And so it is you and I who must feast for him
Must say the grace and break the bread and pass it to the left
and dish up the broiled fish (or pour the wine) and pass it to the right.
And treat each one so tenderly
as though just this morning she or he made the personal effort
to make it back from heaven, or from hell
but certainly from death
to be by our side.

Because if by some miracle (and why not a miracle?)
He did come back
Wouldn't he want to see us like this?
Wouldn't it be a miracle to live for just one day
So that if he did, by some amazing feat
come riding into town
He could take a look around and say
"This is what I meant!"

And we could say
it took us a long time...
but we finally figured it out.

Oh, let us live to make it so.

You are the resurrection and the life."

Amen

An Easter reflection: Let Love continue long

I remember as a young boy being terrified by the death of my sister’s rabbit. I was in the house on my own, one Saturday afternoon, probably watching Grandstand. The rabbit was left in the living room with me and I was told to keep an eye on it. Suddenly I heard this violent scream, which made me jump out of my skin. I hardly dare look, but look I did. The rabbit had died and I was terrified. For one thing I’d never heard a rabbit make a sound before, let alone such a terrifying one  and for another I didn’t know what to do. So what did I do? I went into denial and left the house. I fled in terror and guilt no doubt, as well as a whole bucket load of shame.

I have only ever seen and touched two dead bodies in my life, both of whom were people I loved beyond words. The first was my father who I helped nurse through the last months of his life. He had died just moments before I awoke to see him that morning. I touched him and kissed him and told him that I loved him. I will never forget the look on his face, just moments after his death. My father had been in great pain, probably all his life, but the stress and strain was all gone as his life had gone. I have the very same frown lines on my forehead that he had. Those lines and all the other lines had disappeared as I looked down at him and touched his face.

The other person was Ethan, Claire’s son, who in his short life taught me everything. I saw him that day shortly after he had been killed and again a month later when they released his body for burial. Again these images and the way that his body felt will always stay with me.

A few months after Ethan died I remember Claire having a conversation with a nurse we know who works in casualty and her asking why after he had died the nurses kept talking to him as if he were alive. From what I can remember she said that they did this because it is understood that the spirit of the person is still there immediately after death and therefore this is how they act with someone who has just died. At least this is what I thought she said. I may well have misheard or misunderstood.

Although I have a powerful experience of God in my life now, I cannot say with any certainty, what happens after we die. I suppose I have to remain fairly agnostic with regards to what happens when life ends. This does not diminish my faith in God it just means I have to be honest and I say I do not have knowledge of the afterlife. So no I do not know where those we love reside after they leave us. Having said that I do know where we can experience them. They can be felt and known every time we talk or remember them, at every family gathering or when old friends come together for whatever reason. On such occasions their spirit does indeed reveal itself. The more sensitive amongst us often talk of feeling their presence. I think my sister Mandy is one of those people and I know of others too.

Those we have loved and lost often live on in our dreams and memories; they are imprinted on our conscious and sub-conscious. Their impact can be felt in our daily actions and our waking thoughts and feelings. I am sure that I am not the only one who imagines them being with us from to time. I remember my father fondly and un-fondly at times and Ethan impacts on just about everything I do and say. If I had not met that remarkable little boy I am not sure I would even be here today. His life certainly revealed God to me.

Those we have loved and are no longer with us have clearly had a profound impact upon us and as such are always with us. The love that we shared never dies. Yes their death changes our relationship with them, but the love that we have known will always live on, will always be with us, it is an eternal force. The love has created a bond that can never be severed. No one can take that love from us. Its influence on us is still there and impacting upon the people that we meet in our lives today, people our loved ones may never have met.

In Luke’s Gospel (Ch 24 vv 1-5) Jesus’ disciples return to the tomb to prepare his body for its final burial, but when they get there the tomb is empty.  Then two men in dazzling clothes arrive. We are told that the women are frightened and bow their heads, they do not know what to do. They are then asked the question “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

What a question. I suspect that it reflects powerfully the experiences of the early followers of Jesus “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” It reflects their struggles to come to terms with and understand an unmistakable presence that was still there amongst them after he died and that was still impacting upon them and holding them together long after he died. It is still echoing and impacting on humanity today.  Whatever we may or may not think of the idea of a bodily resurrection I do not think that anyone can deny that the love that Jesus embodied in his life lived beyond Good Friday.

Some call it resurrection and others call it beloved or blessed memory but something ties us to those we have loved and have loved us, those that have impacted and shaped who we are. As Forrest Church said:

“The greatest of all truths is that love never dies, that every act of love that we perform in this life is carried on into another life and passed on into another life, so that centuries from now the love carries, and that is the work of religion. The opposite of love is not death. It is fear. Fear is what armours our hearts. If our hearts are armoured, they’ll never be broken, and I have seen so many people get hurt in love and then try to protect themselves against it, and when they protect themselves against love, they protect themselves against the only thing that is worth living for.”

This is the hope in Easter that has birthed from the despair of Good Friday; hope and despair are formed from the same root and yet grow in opposite directions.

For love to live on and continue to show us the way we have to let it embody itself within and through us each and every day. For love to incarnate all that we have to do is to be open to it and that begins by first of all opening our hearts to one another and to God.

“Let love continue long and show to us the way and if that be strong no hurt can have a say.”