Tag — Easter
This I Believe (circa Easter, 2010)
This Easter morning, before the chocolate rabbits come out of hiding, Paul and I will take inventory. In what do we really believe? …A literal Resurrection? Actual God-and-Man? Redemptive violence? An empty grave?
Two years ago Easter came to me all bittersweet. It felt like letting go of a loved one’s hand as the train pulls away. Last year I was angry at the messages being handed down to our little ones. This year, after a Winter of snow and depression, Easter finds me already awash in the arrival of Spring — fields of snowdrops; a blanket of crocuses spilling out from the doors of our local castle; the magnolias tight in the bud and waiting to open. In the midst of this earthy glory, the theology of Easter arrives as a late comer, tagging on the coat tails of a natural spectacle.
Every year Easter it comes out of its cocoon with wings of different shapes and colors. This year, I may have finally stopped trying to pin it to a board. This year, I’ve realized that I’ve developed a new practice – a practice of allowing Easter to be born again, to bring new flavors of belief, new forms of adoration. I doubt I shall ever be able to ascribe to a permanent creed. All I can say is this Easter morning I believe…
I Believe…
In a Source larger than myself which at its core is creative, healing, and restorative. I choose to call this Source God, though I recognize her by other names and have seen her in many incarnations. I believe in all the ways renewal, regeneration, and rebirth flow forth from this Source. I look eagerly to understand her better, and to live her life of creativity and renewal more completely.
I Believe…
In a man named Jesus whose tale has been carried, replicated, and expanded through many cultures and many eras. I believe in his habit of telling meaningful stories; bringing the outsider home; and being dangerously compassionate. To these I do aspire. I believe his Sermon on the Mount creates inside me a passion for justice, equity, and inclusion. I strive to live these in increasingly meaningful ways. I hear him in the mouth of a all the great teachers. I see him in a thousand faces. I try to reflect him back to others from my own.
I Believe…
In a guiding force which resides within each of us, sometimes called Spirit, who has made herself known to me as The Muse. I believe in her creative capacities, in her skills as a guide, and her residence in my intuition. I believe in her connection to God, and strive to align myself with her.
I Believe..
In community wherever it may be found. In dancing in the overlap. In everyday holiness. I believe in rites, rituals and worship which connect us to God – primal, traditional, and emerging. I believe in sacred spaces and thin spots. In inexplicable fore-knowing, sometimes called prophecy. I believe in an unending source of love, which translates into abundant acts of charity. In generous curiosity. In the high value of hospitality. In miracle, and whimsy. And above all, I believe in love.
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Writing your own creed is an excellent way to practice Standing in Your Own Power. If you pen one of your own and share it in the blogopshere, please leave us the link in the comments. What might be the opening lines of your creed, circa Easter 2010?
To see all the posts on Standing in Your Own Power, click here.
The Hawk or the Dove: beginning thoughts on non-violent atonement
street art on near on my walk home from the school in Copenhagen
Are you going the way of the hawk or the dove? Give it some thought over at my regular Sunday column for BlogHer:
Your Kindergartener Didn’t Kill Jesus, and Neither Did You.
Thanks for being here!
Feeling Pissy About Easter? Join the (Malcontent’s) Club.
Sorry, I’m having technical difficulties cross-posting this to Magpie Girl. But you can read it at my regular Sunday column over at BlogHer or listen to it as a fast and dirty podcast below. See you over there!
Listen to the podcast here:
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Our Easter Tree
Cross-posted at BlogHer.com.
Easter is coming! Have you been meaning to do something, well, meaningful with your children, but haven’t quite got around to it? There’s still time to do a creative project, and you can probably do it with stuff you already have laying around.
A few years ago our soulcare community was searching for away to celebrate the season. Since we consisted of people of all (and no) faiths, we needed something flexible. What we came up with is the Easter Tree. It’s a chance to express gratitude for the Spring; remember the life and teachings of Jesus; and/or to make something pretty that shouts “Next year, Jerusalem!” Here’s how you can do it to:
Supplies
A large vase or bucket.
Several tree branches (if you pick something like a cherry branch, it might bloom!)
Scrap ribbon or yarn
magazines
origami, construction, wrapping paper, etc.
glue sticks
scissors
whatever crafty stuff you have lying about.
Put the branches in your vase or bucket. We’ve sometimes used a galvanized bucket with pebbles for ballast. Add water to encourage blossoming.
Spread out all the supplies on the table and invite people to make an ornament that commemorates whatever aspect of the season they wish to celebrate.
Decorate your tree!
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Because our tradition is primarily Christian, we like to set our tree up at the beginning of Lent. Then throughout the season we look at one ornament each night at dinner. If it represent some story about Jesus, we look it up and read it to the kids. On Good Friday I clear everything off the tree. But Easter morning all the ornaments are back again along with colorful ribbons. The girls have really come to look forward to our Easter Tree, and it’s a welcome family tradition.
When we celebrate with our interfaith community, a lot of the ornaments are expressions of thanksgiving for the Spring. In that case, we go around the dinner table and share what we are thankful for in the new season.
How will you celebrate the rich and vibrant season with your children?
Sacred Life Sunday: Songs and Doubts for Easter
is it enough
this story,
this ideal,
this wistful thing—
the teacher speaking soft in the garden,
mouthing my name,
warm-blooded and real.
when I grow tired of picking,
sorting fact from fiction,
lies like stones among the lentils,
truths as yellow bulbs among the rocks,
when I tire of this painstaking plucking
i hold instead,
one smooth egg
one round stone
one child, with chocolate on her mouth and songs on her tongue.
he is wisen, comes the lisp
he is wisen indeed!
tell me true things, i whisper,
my face held close,
warm against her neck.
she sings to me
an edict, a lullaby,
ubi caritas, maman,
ubi caritas et amor
ubi caritas, deus ibi est.
where there is charity, there is love
where there is love
there god is.
enough, i think,
to hold this egg
this stone
this child
enough, to say ‘amen.’
Sacred Life Sunday
my faithful prayer beads from Church of the Apostles in Seattle, WA.
This morning we went to church. I know, I know. I never thought I’d be there again either. But there’s a nice International Church here where every week we get to sit in a historic sanctuary and take Communion in a circle while everyone prays the Lord’s Prayer in their mother tongue. (I want to say it in French, just to show off, but I resist and stick with the formal version I learned in catechism.)
I have a dear friend who’s a long term ex pat in Thailand and he says, “Look, if it hasn’t sunk in over the past 20 years of church, I doubt we’ll ever learn it. So at this point in our lives, I think we should just go to a church because we like the community.” I think maybe he’s right. So after the service we go eat cheese with caraway seeds in the kaffe hall, and have conversations with people from all over the world. Last week we met our first Danish acquaintance, Anne-Mette, who wrote down the address of a museum where we could see her grandmother’s doll houses. Today I had tea with Alex, from Armenia, whose uncle happens to live in Seattle. Alex plays the piano, and the organ. When I bemoaned the fact that our children are so much louder than Danish kids, he says, directly to Eden, “This is good, that you have passion! This will make you a marvelous musician when you master the piano.” That’s pretty good stuff, right, to have someone affirm your nine year old like that? I think this one might be worth it.
Still, today as I sat in front of the huge gold crucifix with its weighty, anguished Christ, I had second thoughts about bringing my children to this place. You see, I believe you have to use art to preach. I believe that for a post-modern generation image is often, maybe always, more powerful than words. And this art, this occupied cross, is screaming “YOU stuck me up here and I’m never EVER coming down.”
I don’t want to indoctrinate my children with that kind of passive aggressive Jesus. I don’t want them to bear the incessant guilt, to always see an image of pain crowning their holy space. I don’t think the good news of Christ is that we get to soak in scenes from a Mel Gibson movie for the rest of our lives. I’m pretty sure Jesus never said the good news was, “I’m going to die on the cross and you get to look at that for the rest of your lives.” I’m pretty sure what he said was, “Woo Hoo! The kingdom of God is at hand!”
Somehow we didn’t keep up with that reality. We got stuck in the pain, in the bleeding. Here, my children will never see the cross bare. They will never get a visual celebration of new life, of new chances–of resurrection. Not even for a season, not even for one Easter day. He’s always up there, suffering. And while the potato the children are growing in the pot on the church steps is a lovely illustration of emerging life, somehow it doesn’t have the same impact of a life-size statue ripped full of wounds and shining in the winter sunlight.
Can you combat this golden year-round image with a few well-timed words? Can you redirect your children’s malleable minds to the potato? Can you help them focus on the shared loaf; the ring of candles ignited from one common light; the cup that never runs out? Or will they primarily remember the bleeding cross and the man who will never climb down?
Oh how I wish this congregation of nations could gather in the chancel, not just to pass around bread and wine, but also to share the task of taking Christ down from the cross. If only our many hands could lower him with ropes and pulleys; carry his weight away from that place of torture. If only we could leave the beams bare, clean-scrubbed and oiled. If only it could shine there on Easter day, and empty, carry us into the forgiven reality of Eastertide.
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